Photographers often depict Ireland with bucolic rural landscapes, but during the twentieth century, men and women across Ireland picked up cameras to create and curate photographs revealing more complex and diverse images of Ireland. Snapshot Stories Uses diverse photographic archives, both professional and personal, to explore these stories.

Each story within Snapshots places the characters in situations where their past behaviors will be changed in a moment that is like a snapshot picture: freezing in time who they are in a moment but facing new challenges that will alter that snapshot and create a new reality. Eudora Welty’s quote “A good snapshot keeps a moment from going away” is a theme that permeates all of the stories in Eliot Parker’s collection of short stories, Snapshots. These stories are set in West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky. In the plots of the stories, the makeup of the characters is more interesting and important than the circumstances that the characters find themselves trying to manage. Each protagonist finds themselves in a complicated set of personal and professional relationships. By their nature, relationships are complicated. The protagonists in these stories are shaped by their backgrounds, life experiences, and expectations of other people. Conflicts arise for these protagonists when decisions and choices made by others alter the expectations and circumstances expected by the protagonists. In each of these stories, the lives, values, and beliefs held by the characters are deconstructed and each of them face a new reality brought on by an experience or situation that forces them to reexamine who they are and who they need to become. Each of these characters occupy a variety of professional spaces: cops, a rich, successful couple, convicted criminals, and others grieving the loss of a loved one and grieving the absence of love.

Baseball Fantography is a celebration of baseball through the eyes of fans via photos they've taken of players, ballparks, and related subjects over the past nine decades, along with essays, sidebars, and quotes. The project originated when the author discovered an old 1960s snapshot of himself as a teenager with his idol, Roger Maris, at Yankee Stadium. Realizing that he couldn't be the only one with these hidden photographic gems, he began collecting baseball photos taken by fans. The book contains more than 250 never-before-published images (Roberto Clemente, Mickey Mantle, Derek Jeter, Josh Hamilton) in chapters on subjects like ballparks, spring training, broadcasters, dugouts, and baseball cards, and features contributions from baseball aficionados and notables like Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith, a 35-year veteran Topps baseball photographer, and a former president of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Praise for Baseball Fantography:"The never-before-published shots are cool, offering a new look at the familiar." --New York Post

From the sod houses of South Dakota to the skyscrapers of New York City, these personal photographs form the first people's photo history of America.

StoryJacking is a seven-step guide to help you reclaim a fundamental truth: You are whole, capable, resourceful, and creative. It explores the choices you make, the reactions and responses you have to the life you are living, and how the very way you view your life experiences comes directly from the stories you are telling yourself.

Twelve-year-old JJ loves three things: her great-grandma, her cat, and photography. But she's never going to be a real photographer unless she gets better equipment. When her best friend, Kat, discovers a photo contest with the grand prize of a fancy digital camera-the kind JJ's parents could never afford-she jumps at the chance to win it. Things start going wrong when ditzy Aunt Lissa moves in under mysterious circumstances and JJ's forced to share her room. Why did Lissa lose her job anyway? Kat has all sorts of theories-theories that bring more trouble than the girls can imagine. Gram's not doing so great, the cat's always trying to sneak out, and Aunt Lissa's ruining JJ's summer. According to Gram, photography is JJ's God-given talent, but how can that be true when everything keeps going wrong? "The moving story of a young girl who finds her God-given gift, while coming to terms with loss and change." BILL MEYERS, Author of Eli and The Jesus Experience "Young readers will relate to the story of a girl trying to find her place in her family and in the world, and the strong voice and gentle sense of humor will keep them reading. Not to mention a wayward cat and a mystery or two. A fun read with real emotions and good values." JEANNIE ST. JOHN TAYLOR, Radio Host and Author/Illustrator of thirty-plus books "Delightful characters, realistic situations, and beautifully expressed emotions make Picture Imperfect the perfect read." ANGELA RUTH STRONG, Author of The Fun4Hire Series

The story of a young Mexican boy living in a colonia (trash dump community) who takes the first steps toward realizing his dream of getting an education.

excerpt from 'Little Paul' I have to be careful climbing this time. I have been up on the pump tower lots of times before but never with a heavy rope tied around my waist. The rope is gently tugging at my middle as I continue to climb. I dont wipe the sweat from my face because my hands will get slippery. The water pump tower has a pipe railing about chest-high that runs all the way around following the little walkway on the top. I wrap the rope around the pipe rail and start working out the slack. This is really hard to do because the rope is heavy, especially now that it is almost off the ground. There is a small hill about two thirds of the way to the barn. The rope is still on the ground there. I am trying to pull it up until I am sure that all of it is off of the hill. That will be my landing spot. The rope is tied tight, with a good knot that I learned at 4-H. I look at the long, gray, curving rope stretching the one hundred or more yards from me to the barn. I am really pleased with my work. The view from here is beautiful. Looking over the barn, I can see my house, then the big front pasture and then the main road. It all looks so small from up here. Climbing once more up the pump tower, the snatch block pulley that I found tied to a beam in the barn is now hanging from my belt, which is wrapped around my neck, just like a big necklace. I am very excited as I reach the platform. It only takes a second to remove the belt and snatch block from my neck. I carefully unbuckle my belt and thread it back through my pant loops. Now I open the snatch block and then clamp it over the rope and snap it closed again. Its time.

The adolescent protagonist of the title story, like other girls in this pioneering collection, rebels against her father, refusing to go to Mass. Instead, dressed in her black Easter shoes and carrying her missal and veil, she goes to her abuelitaÍs house. Her grandmother has always accepted her for who she is and has provided a safe refuge from the anger and violence at home. The eight haunting stories included in this collection explore the social, economic and cultural impositions that shape womenÍs lives. Girls on the threshold of puberty rebel against their fathers, struggle to understand their sexuality, and in two stories, deal with the ramifications of pregnancy. Other women struggle against the limitations of marriage and the Catholic religion, which seek to keep them subservient to the men in their lives. Prejudice and the social and economic status of Chicanos often form the backdrop as women fight„with varying degrees of success„to break free from oppression. Shedding light on the complex lives and experiences of Mexican-American girls and women, this bilingual edition containing the first-ever Spanish translation of ViramontesÍ debut collection, The Moths and Other Stories, will make this landmark work available to a wider audience.