Quilt Stories: A Collection of Short Stories, Poems, and Plays

This unique collection features the work of women writers - short stories, plays and poems - that have to do with quilting. Written from 184 to the present day, the authors are primarily American women. The narrator in "Aunt Jane of Kentucky" looks at a huge pile of quilts that have been brought out to air, and comments, "There seemed to be every pattern that the ingenuity of women could devise and the industry of women could put together." As noted in the introduction, this also describes the pieces presented in Quilt Stories. Divided into five sections, over 25 works are presented. The first, "Memory Blocks" deals with remembrance and meaning. Others focus on community and courtship, struggle and change, and mystery and murder. The final segment, "Old Maid's Ramble" has age and wisdom as its theme. Among the authors represented are Bobbie Ann Mason, Dorothy Canfield, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Marge Piercy, and Joyce Carol Oates. Quilt Stories is an important chronicle of women's literary history achievements and history. - Gail Cooke