biography

In Flamboyants, George M. Johnson celebrates writers, performers, and activists from 1920s Black America whose sexualities have been obscured throughout history. Through 14 essays, Johnson reveals how American culture has been shaped by icons who are both Black and Queer ? and whose stories deserve to be celebrated in their entirety. Interspersed with personal narrative, powerful poetry, and illustrations by award-winning illustrator Charly Palmer, Flamboyants looks to the past for understanding as to how Black and Queer culture has defined the present and will continue to impact the future.

"Olympian and World Champion Caster Semenya is finally ready to share the vivid and heartbreaking story of how the world came to know her name. Thrust into the spotlight at just eighteen years old after winning the Berlin World Championships in 2009, Semenya's win was quickly overshadowed by criticism and speculation about her body, and she became the center of a still-raging firestorm about how gender plays out in sports, our expectations of female athletes, and the right to compete as you are"--Provided by publisher.

"'Jumpman' is the story of how Michael Jordan became the most famous and celebrated athlete in America. The book chronicles his ascendance as an NBA champion during the 1990-1991 season revealing the social, cultural, and political forces that shaped him and redefined the sport's importance. It explores how the NBA and Nike, publicists and producers, coaches and competitors, reporters and fans molded Jordan into a mythic version of the man from Wilmington, NC. Examining the unreckoned consequences of Jordan's fame and how race shaped the way people interpreted him and his achievements, 'Jumpman' uncovers how Michael Jordan became something he never intended to be: an American hero. The book also reveals the paradox of Jordan . . . In response to the growing demands on his time and the increasingly intrusive requests from the public and the press, Jordan became disillusioned with the trappings of celebrity, consciously cultivating an aura of secrecy. By design, this also hid the importance of race. Jordan understood that the less the public knew about his politics and his personal life, particularly past battles with racism, the more likable he would appear to people living under the illusion that the nation had solved its racial dilemmas"--Provided by publisher.

Years before she would become a published author . . . years before she would find a voice and a home in the Riot Grrrl movement and emerging zine community, Stephanie Kuehnert struggled to find her place. Told in varied narrative styles, including journal entries, original illustration, and pages torn from her actual teenage diaries and zines, this is the story of Stephanie Kuehnert's life as a struggling outsider who survived substance and relationship abuse to become a strong and powerful young woman after years trapped in a cycle that sometimes seemed to have no escape. From the author of Ballads of Suburbia and former Rookie contributor Stephanie Kuehnert, this bold and bare memoir about a life shaped by music and writing is unflinching and devastatingly honest.

This inspirational story of the Chinese American architect who changed architecture with his forward-thinking shapes shows how his legacy has endured and his structures can still be seen around the world.

"Women have been groundbreakers in music of all genres. Young readers will discover changemakers from the past and present and their musical accomplishments. Then they are encouraged to make their own music"--Provided by publisher.

"The autobiographical story of Billy Mills, an Oglala Lakota orphan who achieved his dream of winning a gold medal as a runner in the 1964 Olympics despite racism, poverty, and debilitating health challenges"--Provided by publisher.

"The first openly transgender woman to win an NCAA championship, [CeC? Telfer] has contended with transphobia on and off the track since childhood. Now, she stands at the crossroads of a national and international conversation about equity in sports, forced to advocate for her personhood and rights at every turn. After spending years training for the 2024 Olympics, Telfer has been sidelined and silenced more times than she can count. But she's never been good at taking no for an answer"--Provided by publisher.

"From indie musician Orenda Fink, a memoir of a tumultuous childhood growing up with a mother who may have borderline personality disorder. Orenda Fink was raised by a darkly charismatic mother who insisted that they were both MAGIC. In The Witch's Daughter, Orenda chronicles her years spent navigating this ominous power, alongside her mother's substance abuse and hyper-controlling, often destructive, grip on the family, later suspected to be a subtype of borderline personality disorder classified as "The Witch." Fink's searing prose brings the reader through these tumultuous highs and lows of childhood, through her adulthood and early days as a musician, and into a healed version of herself who is able to walk through the world without being crushed under the baggage of her childhood"--Provided by publisher.

Covers notable scientists from 1600 to 1800.