Michelle Ross

In Don't Take This the Wrong Way, Magowan and Ross probe the stories we tell each other and ourselves. The characters in these 25 stories deceive and manipulate, they scrutinize and admonish, but also, they earnestly seek to draw meaning from the flotsam of their lives. Two friends mocking the needy, sancitmonious co-worker they call "the Kindness Woman, '' confront their own painful longing for someone to accept them. A woman who developed unusually acute vision during the last stages of her marriage wonders after the divorce if perhaps she'd been wrong to make so much of what she'd observed; perhaps her ex's "best qualities are visible only at a distance." Many of these characters are trying to get by with clumsy skills, limited resources, and impaired caretakers. Grown siblings recall bitterly their father's neglect when their mother died: "You hear about kids being raised by wolves, but the three of us were for a while there raised by kitchen cabinets and vacuum cleaners--nothing sentient." A girl living on a military base grapples with the terrible violence of war by playing a game she knows better than to tell her mother about. These characters enjoy burning bridges. A woman reluctantly enscripted by the self-satisfied friend she doesn't much like to be each other's "accountability buddies," gleefully learns that her friend's eight-year-old daughter has started a "Sexy Club." The characters in these stories bond over their mutual love of words, and they battle and break up over callously or sloppily chosen words. A college student living back at home for the summer begins an affair with an older coworker after noticing that he was also someone "who found language revealing, worth inspection." In some instances, wanting connection, these characters may read a lot into very few words, as when a pleasant stranger at the gym hands one narrator a towel to wipe off a sweaty exercise bike: "In that mutual exchange-'Gross, ' 'Gross, ' 'Thanks, ' which she responded to not vocally but with a commiserating nod-I felt a meeting of the minds." Through precise prose, deep affection, wry humor, and a measure of snark, Magowan and Ross invite readers to recognize how lonely, petty, yet hopeful people are, and how desperately they want to be properly understood.

They Kept Running takes its title from a story about three women running in a national park in the Arizona desert, where they are warned to watch out for mountain lions and the heat, but where the real threat they encounter is men in a jeep. This collection of fifty-seven small stories catalogs the lives of women and girls as they grapple with the hazards of navigating the human world.

The fourteen spellbinding stories in Michelle Ross's second collection invite readers into the shadows of social-media perfectionism and the relentless cult of motherhood. A recovering alcoholic navigates the social landscape of a toddler playdate; a mother of two camps out in a van to secure her son's spot at a prestigious kindergarten; a young girl forces her friends to play an elaborate, unwinnable game. With unflinching honesty and vivid, lyric prose, Ross explores the familial ties that bind us together-or, sometimes, tear us apart.

We are in a moment that is unlike any others we have experienced in our lifetimes. Important questions are being asked about how we move forward and what it will take to get our economy moving and provide safe and stable futures for all of us. In the business world, conversations around "the future of work" often exclude those who work with their hands or who are otherwise classified as essential workers. While you may not want to be a CEO, developing some basic knowledge about how business works can create more options for employees at all levels. I believe that humans are capable of anything - even performing a job for which they've had no formal training or experience. I've written this book for people with basic questions about how a company works, but might be afraid to ask. Over the course of my career, I've been committed to explaining complicated concepts to audiences of all kinds. I know that not everyone in the company understands how the company works, why it exists and how it makes money. Most people have never learned these points from their supervisors, and plenty of excellent employees did not learn business concepts as part of any formal educational program. But at least some of the inequities in our society are perpetuated in the workplace when employees remain on a "need to know" basis when it comes to how the company works. In our own small way, we can help to eliminate an invisible ceiling by demystifying some of these concepts that seem more complicated than they actually are. There are plenty of books and articles written by and for executives and consultants, offering advice to other executives and consultants. But where are all of the books written in plain English for the non-Harvard types? This book is not written for anyone with an MBA - it is purposely written for people who may have never been given the opportunity to learn business concepts in school or on the job. I learned none of these concepts in school. Some of them I learned from others during my years of consulting with companies. Others I made up in urgent situations where we needed to "coin a phrase" to explain complicated scenarios to people with very little experience.**So, why "Flex?"** Today's world is more complicated than ever before. The typical American worker must play multiple roles at home and at work. The ability to be flexible is critical, and it creates options. The concept for this book arose out of the urgent need to retrain our employees to "flex" across multiple jobs as we worked to transform our business during the Covid 19 crisis. In addition to developing courses around Excel, PowerPoint, warehouse management and other technical courses, we also needed to provide employees with some basic business, communication and leadership training to enhance their skills and ready them for a new day. Understanding how companies work will help lay the foundation for employees to explore multiple roles and jobs. Learning how to manage multiple roles will make one more flexible in their work and personal lives. A big part of this retraining is the development of some basic business acumen. Flexible employees will need to understand a company's purpose, how it is organized and how each role within the company makes the engine run.Learn what you can from this book, and keep in mind that so much about business is not a science - it can be more of an art. Just try to learn the basics and consider your own personal "North Star." We all have our own set of circumstances - your guiding light might be different from that of everyone else. But once you learn the basics, you can train and be mentored by others who have chosen a similar path. In the words of America's first female millionaire, Madam C.J. Walker, "I got my start by giving myself a start."....

This book holds delicious food ideas that can even be prepared by children.

Tekatu, the little cub, likes to play and have fun. He doesn't like to obey his parents. Tekatu would rather eat berries and play in the water than learn how to catch fish. When it's time to hibernate, he doesn't want to be in a cave for the many long winter months, so he decides to disobey his parents and run away. When Tekatu is lost and alone in the big woods, he realizes that being safe is better than being alone. With the help of strangers, Tekatu learns that being disobedient can cause much trouble. When he sees his parents again, they all hug each other. Tekatu learns that obeying his parents has many rewards and from then on he decides to obey them becasue they know what is best for him.

Tekatu, the little cub, likes to play and have fun. He doesn't like to obey his parents. Tekatu would rather eat berries and play in the water than learn how to catch fish. When it's time to hibernate, he doesn't want to be in a cave for the many long winter months, so he decides to disobey his parents and run away. When Tekatu is lost and alone in the big woods, he realizes that being safe is better than being alone. With the help of strangers, Tekatu learns that being disobedient can cause much trouble. When he sees his parents again, they all hug each other. Tekatu learns that obeying his parents has many rewards and from then on he decides to obey them becasue they know what is best for him.