More than thirty stories, plays, poems, and songs featuring the making of quiltswritten from 1845 to the present, mainly by American womendocument women's literary history. Featuring the work of Bobbie Ann Mason, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Walker, Sharyn McCrumb, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Marge Piercy, Adrienne Rich, and many others, Quilt Stories is a colorful literary album of stories, poems, and plays that celebrate quilting as a pattern in women's history. These storiesgrouped under the themes of memory, courtship, struggle, mystery, and wisdomreflect the importance of quilting in the lives of American women, not only as a practical craft and a creative outlet, but also as an integral part of the social community.