Julie Stephens – författare

There is a deep cultural anxiety around public expressions of maternalism and the application of maternal values to society as a whole. Julie Stephens examines why postmaternal thinking has become so influential in recent decades and why there has been a growing unease with maternal forms of subjectivity and maternalist perspectives. In moving beyond policy definitions, which emphasize the priority given to women''s claims as employees over their political claims as mothers, Stephens details an elaborate process of cultural forgetting that has accompanied this repudiation of the maternal.Reclaiming an alternative feminist position through an investigation of oral history, life narratives, Web blogs, and other rich and varied sources, Stephens confronts the core claims of postmaternal thought and challenges dominant representations of feminism as having forgotten motherhood. Deploying the interpretive framework of memory studies, she examines the political structures of forgetting surrounding the maternal and the weakening of nurture and care in the public domain. She views the promotion of an illusory, self-sufficient individualism as a form of social unmothering that is profoundly connected to this ethos. In rejecting both traditional maternalism and the new postmaternalism, Stephens challenges prevailing paradigms and makes way for an alternative feminist maternalism centering on a politics of care.

The San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado are among the least known and least visited of the Colorado Rockies, yet they are thought by many, especially those who live here, to be the most beautiful and serene. It is against this backdrop that Candy Beebe and Julie Stephens present Mountain Devotional.

In a time that American Christianity seems focused on large churches seating thousands, the authors take us along on quiet adventures far from crowds and traffic and even roads. Centered in the USGA-designated most remote country in the lower 48 they lead us toward a sense of prayer and peace that Jesus must have felt when he climbed, often alone, toward a special experience of the Holy.

While Jesus was hardly a ''mountain man'' in the modern sense, his attraction to them almost reminds one of John Muir''s well-known quotes, "The mountains are calling and I must go." What called Jesus to these special places? And may it, if we listen closely, call us as well?

Often, Jesus led his disciples to a mountain. At the conclusion of his earthly ministry they went on their own to a mountain "...to which Jesus had directed them." There they encountered him.

In this devotional, though they may at first seem to be simply about a bear or rocks or birds or sky, we too may encounter the Lord himself. That is the purpose, after all, of Mountain Devotional.

Ed Nettleton

Lake City, Colorado

May 2013

Mountain Mutts-Joy''s Tale is an award-winning picture book for children ages 4-11. Parents and teachers will appreciate the universal themes of friendship, death, tolerance, helping others, and the excitement of learning to do something difficult.

Winter, Spring, and Joy are the names of the dogs in the story. Words along with colorful photographs bring the dogs and the mountain setting to life showing the pain of loss Spring feels when Winter dies, Spring''s emotions when a new puppy comes into the home, and how puppy Joy ultimately wins reluctant Spring''s friendship.

Stephens is an award-winning author and photographer living in the mountains with her husband and dogs. https://julie-stephens.com/

I don''t think it''s an overstatement to say that anyone who knows Julie is better for it. She lifts up everyone. For much of her life she did this just by being herself. Now she had taken some of the inspiration she finds around her, in nature and in everyday activities and submitted that to paper. As a result, we will all be enriched again by her presence.

David McHam, Instructional Professor

Jack J. Valenti School of Communication

University of Houston

Tea and Talk with Friends - is a wonderful afternoon read, although one could spend hours pouring over each line of poetry. It is incredible that so much deep thought can be transcribed in so few words. Anyone with log and appreciation for relationships of all kinds will enjoy the heartwarming stories told by both authors.