Works by
Grace Paley
(Poet, Writer)
[December 11, 1922 – August 22, 2007]

Fiction

• The Collected Stories (1994, 2007) -- Finalist National Book Award
  This reissue of Grace Paley’s classic collection—a finalist for the National Book Award—demonstrates her rich use of language as well as her extraordinary insight into and compassion for her characters, moving from the hilarious to the tragic and back again. Whether writing about the love (and conflict) between parents and children or between husband and wife, or about the struggles of aging single mothers or disheartened political organizers to make sense of the world, she brings the same unerring ear for the rhythm of life as it is actually lived.

• Long Walks and Intimate Talks: Stories, Poems and Paintings (1991)
  This first collaboration of two long-time feminist and antiwar activists is a wonderful melding of word and image that creates a powerful call for world peace. Paley's poems and short fiction and William's vivid watercolors depict the beauty and dignity of "ordinary" lives from El Salvador to the Bronx, from New Hampshire to Vietnam. Scenes and stories of domestic life, solitude, and nature are interspersed with heart-wrenching images of women widowed and children crippled by war and incarcerated by urban poverty, Here, too, are stories and paintings of protest, joyous and defiant.

• Later the Same Day (1985)
  Short stories

• Enormous Changes at the Last Minute: Stories (1974)

• The Little Disturbances of Man (1959)
  Short stories

Non-fiction

• 365 Reasons Not to Have Another War (1989) with Vera Williams
  War Resisters League 1989 Peace Calendar

Poetry

• Fidelity: Poems (2008)
  Just before her death in 2007 at the age of eighty-four, Grace Paley completed this wise and poignant book of poems. Full of memories of friends and family and incisive observations of life in both her beloved hometown, New York City, and rural Vermont, the poems are sober and playful, experimenting with form while remaining eminently readable. They explore the beginnings and ends of relationships, the ties that bind siblings, the workings of dreams, the surreal strangeness of the aging body—all imbued with her unique perspective and voice. Mournful and nostalgic, but also ruefully funny and full of love, Fidelity is Grace Paley’s passionate and haunting elegy for the life she was leaving behind.

• Begin Again: Collected Poems (2000)
  A longtime teacher, activist, feminist, and masterful writer of short fiction and essays, Paley is also an accomplished poet. Combining her two previous collections with unpublished work, Begin Again traces the career of a direct, attentive, and always unpredictable poet. Whether describing the vicissitudes of life in New York City or the hard beauty of rural Vermont, whether celebrating the blessings of friendship or protesting against social injustice, her poems brim with compassion and tough good humor.

• New and Collected Poems (1992)

• Leaning Forward - Poems (1985)

Other

• Nice Jewish Girls: Growing Up in America (1996)
  Forty female writers discuss, in poem, story, and memory, the trials and tribulations of growing and maturing as a Jewish-American female in a unique anthology.