Bombshell spies, slayers, witches and assassins: kick-ass female stars have taken over blockbuster movies like Charlie’s Angels and Kill Bill as well as prime time TV hits such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed. These characters kill as quickly as they brak down in tears, and beat guys up as easily as they toss them into bed. With very few exceptions, they’re young, white, beautiful, straight and skinny. How are young women to respond to these images of women who fight (or bite) back? As the product of corporate media, are these icons of “female power” merely cons?This one-of-a-kind anthology of new fiction, essays and comics recognizes the seductiveness as well as the limitations of such contemporary pop culture heroines. Contributors – including Nalo Hopkinson, Larissa Lai, Shary Boyle, Nikki Stafford, Mariko Tamaki, Sonja Ahlers and Sherwin Tjia – critique constructs of female power and invent alternative role models.

Cleavage: Breakaway Fiction for Real Girls is a brash new collection of fifteen original stories about girls who stand against convention, and girls who wish they could. In turn hilarious, edgy, comforting, intense, the collection is about holding back and letting loose, about sex and glamour and common sense. Here are heroes that strike a chord and make us think. Just like all of us, the girls in these stories have to deal with whatever life decides to throw at them. Some approach their challenges in startling ways. An academically gifted girl tries to apply logic to love and puberty. Another young girl shocks her bunkmates in a bible camp when she confides that her mother is waxed completely bare ‘down there.’ A teenager sees her own body in a new light when partygoers come across a portrait of her mother’s post-mastectomy figure. A high school student offers a peek inside the change room, where bras are either not made small enough, or are mortifyingly like body armour that only your grandmother would wear. The innovative stories in this collection are all about taking pride in wearing our bodies just the way they are. They’re about hating our mothers and loving them, fitting in and breaking out. These characters articulate ways of looking at the world, of looking at others and of seeing life’s possibilities. Touching on a range of issues from cosmetic surgery and makeup, and unhealthy attitudes toward eating, to sexuality and teens’ impressions of their own and others’ bodies, these stories challenge stifling mainstream notions of beauty and femininity.

A dynamic collection of multimedia work, Curaggia provides a forum for the critical discourse about location and identity within Italian cultures. Curaggia examines the roles of religion, language, class, race, gender, ability, and sexuality; documents how Italian women are transforming their communities, excavating social, economic, and psychological experiences of living in Italy, and abroad; and celebrates the rich diversity of Italian women’s lives. Following a tradition of perseverance forged by mothers, grandmothers, aunts and sisters, these reflections launch the processes of naming pain, of shedding myth, stereotype, and distortion of self and other, and they move us toward exploring dreams, toward building a stronger coalition politic.

A story of adjustment, acceptance, and belonging emerges from the settings of Red China and contemporary Mapleton, Ontario. Lily, a young immigrant, is trying to make it on her own – and succeeding in her own way. Through Lily’s challenging relationship with her mother and with the vibrant and quirky Chinese community in Mapleton, we witness unexpected changes and challenges as she copes with her new environment and the transformation of her spirit and soul. Lily in the Snow provides a unique perspective on the universal tale of intergenerational conflict and explores the Chinese immigrant experience in Canada with humour and insight.

Dr. Yvonne Bobb-Smith explores the knowledge and history of resistance of Caribbean women in Canada, using her own journey as a personal place from which to navigate the generalized experience of settlement and adjustment in the Diaspora. I Know Who I Am investigates the stories of forty-five Caribbean women of different backgrounds and heritages. Bobb-Smith presents their conceptualization of the experiences of racism and sexism in their everyday lives and their strategizing resistance. This book is about empowerment in the lives of Caribbean women. This empowerment is seen as an enabling mechanism to resist an “immigrant woman” identity, imposed through racism and sexism in the period of adjustment in Canada. Bobb-Smith uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine subjectivity, experience, agency, and resistance in the lived experiences of Caribbean women in Canada. She demonstrates that the historical past left a legacy of domination and resistance. She further shows how Caribbean women’s activism in community organizing constructed an alternative women’s movement in Canada. Her voice emerges as a strong contribution to the discourse of identity, and the re-imagining of “home” as an educative institution and process.

A story of loss, defiance and change emerges from the magnificent setting of Cape Town in the late 1930s through the outbreak of World War II. Young Libka Hoffman is struggling with the loss of her father and the social conventions that frown upon her relationships with her most trusted friends. Libka’s exploration of socially forbidden territory eventually brings her to expulsion from her school and ostracism by her peers.Told in moving and lyrical prose, In a Pale Blue Light conveys an authentic and rarely achieved insight into Jewish life in South Africa during the tumultuous times around World War II.

Painful and shocking, but often hopeful, the stories in On the Edge of Being illustrate the devastating impact of the split between body and voice that Afghan women are forced to navigate. The daughter of a progressive Afghan governor, Dr. Sharifa Sharif observed from an early age that life for women – both within and beyond the walls of her home – was neither simple, nor fair. As she navigates the rocky terrain of what it means to be a woman in Afghan society, Sharif candidly connects her own troubling experiences with those of girls and women around her: those who appeal to her father for justice, those who work as servants in her friends’ homes and, crucially, her own mother, whose inability to alter the restrictions in her own life causes both anger and empathy. From her childhood travelling through the poorest provinces in Afghanistan to life as a schoolteacher, an immigrant student in North America and beyond, Dr. Sharif struggles to define her identity through experiences of marginality, on the journey to reclaim her body and self.

In Writing as Witness: Essay and Talk, Brant hopes to convey the message that words are sacred. Belonging to a people whose foremost way of communicating is through an oral tradition, she chooses her words carefully, aware of their significance, truth and beauty.

This collection of seventeen essays presents original and critical perspectives from writers, scholars and activists on issues that are pertinent to Aboriginal women and their communities in both rural and urban settings in Canada. Their contributions explore the critical issues facing Native women as they rebuild and revive their communities. Through topics such as the role of tradition, reclaiming identities and protecting Native children and the environment, they identify the restraints that shape their actions and the inspirations that feed their visions.The contributors address issues of youth, health and sexual identity; women’s aging, sexuality and health; caring for children and adults living with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome; First Nations education and schooling; community-based activism on issues of prostitution and street workers; and reclaiming cultural identity through art and music.

Newly released as a Women’s Press Classic, this play artfully weaves together past and present, North and South America, history, documentary, and myth. Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots is a satire of colonization that celebrates Native women as creators and healers. It has become a classic in Canadian theatre since it was first published in 1991 and is now widely studied at universities and colleges across North America and around the world.The remarkable radio play Birdwoman and the Suffragettes: A Story of Sacajawea, first produced or CBC Radio Drama’s Vanishing Point: Adventure Stories for Big Girls, is also included.