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Equality: What Do You Think About When You Think of Equality?
In the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Stride Toward Freedom and Malala Yousafzai’s, I Am Malala, Equality: What Do You Think About When You Think of Equality? presents thought-provoking and compelling personal essays that probe a concept professed to be the very foundation of our democracy—a concept that may even be more vital today than in the past.
From international bestselling author, Anne Perry who asserts we must look within ourselves to our emotions, experiences, and beliefs before we attempt an honest and truthful answer, to Dennis Palumbo, psychotherapist and author, who claims diagnostic labels used in treating mental illness often stigmatize and dehumanize the patient causing clinicians to view their patients in terms of their diagnosis rather than people, and Barbara Abercrombie, writer and distinguished university professor, who explores ageism as yet another form of stereotyping and discrimination in the language we use to describe older adults. These award-winning and best-selling writers, and twenty-two more, tackle equality across multiple spectrums—racial, social, political, religious, marital, gender—and run with it in surprising directions.
What do you think about when you think of equality?
Contributors: Barbara Abercrombie, Anne R. Allen, Christopher Bram, ‘Nathan Burgoine, Rob Byrnes, David Congalton, Larry Duplechan, Eldonna Edwards, Jewelle Gomez, Lisa Horan, Catherine Ryan Hyde, Barbara Jacksha, Michael McMahon, Jeff Mann, Michael Nava, Dennis Palumbo, Anne Perry, Felice Picano, Mara Purl, Susan Reynolds, Jeffrey Ricker, Michael Rupured, Baxter Clare Trautman, and Victoria Zackheim.
From international bestselling author, Anne Perry who asserts we must look within ourselves to our emotions, experiences, and beliefs before we attempt an honest and truthful answer, to Dennis Palumbo, psychotherapist and author, who claims diagnostic labels used in treating mental illness often stigmatize and dehumanize the patient causing clinicians to view their patients in terms of their diagnosis rather than people, and Barbara Abercrombie, writer and distinguished university professor, who explores ageism as yet another form of stereotyping and discrimination in the language we use to describe older adults. These award-winning and best-selling writers, and twenty-two more, tackle equality across multiple spectrums—racial, social, political, religious, marital, gender—and run with it in surprising directions.
What do you think about when you think of equality?
Contributors: Barbara Abercrombie, Anne R. Allen, Christopher Bram, ‘Nathan Burgoine, Rob Byrnes, David Congalton, Larry Duplechan, Eldonna Edwards, Jewelle Gomez, Lisa Horan, Catherine Ryan Hyde, Barbara Jacksha, Michael McMahon, Jeff Mann, Michael Nava, Dennis Palumbo, Anne Perry, Felice Picano, Mara Purl, Susan Reynolds, Jeffrey Ricker, Michael Rupured, Baxter Clare Trautman, and Victoria Zackheim.
- GenresNonfiction
200 pages, Paperback
First published January 15, 2017
121 people want to read
About the author
Paul Alan Fahey
30 books49 followersPAUL ALAN FAHEY writes for JMS Books. He is the author of the Lovers and Liars series and the editor of the 2013 Rainbow Award-winning anthology, The Other Man: 21 Writers Speak Candidly About Sex, Love, Infidelity, &Moving On. His first LGBT novella,
The View From 16 Podwale Street, published by JMS
Books, won a 2012 Rainbow Award. Over the years, his writing has appeared in numerous literary journals such as Byline, Palo Alto Review, Long Story Short,
African American Review, The MacGuffin, Thema, Gertrude, Kaleidoscope, and in a variety of fiction and nonfiction anthologies from Carry the Light, Cup of Comfort, My Mom’s My Hero to Writing on Walls, and Somewhere in Crime. He lives on the California
Central Coast with his husband, Robert Franks, and a gaggle of shelties.
For more information, visit paulalanfahey.com.
The View From 16 Podwale Street, published by JMS
Books, won a 2012 Rainbow Award. Over the years, his writing has appeared in numerous literary journals such as Byline, Palo Alto Review, Long Story Short,
African American Review, The MacGuffin, Thema, Gertrude, Kaleidoscope, and in a variety of fiction and nonfiction anthologies from Carry the Light, Cup of Comfort, My Mom’s My Hero to Writing on Walls, and Somewhere in Crime. He lives on the California
Central Coast with his husband, Robert Franks, and a gaggle of shelties.
For more information, visit paulalanfahey.com.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 12, 2017
One of the nice things about being in a collection or an anthology is the ability to discuss the other pieces in the book, and to rub elbows—if in a nonliteral but literary way—with authors both known and unknown to me.
Equality: What Do You Think About When You Think of Equality? is a collection of short nonfiction pieces by twenty five essayists, and I’m lucky enough to find myself among them. Equality has been my “coffee shop project” book for the last few weeks.
My what? Right. The coffee shop project is where my husband and I go to a coffee shop on Sundays and sit and read without any electronic devices on-hand, for at least half an hour. I have a tea or a white hot chocolate, he has a coffee, and we reconnect with physical reading, a skill that we’ve both realized can suffer when we’re both given easy access to the ‘net. I finished it this morning, having read a few essays each time.
There are twenty five answers to this question, and although there’s some overlap, for the most part, each essayist took a different approach to the discussion, and left me with something new to consider and ponder.
It would take me ages to go through each of the twenty-five pieces (well, twenty-four, as I never talk about my own entry when discussing collections or anthologies) but a few echoed over the course of the last couple of months.
“The Last Acceptable Prejudice,” by Barbara Abercrombie gave me pause as I found myself nodding along with the words on the page, and Larry Duplechan’s “Have You Met My Husband?” was familiar one moment and then a completely different point of view the next. In fact, all the pieces that touched on marriage equality or queerness were ones that I found myself most captured by (for obvious reasons) and it was fascinating to see the same desires mirrored in other places, other times (Canada was about a decade ahead of the US with marriage equality), and some of the experiences.
Should it have surprised me so very much that Jeff Mann’s “Two Mountain Weddings,” had less impediments to them than my own wedding? Maybe not, but my own prejudices about what to expect from the Southern states certainly had me assuming the worst—and being surprised by the tale he told.
Many of the stories did that: delivered a tale I wasn’t expecting. The closing piece, “Body Language: The Naked Truth,” by Eldonna Edwards—a woman who donated a kidney and later learned the kidney was given to a man who has politics diametrically opposed to her own liberal, pro-queer ones—were full of such compassion for those to whom I will admit I struggle to be compassionate. My first thought in the face of someone spouting anti-queer rhetoric is rarely as polite as some of those who speak in the pages of Equality.
Other standouts? “Equality in High Def,” by Jewelle Gomez (though it has a painful bittersweetness to it now the election is over), “Ambiguously Ever After,” by Jeffrey Ricker (who I speak of often, and whose piece in this collection left me thoughtful and maudlin for days), and “On Equality,” by Rob Byrnes, who managed to level his wit at the topic and put such a wry smile on my face even as he painted so perfect a picture with his words.
As I said, I walked out of the coffee shop—and this collection—with a lot to ponder. And while the general consensus of all the pieces in the book was pretty clear: Equality is a goal, not a destination we’re likely ever to truly reach, like all goals, it’s often forward progress that’s more important.
We might never get there, but that’s the last reason not to get closer.
Equality: What Do You Think About When You Think of Equality? is a collection of short nonfiction pieces by twenty five essayists, and I’m lucky enough to find myself among them. Equality has been my “coffee shop project” book for the last few weeks.
My what? Right. The coffee shop project is where my husband and I go to a coffee shop on Sundays and sit and read without any electronic devices on-hand, for at least half an hour. I have a tea or a white hot chocolate, he has a coffee, and we reconnect with physical reading, a skill that we’ve both realized can suffer when we’re both given easy access to the ‘net. I finished it this morning, having read a few essays each time.
There are twenty five answers to this question, and although there’s some overlap, for the most part, each essayist took a different approach to the discussion, and left me with something new to consider and ponder.
It would take me ages to go through each of the twenty-five pieces (well, twenty-four, as I never talk about my own entry when discussing collections or anthologies) but a few echoed over the course of the last couple of months.
“The Last Acceptable Prejudice,” by Barbara Abercrombie gave me pause as I found myself nodding along with the words on the page, and Larry Duplechan’s “Have You Met My Husband?” was familiar one moment and then a completely different point of view the next. In fact, all the pieces that touched on marriage equality or queerness were ones that I found myself most captured by (for obvious reasons) and it was fascinating to see the same desires mirrored in other places, other times (Canada was about a decade ahead of the US with marriage equality), and some of the experiences.
Should it have surprised me so very much that Jeff Mann’s “Two Mountain Weddings,” had less impediments to them than my own wedding? Maybe not, but my own prejudices about what to expect from the Southern states certainly had me assuming the worst—and being surprised by the tale he told.
Many of the stories did that: delivered a tale I wasn’t expecting. The closing piece, “Body Language: The Naked Truth,” by Eldonna Edwards—a woman who donated a kidney and later learned the kidney was given to a man who has politics diametrically opposed to her own liberal, pro-queer ones—were full of such compassion for those to whom I will admit I struggle to be compassionate. My first thought in the face of someone spouting anti-queer rhetoric is rarely as polite as some of those who speak in the pages of Equality.
Other standouts? “Equality in High Def,” by Jewelle Gomez (though it has a painful bittersweetness to it now the election is over), “Ambiguously Ever After,” by Jeffrey Ricker (who I speak of often, and whose piece in this collection left me thoughtful and maudlin for days), and “On Equality,” by Rob Byrnes, who managed to level his wit at the topic and put such a wry smile on my face even as he painted so perfect a picture with his words.
As I said, I walked out of the coffee shop—and this collection—with a lot to ponder. And while the general consensus of all the pieces in the book was pretty clear: Equality is a goal, not a destination we’re likely ever to truly reach, like all goals, it’s often forward progress that’s more important.
We might never get there, but that’s the last reason not to get closer.
April 19, 2017
Buzz about this book began right around the time of the election, and I thought this type of book was probably more important than ever. Now that I've read it, I know this book IS more important than ever. The first pages grabbed me from the biography of an activist to an analysis of the phrase "all men are created equal." The variety of time, place, subject, voice, and perspective kept my interest high. I have too many favorites to mention. We are living in troubling times for so many reasons, but this book gave me hope that we're still engaged in conversation.
April 9, 2017
Paul Fahey has assembled a unique, diverse, and often surprising collection of essays on the meaning of equality. Unique because it’s rare for so many angles on equality to be examined in one book. Diverse because the writers represent a wide range of ages, races, regions, religions, gender and sexual identities, and occupations and preoccupations. Surprising because of the honesty with which they recount their personal experiences, shortcomings, attempts at self-improvement, and cautious optimism for the future.
January 5, 2018
A review on the essays could never merit the words on the pages in this simple but powerful contemplation of equity—or lack thereof.
Edited by Paul Fahey. A MUST READ!
Edited by Paul Fahey. A MUST READ!
December 4, 2017
2017 Rainbow Awards Honorable Mention: Equality: What Do You Think About When You Think of Equality?
1) "Equality: What Do You Think About When You Think of Equality?" consists of essays describing different meanings of equality. Sometimes it's about LGBTQ rights, sometimes it's about understanding people and their various problems. This collection showed me that I still have a lot to do, because even though I fight about equal rights for everyone, there are still issues that I do not think about. There was just one thing missing - I would like to read what equality means to people from the "right side". Still, this book is definitely worth reading.
2) 25 gifted writers give their views on equality. Always insightful, these personal and often intimate observations give food for thought and some surprises along the way. The struggle for equality goes on despite the steps forward that have been made over the decades. A timely addition to the many essays on this subject. Highly recommended.
3) It is such an important topic. The essays were diverse, well-written and insightful and extremely well-organized and the editing was excellent. I learned so much from this anthology. *****
1) "Equality: What Do You Think About When You Think of Equality?" consists of essays describing different meanings of equality. Sometimes it's about LGBTQ rights, sometimes it's about understanding people and their various problems. This collection showed me that I still have a lot to do, because even though I fight about equal rights for everyone, there are still issues that I do not think about. There was just one thing missing - I would like to read what equality means to people from the "right side". Still, this book is definitely worth reading.
2) 25 gifted writers give their views on equality. Always insightful, these personal and often intimate observations give food for thought and some surprises along the way. The struggle for equality goes on despite the steps forward that have been made over the decades. A timely addition to the many essays on this subject. Highly recommended.
3) It is such an important topic. The essays were diverse, well-written and insightful and extremely well-organized and the editing was excellent. I learned so much from this anthology. *****
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews