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I Dwell in Possibility
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TONI A. H. MCNARON is professor of English and women's studies at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

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I Dwell in Possibility

Revised and Expanded Edition
Toni A. H. McNaron

Foreword by Louise DeSalvo

This brave and lyrical memoir is a powerful social document as well as an account of emotional, psychological, and intellectual self-actualization over four decades—from McNaron’s childhood encounters with segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, through her first days of teaching and her fear of exposure as a lesbian and an alcoholic, to her recovery and coming out.

"...engrossing and sensitive...it moves along at the swift pace of a well-written novel."

—Kirkus Reviews

"Lyrical and courageous."

—Booklist

"This book will be invaluable to many audiences, both those struggling with their own coming to language and those moving from isolation to lesbian community. Its power and spirit capture with great precision the pleasures of victories, large and small, in the effort to become a complete self."

—Carolyn Allen, professor of English and Women's studies, University of Washington

"I Dwell in Possibility is an engrossingly good read in the tradition of Audre Lorde's Zami and Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Toni McNaron's wonderful autobiography sensitively depicts the contradictory combination of racial privilege and sexual difference as they shape the dreams and longings of a white girl who did not fit the mold of southern belle."

—Susan Stanford Friedman, professor of English and Women's studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and author of Penelope's Web: Gender, Modernity, and H.D.'s Fiction