Illinois Authors

Ruminator Books, Saint Paul, Minn. : ©2000.

A collection of letters written for the author's goddaughter.

Recorded Books, Prince Frederick, Md. : ℗2018.

With humor and honesty, award-winning author Lee Reilly explores the joys and trials of the ever-single woman in a world defined by the married. In Women Living Single, she tells the refreshing stories of 30 unmarried women of all ages, struggling alone to live life to its fullest, and succeeding. Caitlin never decided to remain unmarried-her singleness just happened when she made choices to pursue her art career. Lindsay broke her engagement to travel and become a teacher. Like countless others, they don't fit the role their family and friends have defined for them. Instead, they each write their own script building vibrant lives-setting their own goals, creating their own sense of family, and planning their own success. Her own fulfilled single life enables Lee Reilly to write about women's choices and difficulties with wisdom and sensitivity. All women, both married and single, will enjoy Barbara Caruso's stirring narration of this encouraging and exciting book of achievements in the face of astonishing odds.

Faber and Faber, Boston : 1996.

Women Living Single chronicles the life journeys of thirty heterosexual women between the ages of twenty-eight and seventy-six who either deliberately or unexpectedly never married. These women are actively creating their own lives and making their own choices, all the while being hounded by their parents, excluded by many of their married friends, and stigmatized by the media. The remarkable women profiled here include Susan Ryerson, one of Los Angeles' first black female firefighters; Ellen Adams, an environmentalist; Teresa Sanchez, who started her life in America in a bottling factory and now teaches comparative literature; Jillian Goodman, a nurse in Washington, D.C.; and many more. Along the way they reveal intelligent, surprising insights into how they have discovered ways to travel an unconventional route to a place where marriage is still a welcomed possibility, but no longer a requirement.