Cut on the Bias

A reflection on our seemingly never-ending obsession with shopping, youth, image and make-over shows; from Gok Wan to Trinny and Suzannah, Mary Portas to Vivien Westwood, this book is simply a must have!Latest in the series of award winning anthologies from Honno.A fusion of fresh and established voices including Debbie Moon, Lorraine Jenkin, Rin Simpson and Christine Harrison.With image as the central metaphor for transformation, all these stories weave colourful pictures of humour and joy, love and friendship, illness and grief, of unfulfilled lives and ugly ducklings that discover their own ways of becoming beautiful swans.One woman asks what she should wear to meet the mother who gave her up at birth, another writes of the death of a long dead brother, a third straps on her armour to enter the professional world of politics. Then there are those stories that have fun examining our contemporary obsessions with celebrity styling, make-over programmes and womens magazines. Some tales are rites of passage as girls become women who then move on through the various stages and experiences of their adult lives a wayside bomb rips a life apart, a young adult with Downs Syndrome faces the future with confidence and someone, it seems, is prepared to kill for a handbag!This is not a one size fits all but has something for every reader. Be they dramatic monologues, tales of the supernatural, painful diary entries or narrative as a witty exchange of emails, all these stories, from exciting, contemporary womens voices, are cut with colour and seamed with magic.

• Yasmin Ali, Hilary Bowers, Sue Coffey, Alys Conran, Hilary Cooper, Sue Fortune, Carys Green, Christine Harrison, Jenny Henn, Suzy Ceulan Hughes, Lorraine Jenkin, Rebecca Lees, Jo Lloyd, Jean Lyon, Barbara McGaughey, Debbie Moon, Joanna Piesse, Claudia Rapport, Rin Simpson, Kerry Steed, Sarah Taylor, Eloise Williams.