From the author of Searching For Grace Kelly, a 1950 lovestruck beauty queen finds herself in dangerous company—and on the run. Betty Jane Welch reluctantly enters the Miss Delaware contest only to make her mother happy, but to her surprise, she’s the judges’ top choice. Just like that, she’s catapulted into the big time: the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City. Luckily, her pageant-approved escort for the week is the dashing but mercurial Griffin McAllister, and she falls for him hard. But when the spirited Betty unexpectedly wins the crown and sash, she finds she may lose what she wants most: Griff’s love. To stay together, she impulsively agrees to run away with him. And then the chase is on: from the shadowy streets of Manhattan to a cliffside mansion in Newport, as the cops, a cunning socialite, and a scrappy young reporter secretly in love with the beauty queen threaten to unravel everything—and expose Griff’s darkest secret. “Inspired by a true story, The Night She Won Miss America is part love story, part true-crime saga, written with spirit and panache.”—Vanity Fair “Expect glamour, grit, and some truly unpredictable twists and turns.”—Town & Country

"Inspired by a true story, The Night She Won Miss America is part love story, part true-crime saga, written with spirit and panache." --Vanity Fair Betty Jane Welch reluctantly enters the Miss Delaware contest only to make her mother happy, but to her surprise, she's the judges' top choice. Just like that, she's catapulted into the big time: the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City. Luckily, her pageant-approved escort for the week is the dashing but mercurial Griffin McAllister, and she falls for him hard. But when the spirited Betty unexpectedly wins the crown and sash, she finds she may lose what she wants most: Griff's love. To stay together, she impulsively agrees to run away with him. And then the chase is on: from the shadowy streets of Manhattan to a cliffside mansion in Newport, as the cops, a cunning socialite, and a scrappy young reporter secretly in love with the beauty queen threaten to unravel everything--and expose Griff's darkest secret. "Expect glamour, grit, and some truly unpredictable twists and turns." --Town & Country "A cinematic tale in the tradition of a Douglas Sirk movie, and the perfect book to pack away in your beach bag." --Adweek

A Washington Post style editor’s fascinating and irresistible look back on the Miss America pageant as it approaches its 100th anniversary. The sash. The tears. The glittering crown. And of course, that soaring song. For all its pomp and kitsch, the Miss America pageant is indelibly written into the American story of the past century. From its giddy origins as a summer’s-end tourist draw in Prohibition-era Atlantic City, it blossomed into a televised extravaganza that drew tens of millions of viewers in its heyday and was once considered the highest honor that a young woman could achieve. For two years, Washington Post reporter and editor Amy Argetsinger visited pageants and interviewed former winners and contestants to unveil the hidden world of this iconic institution. There She Was spotlights how the pageant survived decades of social and cultural change, collided with a women’s liberation movement that sought to abolish it, and redefined itself alongside evolving ideas about feminism. For its superstars—Phyllis George, Vanessa Williams, Gretchen Carlson—and for those who never became household names, Miss America was a platform for women to exercise their ambitions and learn brutal lessons about the culture of fame. Spirited and revelatory, There She Was charts the evolution of the American woman, from the Miss America catapulted into advocacy after she was exposed as a survivor of domestic violence to the one who used her crown to launch a congressional campaign; from a 1930s winner who ran away on the night of her crowning to a present-day rock guitarist carving out her place in this world. Argetsinger dissects the scandals and financial turmoil that have repeatedly threatened to kill the pageant—and highlights the unexpected sisterhood of Miss Americas fighting to keep it alive.

Won the prestigious Writer's Digest award. 1,900 books entered the national competition, Miss America by Day won first place in the "Most Inspirational Book" category. In this award winning book, former Miss America, Marilyn Van Derbur, describes, in detail, her healing process after 13 years of incest. "I wrote the book, not because I want someone to learn more about me but so readers can learn more about themselves. And so that loved ones can better understand the brutal recovery process and never again say, "just get over it." The pain ends, I promise . . . IF you do the 'work' of healing. A loving, long-term relationship and grounded well, adjusted children await you. A judge for the Writers Digest book competition wrote: "Seldom as a judge have I wanted to read the entire book but I devoured every word of this riveting story... Told with stark honesty and vivid details that were so important in ridding herself of the pain, torment and shame..." Anyone who knew Marilyn Van Derbur as a child and young adult believed she had it all -- a loving family, a beautiful home, an active social life. But beneath the surface, Van Derbur was a troubled young woman who lived through horrific panic attacks and excruciating physical pain every day of her adult life. Starting when she was just a child of five, she was sexually abused by her father until she turned 18. Van Derbur uses the term "incested," eschewing the more vanilla terms of "molestation" or "abuse." As a student and young adult, Van Derbur was an overachiever with an unconscious need to stay very busy. She realizes now this was a coping mechanism to keep her two worlds separated-the "night child" who suffered at the hands of her father and the "day child" who was happy and outgoing. After being named valedictorian of her high school class, she went on to college. Persuaded to enter a local beauty pageant, she ultimately was crowned Miss America. Ignoring the sheer terror she felt at the prospect of speaking in front of others, Van Derbur went on to become a highly successful motivational speaker. She writes of her endless need to be respected by others, all the while believing that if others really knew who she was, they would hate her and look at her with disdain and disgust. The perfectly poised mask she showed the outside world was a far cry from the tortured, panic-stricken, anxious woman within. The shame she felt within was a constant in her life, reminding her that she was "unworthy." When a newspaper reporter learned of her story, Van Derbur's private shame became front-page news. Then she landed on the cover of People magazine. Soon incest survivors from around the country were reaching out to her, desperate to tell someone what had happened to them. It became instantly clear that her new role in life was to help others who had suffered incest and to help teach everyone how to make sure their children are safe from predators.

From an author praised for writing “delicious social history” (Dwight Garner, The New York Times) comes a lively account of memorable Miss America contestants, protests, and scandals—and how the pageant, nearing its one hundredth anniversary, serves as an unintended indicator of feminist progress Looking for Miss America is a fast–paced narrative history of a curious and contradictory institution. From its start in 1921 as an Atlantic City tourist draw to its current incarnation as a scholarship competition, the pageant has indexed women’s status during periods of social change—the post–suffrage 1920s, the Eisenhower 1950s, the #MeToo era. This ever–changing institution has been shaped by war, evangelism, the rise of television and reality TV, and, significantly, by contestants who confounded expectations. Spotlighting individuals, from Yolande Betbeze, whose refusal to pose in swimsuits led an angry sponsor to launch the rival Miss USA contest, to the first black winner, Vanessa Williams, who received death threats and was protected by sharpshooters in her hometown parade, Margot Mifflin shows how women made hard bargains even as they used the pageant for economic advancement. The pageant’s history includes, crucially, those it excluded; the notorious Rule Seven, which required contestants to be “of the white race,” was retired in the 1950s, but no women of color were crowned until the 1980s. In rigorously researched, vibrant chapters that unpack each decade of the pageant, Looking for Miss America examines the heady blend of capitalism, patriotism, class anxiety, and cultural mythology that has fueled this American ritual.

“[Shindler] tells the story of her year wearing the crown while offering an incisive history and analysis of an always-controversial beauty contest.” —Kirkus Reviews In Being Miss America, Kate Shindle interweaves an engrossing, witty memoir of her year as Miss America 1998 with a fascinating history of the pageant. She explores what it means to take on the mantle of America’s “ideal,” especially considering the evolution of the American female identity since the pageant’s inception. Shindle profiles winners and organization leaders and recounts important moments in the pageant’s story, with a special focus on Miss America’s iconoclasts, including Bess Myerson (1945), the only Jewish Miss America; Yolande Betbeze (1951), who crusaded against the pageant’s pinup image; and Kaye Lani Rae Rafko (1987), a working-class woman from Michigan who wanted to merge her famous title with her work as an oncology nurse. Shindle’s own account of her work as an AIDS activist—and finding ways to circumvent the “gown and crown” stereotypes of Miss America in order to talk honestly with high school students about safer sex—illuminates both the challenges and the opportunities that keep young women competing to become Miss America. “Kate Shindle’s sharply observed, smart, and heartbreaking take on Miss America will be embraced by pageant super fans and should be required reading for everyone who’s thought about what it takes to be America’s ideal.” —Jennifer Weiner, New York Times-bestselling author “This memoir offers a captivating cultural history of the last 100 years in America through the lens of the Miss America Pageant and its white-knuckled struggle to remain relevant.” —Library Journal

A fresh exploration of American feminist history told through the lens of the beauty pageant world. Many predicted that pageants would disappear by the 21st century. Yet they are thriving. America’s most enduring contest, Miss America, celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2020. Why do they persist? In Here She Is, Hilary Levey Friedman reveals the surprising ways pageants have been an empowering feminist tradition. She traces the role of pageants in many of the feminist movement’s signature achievements, including bringing women into the public sphere, helping them become leaders in business and politics, providing increased educational opportunities, and giving them a voice in the age of #MeToo. Using her unique perspective as a NOW state president, daughter to Miss America 1970, sometimes pageant judge, and scholar, Friedman explores how pageants became so deeply embedded in American life from their origins as a P.T. Barnum spectacle at the birth of the suffrage movement, through Miss Universe’s bathing beauties to the talent- and achievement-based competitions of today. She looks at how pageantry has morphed into culture everywhere from The Bachelor and RuPaul’s Drag Race to cheer and specialized contests like those for children, Indigenous women, and contestants with disabilities. Friedman also acknowledges the damaging and unrealistic expectations pageants place on women in society and discusses the controversies, including Miss America’s ableist and racist history, Trump’s ownership of the Miss Universe Organization, and the death of child pageant-winner JonBenét Ramsey. Presenting a more complex narrative than what’s been previously portrayed, Here She Is shows that as American women continue to evolve, so too will beauty pageants.

In his very first trip to the ballpark, Joe Falls watched Lou Gehrig slam two home runs against the Philadelphia As. He's been in love with professional sports ever since. In this humerous and intellegent memoir, Falls reflects on over sixty years of writing with stories about all the greats from Jack Nicklaus and Michael Jordan, to Joe DiMaggio and more. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

In 2019, the NFL issued a list of football's one hundred greatest game-changers, and among the legendary athletes and coaches was one broadcaster: Phyllis George. The first female anchor of a major network sports show, George broke the glass ceiling in sports journalism and embodied the complexities of the women's movement of the 1970s. As a young woman, George first hit the media radar in 1971 when she won the crown of Miss America and toured the world. While many in the budding feminist movement looked down on the pageant queen, George parlayed her success into a television career and excelled in sports journalism. While she was not immune to criticism, George was never deterred by it, and constantly showed her inner strength and perseverance. Through the decades she cultivated a reputation as one of the most respected and strong-willed players in the rough and tumble businesses of sports and network news, breaking through the glass ceiling in one of the most male-driven industries in the world. She was a pioneer who helped pave the way for a new generation of female broadcasters. A published author and champion of the arts, George remained a stalwart advocate for female empowerment until her death in 2020. In Phyllis George: Shattering the Ceiling authors Lenny Shulman and Paul Volponi trace George's evolution from Miss America to professional broadcaster, to arts advocate, author, philanthropist, and also as First Lady of Kentucky who was instrumental in getting her husband, John Y. Brown Jr., elected Governor of that state. George's life was defined by her professionalism, her strength of character, and her uncanny ability to leave an indelible impression on all she met.