This collection of essays is a celebration of the legacy of creativity - especially the rich vein of women's stories and spirituality through the ages and how they nourish the present. Alice Walker traces the umbilical thread linking writers through history - from her discovery of Zora Neale Hurston and her collections of black folklore, to the work of Jean Toomer, Buchi Emecheta and Flannery O'Connor. She also looks back at the highs and lows of the civil rights movement, her early political development, and the place of women's traditions in art. Coining the expression 'womanist prose', these are essays that value women's culture and strength, and the handing on of the creative spark from one generation to another.