A collection of short stories dealing with life experiences. Stories that individuals can identify with whether it is reality or your wildest dreams based on emotions of fear, peace, joy, passion, anger, and love.

Big Mamma, with a baby on her hip and laundry piling up, makes the world and everything in it and, at the end of the sixth day, tells the people she has made that they must take care of her creation.

As early as 5, my Mama, Lulu Jack, would frustratingly send me & my siblings packing, from Wisconsin, south, to Alabama for the Summer. I'd hop from my Grandmother Bonnie's Sun-baked front porch, cross the red dirt road, tree branches draping over them, like silk robes, no sidewalks, that official border County-line between Prichard to Mobile. I'd plop down, sweat beads Mardi Tuesday around my neck, meditating by the 100-plus year old Great Live Oak Tree, that still stands today. I'd sit under the coolness of Ms Dane's shade as She stands like some ancient Sentinel guarding over my best friend's crickety porch. Sipping my Camellia sinensis tea, Ms Dane opens another imaginary book conjuring up inside her tiny head. I'd rest at her bosom, listening to the rosy stories my Oracle slowly brews like hot Chili on a subzero February winter's day. "The deepest Oak roots, are also the branches...", My 110 year old best friend, chants to me. 'Ms D' is an herbalist, a grand master priestess. She teaches me ROSE MAGIC.

One hot July day, on a return trip home from New Orleans, Trish Dunaway received a call from Mercer University police: Call your mother. As the minutes raced by, she learned the tragic news: her ninety-three-year-old mother had been instantly killed in a traffic accident. Her mothers story is a remarkable one: growing up in the 1920s in the Charleston, South Carolina Orphan House, losing her husband to cancer as a young married woman, and growing into a much-loved and honored prayer warrior. Trish gave herself a year to journal her grief. Through prayer, the ministry of the saints, journaling and poetry, Scripture, and memories of her Low Country heritage, she learned to choose Gods comfort He offered through a walk into His mercy and grace. She shares her journey during the year following her mothers death as she learns how God teaches us to listen for His comfort in the face of despair.

The collective, inclusive, and intersectional framework used in this book speaks to the significance of understanding aging across diverse cultures from multiple perspectives, but still as a shared human experience. The underlying message of the book is that although we are unique and different in our aging processes, we are ultimately connected through this physical, mental and spiritual experience of aging. Thus, regardless of whether we are service providers, service recipients, educators or merely fellow human beings, it is important that we approach the aging experience through a collective lens for discovering and sharing resources as we age; honoring the past while simultaneously accepting that the future is here. A few select examples of key findings from this collaborative work are as follows. First, despite progress in the field, certain issues remain to be addressed including the challenges of racism and sexism, mistreatment, the digital divide, poverty, and other social and economic crises in urban and rural communities as they relate to our aging population. Second, the need for sustaining a sense of independence among the aged and interdependence among supportive systems is warranted. Third, our elders continue to benefit from culturally competent services community-based health interventions and social services that addresses normative and emerging challenges for them. Fourth, spirituality in both indigenous and contemporary perspectives remains important for our elders’ development and quality of life.

Poetry of Love, Wisdom, and Long-Suffering is about people who are in search of love. Their search comes with good and bad choices. The good choices keep them balanced and at peace. The bad choices keep them suffering for a long time. Then they run into wisdom and understanding, which limits their suffering time, put them at peace, and balance their life once again.

Acquiring Wisdom is not an ordinary book. You can read the words, wonder about why certain stories and exerts are placed in one spot or another, and then close the book; and suddenly it all becomes clear. These are the Lord's words transformed by a man whom the Lord has called to make certain words, ideas, and instructions clear to us all. Pray, read, meditate, and acquire wisdom.

"A marvelous debut...has everything a big, thick novel should have, and I hated to put it down." -- John Grisham "A page-turner." -- New York Times Book Review For readers of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, this is a dramatic and deeply moving novel about an act of violence in a small Appalachian town and the repercussions that will forever change a young man's view of human cruelty and compassion. After seeing the death of his younger brother in a terrible home accident, fourteen-year-old Kevin and his grieving mother are sent for the summer to live with Kevin's grandfather. In this town of Medgar, Kentucky, a peeled-paint coal town deep in Appalachia, Kevin quickly falls in with a half-wild hollow kid named Buzzy Fink who schools him in the mysteries and magnificence of the woods. The town is beset by a massive mountaintop removal operation that is blowing up the hills and back filling the hollows. Kevin's grandfather and others in town attempt to rally the citizens against the "company" and its powerful owner to stop the plunder of their mountain heritage. But when Buzzy witnesses a brutal hate crime, a sequence is set in play that will test Buzzy and Kevin to their absolute limits in an epic struggle for survival in the Kentucky mountains.

Summer Marie "Lucky" Simms is a natural born hustla. Born into the notable Simms family, Lucky has always had the spotlight placed on her. Dancing at Diamonds and La Pearlas and hustling tricks out of their money is just a way of life for the young stunna. Lucky has the gift of the gab and the looks to go along with it! Partying at all of the hottest events and being seen out in public with her equally gorgeous girlfriends, Lucky is dubbed a hood star. Her confidence lands her the role of The Principle Video Model, where she works the video shoot for a well-known Bay Area rap star. However, the young vixen has her share of troubles too, as her past continues to haunt her. Her old trick Sincere stalks her and after the tumultuous affair between them, Lucky is determined to break free of his iron-clasped hold on her. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, she sees no way out of the viscous cycle until she meets Menace, the rising producer who takes interest in the young diva. In Lucky, Menace sees something special, and after stumbling upon her free-styling at his studio one day, he is determined to make her into a star! Lucky soon becomes his protégé as the two begin to work together making hit after hit. It isn't long before the public takes notice, and Lucky begins to rise to stardom, gaining recognition for her innovative talents as a rapper. Yet, with all of the acclaim and praise she receives, Lucky soon becomes the target of jealousy and ends up in a major beef with some of the other female rappers in the industry. Porcelain Dime is a sexy young rapper with a budding career, who just so happens to be Menaces ex-fling! Things take a nasty turn after Porcelain records a diss record towards Lucky. Cat fights emerge and the claws come out as the public watches the viscous battle attentively. But Lucky is an Oakland girl at heart, and before the smoke clears this tenacious beauty is determined to be the one left standing victoriously in the end.

Everyone questions the meaning of unhappiness at some point, but no one has to suffer bad times alone. Author Viola Mari Settle contends that life is not supposed to be all happy, and it is how we choose to deal with the bad times that really counts. The good thing about going through the trials is learning how to handle them. Viola cautions us not to be like the person who builds his house on sand only to have it fail from instability. Instead, in her first book, Why the Wheels Keep Turning, she shows readers how to be like the wise who built their home on solid rock. Through revisiting her years of marriage and parenthood, as well as her experiences as an L.A. bus driver, Viola Mari Settle proves that handing problems over to Jesus is the key to a healthy and blessed life. Join Viola for the chaotic ride of life, and learn the lessons of patience, forbearance, strength in adversity, and most of all, Why the Wheels Keep Turning. Are you ready to give your all to the Master and fight the good fight of life? Author Viola Mari Settle lives in California with her children and grandchildren, and enjoys learning to appreciate all that life has to offer.