Part memoir, part sweeping journalistic saga: As Casey Parks follows the mystery of a stranger's past, she is forced to reckon with her own sexuality, her fraught Southern identity, her tortured yet loving relationship with her mother, and the complicated role of faith in her life. "Most moving is Parks’s depiction of a queer lineage, her assertion of an ancestry of outcasts, a tapestry of fellow misfits into which the marginalized will always, for better or worse, fit." —The New York Times Book Review When Casey Parks came out as a lesbian in college back in 2002, she assumed her life in the South was over. Her mother shunned her, and her pastor asked God to kill her. But then Parks's grandmother, a stern conservative who grew up picking cotton, pulled her aside and revealed a startling secret. "I grew up across the street from a woman who lived as a man," and then implored Casey to find out what happened to him. Diary of a Misfit is the story of Parks's life-changing journey to unravel the mystery of Roy Hudgins, the small-town country singer from grandmother’s youth, all the while confronting ghosts of her own. For ten years, Parks traveled back to rural Louisiana and knocked on strangers’ doors, dug through nursing home records, and doggedly searched for Roy’s own diaries, trying to uncover what Roy was like as a person—what he felt; what he thought; and how he grappled with his sense of otherness. With an enormous heart and an unstinting sense of vulnerability, Parks writes about finding oneself through someone else’s story, and about forging connections across the gulfs that divide us.

For anyone who has ever felt like they don't belong, Sigh, Gone shares an irreverent, funny, and moving tale of displacement and assimilation woven together with poignant themes from beloved works of classic literature. In 1975, during the fall of Saigon, Phuc Tran immigrates to America along with his family. By sheer chance they land in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a small town where the Trans struggle to assimilate into their new life. In this coming-of-age memoir told through the themes of great books such as The Metamorphosis, The Scarlet Letter, The Iliad, and more, Tran navigates the push and pull of finding and accepting himself despite the challenges of immigration, feelings of isolation, and teenage rebellion, all while attempting to meet the rigid expectations set by his immigrant parents. Appealing to fans of coming-of-age memoirs such as Fresh Off the Boat, Running with Scissors, or tales of assimilation like Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Displaced and The Refugees, Sigh, Gone explores one man’s bewildering experiences of abuse, racism, and tragedy and reveals redemption and connection in books and punk rock. Against the hairspray-and-synthesizer backdrop of the ‘80s, he finds solace and kinship in the wisdom of classic literature, and in the subculture of punk rock, he finds affirmation and echoes of his disaffection. In his journey for self-discovery Tran ultimately finds refuge and inspiration in the art that shapes—and ultimately saves—him.

"In a sense, of course, all believers are strangers in a strange land— some, as they say, are just stranger than others. That would be my friends and me." Like Marcia Ford, most of us have felt, at one time or another, as if we are on a different wavelength from the rest of the world. Try as we might, we don't fit in— not in society and certainly not in the church. Despite our best efforts at camouflage, despite our hopes that we may finally have found a group of kindred believers, people still look at us funny. But if we stop to think about it, we're not in bad company. After all, Jesus was something of a misfit in His day, too. In this funny, fresh, and frank memoir, Marcia Ford chronicles her spiritual journey as a self-proclaimed misfit, telling the engaging story of one woman's efforts to fit into both society and the Christian church. Candid about her shortcomings and her sneaking suspicion that she may really be a square peg in a round hole, Marcia discovers that it is precisely because of her uniqueness that she is able to claim God's abundant grace and come to experience God more fully.

The author of Fat Girls and Lawn Chairsis back with a funny and poignant new collection of personal stories about growing up a misfit. A collection of stories for anyone who shuddered at the idea of senior prom, Revenge of the Paste Eaters is about the way the experiences of childhood stay with us and shape us into adults. Cheryl Peck applies her signature wit to more personal stories and reflections-about hurting people and getting hurt, about discovering who you are and who you want to be, about feeling "not good enough," and about being bigger-physically and mentally-than many of the people surrounding you. This is a wickedly funny view of what it's like to be a middle-aged woman in middle-America, and what really happened to the kids who were different.

Why would the keynote speaker at a national mediation conference need a full-time security guard? Kent Foxe, an aspiring mediator and executive coach, finds out why when he turns to his mentor, Adam Maurie, for professional advice. Maurie believes mediators must have "a human soul that is comfortable being with difficult, emotional conflict." That requirement, Kent soon realizes, is highly controversial. After unsuccessfully mediating a violent gang dispute, Kent develops grave doubts about his abilities. His search for his professional soul haunts him as he deals with challenging conflicts, and several profound events put him at a critical crossroads personally and professionally. Does he dare make the changes that will surely cast him as an unwelcome misfit in his own profession? Can he defend his unpopular beliefs about what good practice is? And will he refuse the support of misguided stakeholders? Memoir of a Misfit Mediator by Joe Folger raises the critical issues anyone must face if they intervene in the lives of others.

The author explores the status of being a misfit as something to be embraced, and social misfits as being individuals of value who have a place in society, in a work that encourages people who have had difficulty finding their way to pursue their goals.

Gaines is a self-described "bourbon-guzzling, pill-popping, penis-addicted, workaholic, tattooed Jew" with a Ph.D. and a pistol permit. "A Misfit's Manifesto" is about living with the contradictions. This is how she did it, and found God in all the unlikely places--like Ramones songs.

Updated and expanded: A new edition of the inspiring memoir by one of Canada's most unusual, successful and socially conscious businesspeople. "I am different. I have always been different. I grew up scared of being found out, scared of my natural inability to fit in, to conform, to look and sound and dress and behave 'normal.' I was always drawn to the different ones and I observed them with fascination--but the thought of being even a little bit like them mortified me. I was desperate to fit in. . . ." --From Misfit Andreas Souvaliotis was raised at a time when being on the autism spectrum wasn't easily diagnosed or even discussed. Minds like his were simply considered odd. He also knew from an early age he was gay, and it terrified him as he was growing up with openly homophobic parents in one of Europe's least tolerant societies. Andreas's differences made him an outsider, right through to his mid-forties. And then suddenly, everything changed. Misfit is the extraordinary memoir of a man who realized there was strength in his strangeness, that it could be used as a force for good. "It all happened in a flash. On a beautiful spring morning in 2007, sitting in my backyard and licking my wounds from a spectacular career derailment, I came up with a big idea--and I found myself contemplating the most daring and unconventional pursuit of my life." The weird kid from Greece was on his way to making his world, and everyone's world, a better place. Andreas Souvaliotis's inspiring story shows us that everyone has what it takes to trigger positive change, and that none of us should see our differences and quirks as handicaps. • The author is donating all of his proceeds from this book to 6 Degrees, a global charitable initiative that promotes inclusion, diversity, belonging and citizenhip. 6degreesto.com

From the brilliant mind of Michaela Coel, creator and star of I May Destroy You and Chewing Gum and a Royal Society of Literature fellow, comes a passionate and inspired declaration against fitting in. When invited to deliver the MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, Michaela Coel touched a lot of people with her striking revelations about race, class and gender, but the person most significantly impacted was Coel herself. Building on her celebrated speech, Misfits immerses readers in her vision through powerful allegory and deeply personal anecdotes—from her coming of age in London public housing to her discovery of theater and her love for storytelling. And she tells of her reckoning with trauma and metamorphosis into a champion for herself, inclusivity, and radical honesty. With inspiring insight and wit, Coel lays bare her journey so far and invites us to reflect on our own. By embracing our differences, she says, we can transform our lives. An artist to her core, Coel holds up the path of the creative as an emblem of our need to regard one another with care and respect—and transparency. Misfits is a triumphant call for honesty, empathy and inclusion. Championing “misfits” everywhere, this timely, necessary book is a rousing coming-to-power manifesto dedicated to anyone who has ever worried about fitting in.