Biography English Language

Every novelist dreams of it--writing the book that rockets to the top of the bestseller lists. Now, they can see how it's done, up close, in an audiobook by an agent who has sold manuscripts that turned into hits. Here Albert Zuckerman covers the essential elements of the blockbuster novel and...

Winner of two world championships, three U.S. national championships, and an Olympic Silver Medal, Michelle Kwan is a true champion. Her warm, friendly confidence and extraordinary skating talent have made her a legend in her own time.

Michelle has had to work hard and make sacrifices to get to the top. Now she shares her thoughts and experiences to help others make their dreams come true. Vision, discipline, and dedication head her list of requirements for success.

My Life in Propaganda is Magda Stroińska’s personal account of growing up with communist propaganda in Eastern Europe. She compares the beliefs of her family with what she was taught at school, learning early on about double interpretations and ambiguities through language. Through her chosen field of linguistics, she analyzes ways in which propagandistic language, such as ‘doubletalk,’ Orwellian ‘Newspeak,’ ‘weasel words,’ and, more colloquially, ‘bullshit,’ is used to distort reality. The book demonstrates that democracy can never be taken for granted.

Speaking My Soul is the honest story of linguist John R. Rickford's life from his early years as the youngest of ten children in Guyana to his status as Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at Stanford, of the transformation of his identity from colored or mixed race in Guyana to black in the USA, and of his work championing Black Talk and its speakers. In this engaging memoir, Rickford recalls landmark events for his racial identity.

This is a story meant to be a beacon of hope and inspiration for the minority women in speech-language pathology who find themselves struggling with a sense of belonging in their field. It follows the autobiographical account of Barbara Fernandes, an adult immigrant to the US, as she embarks on her journey as a CSD student learning both English and Spanish. It tells of her struggles facing isolation, microaggressions, and her own internal battles to eventually become one of the most successful entrepreneurs within the SLP field.

In this powerful and deeply felt polemic memoir, Alejandra Oliva, a Mexican-American translator and immigrant justice activist, offers a chronological document of her experience interpreting at the US-Mexico border, and of the people she has encountered along the way. Tracing her family's long and fluid relationship to the border, each generation born on opposite sides of the Rio Grande, and having worked on asylum cases since 2016, she knows all too well the gravity of taking someone's trauma and delivering it to the warped demands of the American immigration system.

On the edge of mortality, a profound transformation occurred within Matthew Johns. They came to a realization: events they once believed simply occurred to them were, in reality, orchestrated milestones leading them toward a greater purpose. The introduction of a soulmate in their life acted as a beacon, illuminating their newfound spiritual path. Delving into this spiritual realm, Matthew Johns cultivated a deep and intuitive bond with The Divine. Their blossoming psychic understanding opened a sacred dialogue with Spirit, unveiling profound truths.

Follow this family of six on their passage - extraordinary, hilarious and heartbreakingly poignant-from Bright Lights (of New York City) to the Northern Lights (of Norway) to the City of Light (Paris) to the speed-of-light of the Autobahn (in Munich). Continue deep into the tropics of Southeast Asia (Singapore) and end your voyage in the heights of the Swiss Alps (Geneva).

This part handbook, part history, and part personal narrative will open readers’ eyes to the oft-overlooked arm of government that has done more harm and more good than any other in recent years: state legislatures. After the 2024 election, many voters were left feeling disillusioned with...

These are my stories losing language in a stroke, then brain trauma. I'm a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, baby observer, bird watcher. My sense of self survived using these skills to reflect on walking through a wilderness without read signs. I found languages outside of verbal language that took me to whole new worlds... To speak at all was to locate the fewest words to express anything. I wanted to keep this spare language to convey the unimaginable.

An entertaining and informative guide to the most common 150 words even smart people use incorrectly, along with pithy forays into their fascinating etymologies and tangled histories of use and misuse. Even the most erudite among us use words like apocryphal, facetious, ironic, meteorite...

The Language of Mothers is a hybrid memoir grounded in the power of prose and poetry. It is an imaginative tapestry of women's storytelling that punctures narrative craft to illuminate the inheritance of domestic trauma and the voicing of familial stories that are healing spaces that carry through time.

"Poets live the lives all of us live," says Bill Moyers, "with one big difference. They have the power--the power of the word--to create a world of thoughts and emotions other can share. We only have to learn to listen." In a series of fascinating conversations with thirty-four American poets...

GOOD MORNING AMERICA BUZZ PICK The Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright and co-writer of In the Heights tells her lyrical story of coming of age against the backdrop of an ailing Philadelphia barrio, with her sprawling Puerto Rican family as a collective muse. “Quiara Alegría Hudes is...

Linda Marigliano has built a career out of performing for other people. In her day-job as an on-air presenter or in her family home, she contorted herself into 'the cool girl' or 'the good girl', and struggled to ever truly switch off. As she repeatedly over-committed and sought approval in all its guises, she started to ask herself: Why am I like this? Combing through her complex relationship with her mother, the sense of duty within her extended Italian and Chinese-Malaysian families, and the twisting turns of both her career path and her love life, she noticed a pattern emerging.

In this part-memoir, part-manifesto, an acclaimed poet interprets Black radical literary traditions to reimagine freedom through refusal. “In these fierce yet tender pages, Camonghne Felix reveals how imagination can become a form of governance—an instrument for creating a world rooted in...

“For more than forty years Roger Cohen has ventured to every corner of the earth to chronicle the great upheavals of our age, but he’s never lost sight of what really matters: love, hope, and all the mysteries of the human heart. Here, in this collection of columns that will take you from...

For those looking to teach English in Japan or are already there, this series offers hard-won lessons of how to land with a running start and set yourself up for success.

The first major book for writers to more effectively engage with complex socio-political issues—a critical first step in creating social change Writers are witnesses and scribes to society’s conscience but writing about social issues in the twenty-first century requires a new, sharper...

Filled with practical tips and helpful advice, Dear Ally is a treasure for aspiring writers at any stage of their careers. It offers a behind-the-scenes look at how books get made, from idea to publication, and gives you insight into the writing processes of some of the biggest and most talented YA authors writing today.