Are we responsible for, and to, those forces that have formed us―our families, friends, and communities? Where do we leave off and others begin? In The Tribal Knot, Rebecca McClanahan looks for answers in the history of her family. Poring over letters, artifacts, and documents that span more than a century, she discovers a tribe of hardscrabble Midwest farmers, hunters, trappers, and laborers struggling to hold tight to the ties that bind them, through poverty, war, political upheavals, illness and accident, filicide and suicide, economic depressions, personal crises, and global disasters. Like the practitioners of Victorian "hair art" who wove strands of family members' hair into a single design, McClanahan braids her ancestors' stories into a single intimate narrative of her search to understand herself and her place in the family's complex past.

The Tribal Knot: A Memoir of Family, Community, and a Century of Change (Break Away Books)

Biographies & Memoirs

McClanahan, Rebecca

Arts & Literature

Indiana University Press

In this ensemble of beautifully personal, interrelated essays, writer and poet Rebecca McClanahan weaves together threads of stories and common experiences to create a meditation on family life. She explores the familiar rituals, the shared dreams, and the guarded secrets that tie family together as she unravels the mysteries behind familial relationships. Throughout, McClanahan seeks to identify what it means to be an individual within the context of kinship and unexpected connections.
Besides navigating her own emotional landscape and her family's, McClanahan revisits the physical places of her childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. She takes us to the military bases where her father and husband were stationed, to the cemeteries she loved as both child and adult, and to the various hospitals and homes that served as backdrops for family crises and celebrations. Without sentimentality, she considers the meaning of losses―the loss of a child, a family home, and a family pet, and a lost chance at motherhood.
Partly fashioned around the lines of the folk tune "The Riddle Song," The Riddle Song and Other Rememberings captures the palpable bonds that exist between mothers, daughters, fathers, siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and grandparents. Through intuitive and exquisite language, Rebecca McClanahan reveals the strange and enchanting patterns that connect her to these ancestral souls.

The Riddle Song and Other Rememberings

Literature & Fiction

University of Georgia Press

In this ensemble of beautifully personal, interrelated essays, writer and poet Rebecca McClanahan weaves together threads of stories and common experiences to create a meditation on family life. She explores the familiar rituals, the shared dreams, and the guarded secrets that tie family together as she unravels the mysteries behind familial relationships. Throughout, McClanahan seeks to identify what it means to be an individual within the context of kinship and unexpected connections.Besides navigating her own emotional landscape and her family's, McClanahan revisits the physical places of her childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. She takes us to the military bases where her father and husband were stationed, to the cemeteries she loved as both child and adult, and to the various hospitals and homes that served as backdrops for family crises and celebrations. Without sentimentality, she considers the meaning of losses&mdash;the loss of a child, a family home, and a family pet, and a lost chance at motherhood.Partly fashioned around the lines of the folk tune &quot;The Riddle Song,&quot; The Riddle Song and Other Rememberings captures the palpable bonds that exist between mothers, daughters, fathers, siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and grandparents. Through intuitive and exquisite language, Rebecca McClanahan reveals the strange and enchanting patterns that connect her to these ancestral souls.

Parenting & Relationships

Let Rebecca McClanahan guide you through an inspiring examination of description in its many forms. With her thoughtful instruction and engaging exercises, you'll learn to develop your senses and powers of observation to uncover the rich, evocative words that accurately portray your mind's images. McClanahan includes dozens of descriptive passages written by master poets and authors to illuminate the process. She also teaches you how to weave writing together using description as a unifying thread.

Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively

Writers' Digest Books

The Intersection of X and Y

Poetry

Copper Beech Press

Poetry. Rebecca McClanahan is the author of three previous collections of poetry, including The Intersection of X and Y. Her poems, stories, and essays have appeared in such magazines as Poetry, Georgia Review, Gettysburg Review, and Kenyon Review, and her work was included in The Best American Poetry 1998. Among her awards are a Pushcart Prize, the Wood Prize from Poetry, and the Carter Prize from Shenandoah. These resourceful poems beckon us with their music, subtle wit, and insight into human foibles and desire. The portraits of family and marriage, and her canny meditations on language and the natural world, insinuate themselves in memory and won't let go -- Colette Inez.

Naked As Eve

Deep Light: New and Selected Poems, 1987-2007

Deep Light: New and Selected Poems 1987-2007 is the fifth collection of poems by Rebecca McClanahan. Deep Light is not a poetry collection, if collection implies merely a gathering of similar objects. Nor is it a chronological compilation of work from the author's previous books. The poems in Deep Light have been selected and arranged to create a continuous, unified text. Like McClanahan's description of gray doves "tipping across the gravel / their shadows pumping before them," the poems move forward in an alternating dance of light and shade. In the brightest places of our world, suggests this poet, grief and loss cast their shadows. But even in the darkest places, light makes its way.

Iris Pr

Write Your Heart Out explores how to turn personal experiences, ideas and emotions into stories, essays, poems and memoirs. In a clear, insightful voice, Rebecca McClanahan teaches readers how to mine and shape personal material, urging them to write deeply, honestly and imaginatively about the most important people, events and emotions in their lives. She emphasizes the importance of personal writing as both catharsis and discovery, addressing such topics as: 
* Writing about the past * Writing about, and from, strong emotions * Writing to communicate with family and friends * Writing about work, goals and interests 
Moving from the private to the public, the book's structure is formulated to guide readers in writing personal, heartfelt works that can, if so desired, culminate in publication.

Write Your Heart Out: Exploring & Expressing What Matters to You

Walking Stick Pr

In this lively and deeply affecting memoir, Rebecca McClanahan tracks the heartbeat of New York as only a stunned newcomer can: in overheard conversations on park benches, songs and cries sifted through apartment walls, and in encounters with street people dispensing unexpected wisdom. Having uprooted their settled lives in North Carolina to pursue a long-held dream of living in Manhattan, she and her husband struggle to find jobs, forge friendships, and create a home in a city of strangers. The 9/11 attacks and a serious cancer surgery complicate their story, merging the public with the private, the present with the past, to shape a journey richer than either could have imagined.

In the Key of New York City: A Memoir in Essays

Community & Culture

Red Hen Press

Paint Masterful Descriptions on the Page! Writing strong descriptions is an art form, one that you need to carefully develop and practice. The words you choose to describe your characters, scenes, settings, and ideas--in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction--need to precisely illustrate the vision you want to convey. Word Painting Revised Edition shows you how to color your canvas with descriptions that captivate readers. Inside, you'll learn how to: • Develop your powers of observation to uncover rich, evocative descriptions. • Discover and craft original and imaginative metaphors and similes. • Effectively and accurately describe characters and settings. • Weave description seamlessly through your stories, essays, and poems. You'll also find dozens of descriptive passages from master authors and poets--as well as more than one hundred exercises--to illuminate the process. Whether you are writing a novel or a poem, a memoir or an essay, Word Painting Revised Edition will guide you in the creation of your own literary masterpiece.

Word Painting Revised Edition: The Fine Art of Writing Descriptively

Reference

Foreign Language Study & Reference

Writer's Digest Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McClanahan, Rebecca. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by McClanahan, Rebecca

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McClanahan, Rebecca. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Tribal Knot: A Memoir of Family, Community, and a Century of Change (Break Away Books)

The Riddle Song and Other Rememberings

The Riddle Song and Other Rememberings

Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively

The Intersection of X and Y

Naked As Eve

Deep Light: New and Selected Poems, 1987-2007

Write Your Heart Out: Exploring & Expressing What Matters to You

In the Key of New York City: A Memoir in Essays

Word Painting Revised Edition: The Fine Art of Writing Descriptively