From LA Times bestselling author Mallory O’Meara, the story of America’s first professional stuntwoman, Helen Gibson, who rose to fame during a time when women ruled Hollywood.

Helen Gibson was a woman willing to do anything to give audiences a thrill. Advertised as “The Most Daring Actress in Pictures,” Helen emerged in the early days of the twentieth-century silent film scene as a rodeo rider, background actor, stunt double, and eventually one of the era’s biggest action stars. Her exploits on motorcycles, train cars, and horseback were as dangerous as they were glamorous, featured in hundreds of films and serials–yet her legacy was quickly overshadowed by the increasingly hypermasculine and male-dominated evolution of cinema in the decades that would follow her.

Award-winning author Mallory O’Meara presents her life and career in exhilarating detail, including:

• Helen’s rise to fame in The Hazards of Helen, the longest-running serial in history
• How Helen became the first-ever stuntwoman in American film
• The pivotal role of Helen’s contemporaries–including female directors, stars, and stuntwomen who shaped the making of cinema as we know it.

Through the page-turning story of Helen’s pioneering legacy, Mallory O’Meara gives readers a glimpse of the Golden Age of Hollywood that could have been: an industry where women call the shots.

Make your own movie from start to finish with this entertaining, practical choose-your-path nonfiction guide to the world of filmmaking, from critically acclaimed author behind The Lady from the Black Lagoon. 

Girls belong in the world of filmmaking. While we see them acting on-screen, there are also countless women working every single job possible behind the scenes as part of the film’s crew. Are you a girl who is interested in film making? Do you wonder how you actually make a movie? Well, this is the book for you.

Girls Make Movies puts you in the driver’s seat as you create a fictitious zombie blockbuster and are guided through each stage of production and learn about the processes, techniques, and people involved in making a Hollywood hit. Luckily, every path through this nonfiction book results in the film being made, but you will be asked to make choices that will affect the outcome of the movie. Will you shoot on location or on a studio lot? Use practical or special effects? Hire a greensperson or a someone to do pyrotechnics? The choices are up to you!

Written by critically acclaimed author Mallory O’Meara and paired with eye-catching, graphic illustrations by popular comic book artist Jen Vaugh, this unique, practical book provides young girls with advice and inspiration while offering a sense of adventure as they learn how to create a movie!

*A Finalist for the Spirited Award for Best New Book on Drinks Culture, History or Spirits*

“At last, the feminist history of booze we’ve been waiting for “ –Amy Stewart, author of The Drunken Botanist

The James Beard Award-winning history of women drinking through the ages

Strawberry daiquiris. Skinny martinis. Vodka sodas with lime. These are the cocktails that come in sleek-stemmed glasses, bright colors and fruity flavors–these are the Girly Drinks.

From the earliest days of civilization, alcohol has been at the center of social rituals and cultures worldwide. But when exactly did drinking become a gendered act? And why have bars long been considered “places for men” when, without women, they might not even exist?

With whip-smart insight and boundless curiosity, Girly Drinks unveils an entire untold history of the female distillers, drinkers and brewers who have played a vital role in the creation and consumption of alcohol, from ancient Sumerian beer goddess Ninkasi to iconic 1920s bartender Ada Coleman. Filling a crucial gap in culinary history, O’Meara dismantles the long-standing patriarchal traditions at the heart of these very drinking cultures, in the hope that readers everywhere can look to each celebrated woman in this book–and proudly have what she’s having.