The time has come, Lillian Smith wrote in 1962, for women to risk the "great and daring creative act" of discovering and articulating their own identity. Three years later, Southern women of a younger generation, fortified by the skills and self-respect earned in the black civil-rights movement, issued the first manifesto of a new feminism. Their words landed with explosive force, setting off cultural reverberations which have shaken the lives of men and women alike. A little more than a decade after that, this issue of Southern Exposure began to take form. Its creation has taken us back into history and deep into the meaning of our own lives. As we set out to understand the situation of Southern women, we found ourselves "in search of our mothers' gardens." We found ourselves naming an experience we share across the generations. "So many of the stories that I write," Alice Walker discovered, "are my mother's stories." To speak in our own voices, we had first to give expression to a "promise song" that has been there all along.

Ryan O'Connor is a teenage boy with the concerns all teenagers have. Will I get into college? How can I make girls like me? When am I ever going to have some say in my own life? But he also has something most boys don't: an obsessive fascination with his next door neighbor, a beautiful older woman who hasn't left her house in years. How will he ever get her to notice him? And will he be able to help her heal the wounds that keep her locked away?

This is one woman's story Of living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and the humor and at times heartbreak that comes from trying to live a normal life and find Mr. Right while struggling with OCD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

Little Logan loves to play with his mommy's yarn, but he loves the things she makes for him even more! The blanket she knits for him is very special, as he knows every stitch comes from her heart.

For any knitter who has ever wondered how much yarn was too much, or how many pairs of mittens in a row they could make without getting tired of it, or tried to explain why they would rather knit than do anything else, this book is for you. From learning to knit, to the incredible pride over a handmade item, we have all been there. So pull up a chair and get out your afghan while you spend an afternoon reading about the joys and pitfalls or your favorite needlework!