Quilt Stories - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813108217 ISBN 13: 9780813108216

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky, 2001

Synopsis

More than thirty stories, plays, poems, and songs featuring the making of quilts―written from 1845 to the present, mainly by American women―document women's literary history. Featuring the work of Bobbie Ann Mason, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Walker, Sharyn McCrumb, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Marge Piercy, Adrienne Rich, and many others, Quilt Stories is a colorful literary album of stories, poems, and plays that celebrate quilting as a pattern in women's history. These stories―grouped under the themes of memory, courtship, struggle, mystery, and wisdom―reflect the importance of quilting in the lives of American women, not only as a practical craft and a creative outlet, but also as an integral part of the social community.

About this title

About the Author

Cecilia Macheski is professor of English at LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York.

Review

"The 28 works included in Quilt Stories restore to women a part of their history and their sense of community, an important service in a present time in which quilting has perhaps become a more private and individual art, though it still serves widely as a medium for social exchange and cooperative endeavor."―Appalachian Quarterly

"Macheski has pieced together a variety of literary fabrics into a unique design which represents women's struggle for identity in a masculine world."―Benton, Arkansas Courier

"Quilt Stories will bring pleasure to your day."―Chattanooga Times

"The quilt is often much more than something to keep on the bed. There are quilts that tell stories, commemorate events and reinforce family ties. Not only is Quilt Stories a delightful collection of tales and poetry, but it gives us an intimate look at women's lives over the past century."―Come-All-Ye

"The collection is a pleasure to read while it piles up examples of creating beauty from scraps, emphasizing the symbol's significance."―Journal of the American Studies Association of Texas

"This collection of literary treasures forms a 'quilt of words,' as Macheski herself suggests in the insightful introduction."―Journal of the Jackson Purchase Society

"Representing over 150 years of fiction and poetry, Quilt Stories brings together a conscious and continuous women's literary tradition in America."―McCormick (SC) Messenger

"An innovative approach to writing the history of women. . . . Like the role of women in history, instead of serving as a tool, these hand-made symbols of strength and endurance provide a physical history that cannot be duplicated."―Northwest Ohio Quarterly

"As a literary tradition, the art of quilting seems to have touched the lives of women of all generations, races, and economic classes. Just how diverse this effect has been over the past century is shown to beautiful effect in this memorable anthology."―Pegram (TN) Advocate

"Each writing shares a glimpse of what quilting means to those people who practice the art and how it helps us to see, remember, learn, know and express our feelings."―Quilt World

"One giant treat, covering as it does writers from many different times and genres fashioned into a grand design."―Rockland (ME) Courier-Gazette

"Anyone who loves quilts will want to add Quilt Stories to their library. But, anyone who loves stories about reinforcing family ties and commemorating events will want to have it, too."―Tennessee Star-Journal

"An important chronicle of women's literary achievements and history."―United Methodist Reporter

Edition details

• Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0813108217
• ISBN 13: 9780813108216
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 302
• Editor: Macheski Cecilia