What happens in a women's writing circle? Community, stories, laughter, tears-the best things that make us human. In this stirring anthology edited by Market Street Writers founder Lisa Colburn, 43 women writers share poems, essays, and short stories that speak to us of anger and grief, tenderness and joy, longing and reverence, liberally spiced with humor and heart. Unfolding has five broad themes:

In "Origins," we read about the prehistoric earth, ancestral influences, and childhood memories. These include a touching elementary school art lesson, a milestone bus ride, and daily life on a West Virginia farm. "Herstory" features romantic and familial relationships, journeys to independence, aging, and what it means to go through life in a female body. We read about significant objects-record albums, couches, reading glasses, bicycles-and a tour boat experience that goes terribly wrong. "Writing" covers resistance, procrastination, and wrestling with words, but also the wonder and magic of creating. We learn about the reassurance of holding a Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencil, a library that offers more than books, and how poems can get downright sassy. "Longings" encompasses the desire for romantic love, as well as a polar bear's hunger for a place to rest, a woman's craving for a body free from illness, the universal yearning for a place to call home, and the remembrance of loved ones no longer with us. "Reverence" finds the miraculous in a spider's web and the ant on the rim of a cat's water bowl. We also enter the spiritual realm, exploring death and what lies beyond it. In the Appendix, there is a list of writing prompts for the stories and poems that had their origins in writing workshops.

This collection shows us what it means to be human-in all our strength and frailty, our darkness and our light. This is the human journey, ever unfolding.