This volume presents a collection of critical essays that center womens friendship in womens literary and artistic production. Analyzing cultural portrayals of womens friendships in fiction, letters, and film, these essays collectively suggest new models of literary interpretation that do not prioritize heterosexual romance. Instead, this book represents friendships as mature and meaningful relationships that contribute to identity formation and political coalition. Both the supportive and competitive aspects of friendships are shown to be crucial to womens identities as individuals, political citizens, and artists. Addressing the complexities of how 20th- and 21st-century cultural texts construe womens friendships as they navigate patriarchal institutions, this collection advances scholarship on friendship beyond men and masculine models.

Kristi Branham is Associate Professor of Gender and Womens Studies at Western Kentucky University, USA. She has published articles in theJournal of Higher Education Theory and Practice,Journal of American Studies,Literature and Film Quarterly, and contributed to the edited collectionHome Sweat Home: Perspectives on House Work and Modern Relationships.
Kelly L. Reamesis Associate Professor of English at Western Kentucky University, USA. She is the author ofWomen and Race in Contemporary U.S. Writing: From Faulkner to Morrison andToni Morrison's Paradise: A Reader's Guide. 

1. Introduction - Kristi Branham and Kelly L. Reames.- I. Adolescent Friendships and Identity Formation.- 2. Fleurs Kinship, Paulines Whiteness: How Colonization Shapes Friendship in Louise Erdrichs Tracks - Rachel Griffis.- 3. What obligation do I have toward her?: College Girl Friendships and Self-Actualization in Hangsaman and The Bell Jar - Julie Ooms.- 4. Entangled Roots: Old Friends Reconnected in Ruth Ozekis All Over Creation - Marie Drews.- 5. The Gothics Creation of Womens Friendship in Shirley Jacksons The Haunting of Hill House - Megan Peabody and Mikkaila Poulin.- 6. Lovers and Friends of the Spirit: Celie and Shugs Quare Friendship in The Color Purple - Tangela Serls.- II. Alliances and the Promise of Womens Friendships.- 7. Dorothy and I had quite a little quarrel: Clever Banter and the Language of Female Friendship in Anita Loos Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - Krista Aldrich and Emily Wiktor.- 8. We Will Work Together: Interclass Womens Collabships in Progressive Era Novels - Alicia Beeson.- 9. Political Progress and Social Stall: Failed Friendships, Feminist Fissures, and Mary McCarthys Modern Reform Novel - Cassandra Fetters.- 10. The Tenderness of One Woman for Another: Female Friendship and Revolt in the 20th-century Works of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - Susan Stone.- III The Transformative Power of Authors Friendships.- 11. These Sweet Trees: June Jordan, Alice Walker, and Womanist Friendship - Cheryl Hopson.- 12. Chicana Visions: Ana Castillo and Cherríe Moragas Friendship, Falling Out, and Forgiveness - Leigh Johnson.- 13. Beat-Associated Women and Female Relationships in Carolyn Cassadys Off the Road - Josette Lorig.- 14. Reframing Black Womens Relationships:  Exploring the Bond between Alice Dunbar-Nelson and Edwina Kruse through an Unpublished Manuscript - Monet Lewis-Timmons.