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Short Story Press Presents Sandy's Mended Heart by Norah crowley This story follows Sandy, a 19-year-old woman, as she makes the difficult transition from living in an insular religious community to “outside” life in a college town. Sandy struggles with: • Living alone when she has always been surrounded by a close family; • Meeting different types of people when she has always been in a small community; • Making her way with new people who don’t think or act like those at home—she has to figure out how they think and what they actually mean by what they say and how they act; • Meeting men who live and work in environments – a college campus, a military base—that are the total opposites of the community she has known all her life; • Dealing with her need to find love, and hopefully a marriage, in a new world, without the guidelines of her strict community or the oversight of her family; • Falling in love with a man who is so totally different from her father, brothers, cousins and all the men she has known in her life, and in fact is a soldier, someone whom her pacifist religious community would find totally unacceptable; • Finding a church home and a place where she can live with her strong religious convictions even though she does not totally accept the limitations of her original church; • Coping with love and loss, putting lessons of forgiveness into practice, and picking up the pieces of a broken heart without becoming bitter. Short Story Press publishes short stories written by everyday writers.

"Continued population growth, urbanization and rising incomes are likely to continue to put pressure on food demand. International prices for most agricultural commodities are set to remain at 2010 levels or higher, at least for the next decade (OECD-FAO, 2010). Small-scale producers in many developing countries were not able to reap the benefits of high food prices during the 2007-2008 food price crises. Yet, this upward food price trend could have been an opportunity for them to increase their incomes and food security. The opportunity that high food prices could have provided as a pathway out of poverty for small producers was not realized. Evidence from the ground show that when strong rural organizations such as producer groups and cooperatives provide a full range of services to small producers, they are able to play a greater role in meeting a growing food demand on local, national and international markets. Indeed, a myriad of such institutional innovations from around the world are documented in this FAO case-study-based publication. Nevertheless, to be able to provide a broad array of services to their members, organizations have to develop a dense network of relationship, among small producers, between small-producer organizations and with markets actors and policy-makers"--Executive summary, page 10.

When young John Vincent died, the outward respectability of the Cornwall household was undermined. Strangers pried, asked too many questions and pointed accusing fingers at Charlotte. She flees deep into the countryside and finds a job teaching. However, when events come to be recreated, Charlotte's past catches up with her.