by Joy Carol

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ADVANCE PRAISE for The Fabric of Friendship
 

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Joy Carol has written a wise, tough, compassionate book about women's friendship. Skillfully, she has woven together stories and probing questions of the many, richly diverse women whom she has interviewed. The result is a valuable resource--not just for women, but for the men who love and seek to understand them.
--Margaret B. Guenther, author of Holy Listening

 

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Joy Carol celebrates the abundant rewards of friendship among women, making it clear that those that last are usually based on abiding spiritual underpinnings. Through interviews and astute observations, she shines light from all directions on these important relationships. A must-read for women of all ages!
--Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, authors of Spiritual Literacy and Spiritual RX

 

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Joy Carol's book is great news for every woman who wants to have healthy relationships. She has given us a book filled with women's personal stories that make the pages come alive with real people who will touch your heart. Her practical handbook is filled with wisdom and humor about how we can learn the skills of developing, enriching, and maintaining strong friendships. She openly explores subjects about relationships that are often overlooked. Don't miss reading this special book. It may transform the fabric of your friendships with women - and with men too.
--Carol Lundrigan, President, Union Center for Women, Brooklyn, NY  

 

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Joy Carol's remarkable book touches on many important issues and concerns that women and girls face in all stages and walks of life. Reading this book will give you a new perspective and better understandings about the vulnerability, validity, and power of women's friendships. And it will give you useful ideas how you can improve and strengthen your personal and professional relationships with women. This is a must-read for women--and for men.
--Helen Brumbaugh, President/CEO, Old South Building Company

 

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Relationships between women often thrive. Sometimes, sadly, we simply survive them. Joy Carol's wonderful new book, "Women's Friendships", gives us a road map to do both. Exposing both the strengths and weaknesses, rewards and risks, Ms. Carol's incisive work sheds new light on the mystery of female friendships which defies time, geography and family dynamics. For every mother, sister, daughter, friend and colleague who has known the joys and sorrows of female bonds. . . and for the men who love them. . . this book is for you.
--Deirdre Felton, Certified Thanatologist; International Lecturer on issues of loss and recovery

 

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As a therapist and business coach for over 25 years, I can guarantee that creating lifelong friendships is the single most important thing you can do for your life. Joy Carol has the solution for the issues and emotions that we face in life--build healthy and lasting friendships! Her book is a great addition for all of us to strengthen our skills for living."
--Pat Pearson, speaker, business coach, therapist, and author of You Deserve the Best and Stop Self-Sabotage

 

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Joy Carol indeed weaves a complex and rich tapestry in sharing stories of women's friendships with one another.  This is a collection to be mined for inspiration, comfort, challenge -- and through the varied experiences in the book, for strengthening our conviction that "another world is possible." Thanks to Joy for honoring what women have always done: tell our stories.
--Mary Zepernick, Former U.S. Section President, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

 

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Joy Carol explores the rich, often confusing, but ultimately transforming power of relationships. Having lived on five Continents, working to address human need in global organizations, working at major funding institutions, as well as being trained as a spiritual director, make her imminently qualified to speak on the subject of friendship. She highlights the issue of envy, the role of anger, the power of saying "no" and establishing good boundaries, as issues that will come up in most deep friendships. The questions in each chapter help the reader personally engage on these various issues. And she concludes by identifying specific steps that help friendships survive. In a fast paced, fast food society, confronting globalization, terrorism and war, relationships are in danger of rupture and fragmentation. This is a wonderful book on the care of relationship, a most important topic in our time.
--Helen LaKelly Hunt, Author of Faith & Feminism

 

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Every paragraph of Joy Carol's latest book will touch a nerve in the reader. We find ourselves in these pages and realize with a great sigh...we are not alone in our quest for answers to relationship puzzles. Joy has truly nailed this one! What a pleasure for me personally to be woven into Joy's FABRIC OF FRIENDSHIP since our shared childhood.
-- Carole Barnes-Montgomery, Nebraska Poet, Nebraska Life, Plains Song Review, The Fence Post

 

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Joy Carol deals with women's friendships - those that begin with our mothers and carry us until our deaths - in a way that both celebrates their gifts and confronts their demons. She does not sentimentalize the friendships women share; rather she deals head-on with such difficult issues such as envy, competition and anger. Yet at the same time, she is always gently pressing, gently prodding, gently questioning us - so that we can become better friends to one another. 
--The Reverend Dr. Nora Tubbs Tisdale, author of Making Room at the Table

 

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Joy Carol creates a tapestry of women's relationships weaving our struggles and joys as mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, and coworkers through her own personal stories as well as the stories of many women with whom she conducted informal conversations and surveys.  She examines the whole cloth of women's experience:  envy, competition, anger, brokenness, emulation, joy, reconciliation, and enduring friendships.  Joy Carol is well versed in the literature on women's relations and she intertwines the research with the personal stories.  Joy Carol's writing is clear and insightful, always helping the reader move toward greater understanding, transformation, self-acceptance and good relations.  Each section of the book ends with questions and healthy suggestions for growth, healing and wholeness. Her stories will remind you of your own friendships, memories from childhood on, times of laughter, tears, jealousy, hurt, forgiveness, acceptance, support, power, and lasting love.
--Barbara Hamilton-Holway, author of Evensong and Who Will  Remember Me?

 

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This gem of a book trains a steadfast gaze on a rich resource available to all women regardless of income, age, race, status, or educational background, namely, our friendships with other women. Reading it is like walking through your own home and discovering that it has been furnished all along with valuable and historically significant antiques. In a market overloaded with articles and books about "how to get and keep your man," Joy Carol wisely redirects our attention to questions of how women strengthen and nurture one another.
--Ruth L. Boling, author of Mouse Tales and A Children's Guide to Worship

 

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Women of the world take note: Within lies a thought-provoking page-turner on the depths and complexities of women's friendships. As I flew through the pages, I found myself rethinking my relationships with the most important women in my life, from my grandmothers and mother to my long-time friends and more recent acquaintances, and even my young daughters. Joy Carol has given us a gift to treasure and, may I suggest, share with your girlfriends.
--Emily P. McKhann, author of Living with the End in Mind

 

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In this vital study of women's friendships, Joy Carol has tackled an immensely complicated subject with grace, insight, and sheer, practical wisdom.  Her compelling interviews, stories and illustrations make the many often unexamined issues in friendship come alive.  Women's friendships are the building blocks to a happy and healthy life, yet they can be weighed down by envy, misunderstandings, and miscommunication.  For anyone who has ever been blessed by a friend, or been a blessing herself, this guide will enhance the relationships you have, and set the stage for future ones. 
-- Nina H. Frost, author of Soul Mapping: An Imaginative Way to Self-Discovery

 

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Joy Carol intimately captures the essence of what every woman experiences: our lifelong development and journey mirrored in the women's relationships we choose to nurture or relinquish.  For so complex a topic, her wonderful book concisely offers insights and guidance, with a genuine passion for women's healing.
-- Dorothy J. Papadakos, Composer and Lyricist

 

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