Showing results by author "Diane Woods" in All Categories

My own unlikely origin story, with only the names changed to protect the innocent and guilty alike. Yeah, if you've wondered where I get some of my ideas for my novels, you'll want to check out how truth can be just as strange as fiction--and often inspire it, too. So here's the story of how a boy from the south side of Chicago grows up to be a woman, wife, and sometime author. this is volume one of a planned two book series, if folks like this first one.

Samuel was an unusual young teen. He lived with his Aunt Elena. Who was a witch. Not that she was a mean woman, she was an actual practitioner of what regular people call magic. Then the life of the teen got even more unusual, when his aunt found he liked to wear girl's clothes. And then his aunt introduced Samuel to his own soul--the soul of a young woman named Shenandoah. And then things got really unusual.

At the tender age of nineteen, Special Agent Samantha Stevens’s life was forever altered when she was forced to endure the unspeakable. But that was ten years ago. Now, she lives an uncomplicated life in Washington, D.C., void of any commitment or ties as she pours over unsolved cases and clears them with unparalleled accuracy. Handsome Special Agent Nicholas McLeroy and his four-legged partner, Officer Murphy, are from the Seattle office of the FBI. He has stumbled upon a disturbing pattern that involves women disappearing from the Alaskan territory without a trace.

Teresa was a teenage girl growing up in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood and she seemed a typical young woman. But she had a secret, a secret that her mother and her aunt had always stressed she must guard carefully. She was a very pretty and carefree girl, but she had not been born a girl--not in her body, at any rate. She had no real memory of being anyone other than Teresa but as she grew she came to understand that this part of her must be hidden from the world. But some secrets cannot be hidden forever. A Transgender Tale set in the mean streets of Chicago, where violence can scar...

Another Transgender Tale worthy of the Twilight Zone! John Templeton was an acclaimed author with a problem. His reputation was in tatters and his career was in jeopardy. Could the mysterious Repairer of Reputation help him before it was too late? John soon learned that it was indeed possible. But at a cost. And soon, John Templeton was replaced on the best-seller lists. By Jane Templeton--a beautiful and feminine version of the disgraced author, offered to the public as the long-hidden sister who actually wrote John Templeton's best-sellers. But as that former life fades into a dream, Jane...

Gene was a young teen with a secret--a secret self he called Jeannie. And after his father died, Gene's stepmother learned of Jeannie--and was delighted. Soon Gene was spending his summer before High School as Jeannie, full-time. Until a turn of events led Gene to disappear and Jeannie to take over. Permanently. But keeping such a transition secret is not something that can be easily done. And soon Jeannie had to chose whether or not to remain a secret. This is Book One of a planned multi-volume Transgender Tale. The second book is in process at the moment and should be available soon. In ...

My name is Patsy Conroy. I used to be a Chicago cop. I'm also transgender. I found out that it's not so easy to combine those two things. So now I'm a Private Investigator. It seems to suit me a little better. I was getting my life back together when I learned an old friend had been killed. On Goethe Street. Turns out, that wasn't the first murder to happen there in recent months. And pretty soon, it was my job to figure out how and why those two killings might be connected. Even though some of Chicago's finest weren't happy about that. Neither was a well-connected politician. Turns out, ...

Leonard O'Neal had always been notably short--for a man, that is. That did not prevent him from becoming an attorney and it did not prevent him from marrying a tall and beautiful woman. But Leonard carried a secret. He secretly preferred to be a woman named Laura. And when his wife discovered that secret, she did something unexpected and extraordinary. She happily encouraged her spouse to be Laura more and more, until at last there was no Leonard at all, only the lovely Laura--who happened to be just the perfect height, for a girl. And that was just the beginning of a process of total ...

Young Eliot was not a very happy young man. But when his twin sister proposed that they switch places, a new life opened up and Eliot found a new life in Becoming Eleanor. But becoming a girl, natural as it was, created complications for both, complications that created tensions in their family and friends. This is a coming of age Transgender Tale of self-discovery, romance, and the difficulties young transgender people can face in a world that isn't always accepting of their decisions.

Globalization and the next generation of organizational challenges require new kinds of leadership. Diane Woods of Levi Strauss and Co. explains how to employ specific strategies to leverage the richness of a diverse workforce. She explores the link between global competition and diversity and explains how such diversity is vital to an organization's transformation and regeneration.

A Transgender Tale worthy of the Twilight Zone, a Sci-Fi story of a most improbable event: Jake Miller was a young man who lived a boring life as a cog in a great corporate machine. But Jake also had a secret life: as Denise. And Denise increasingly felt like the real person while Jake became something less, more a performance than a person. Until one summer solstice, when it was Denise who awoke in bed, in place of Jake. And all the world insisted there was no Jake Miller, there had always and only been Denise. It was a dream come true--permanent and complete feminine transformation. Until...

Since I was eleven or so, I've had two extraordinary aspects to my life. The first was that, even though I had been born as James Patterson, I knew, in my heart, that I was a girl. But aspects of my life had been preventing me from becoming Melinda fully. The second extraordinary thing was a recurring dream about a place I called the Night Festival. And then a third extraordinary thing happened: I met Veronica--a beautiful and astonishing trans woman, who somehow fell in love with me. This is our story. And all the extraordinary things that happened once I met her.

Seventeen skilled and diverse writers, united by their experience of chronic post-infectious illness, offer their thoughts on everything from gaslighting and grieving to birds and baking. Funny, poignant, desperate or reflective: this collection has it all. Dip into it occasionally or read it from cover-to-cover - whatever you choose you’ll find it rewarding.

The second adventure of Shenandoahte Isarren, teenaged transgender witch-in-training. In this new magical tale of witches, warlocks, and unknown ancient terror, Shenandoah has to contend with the return of the Gorgon, the adversary that has haunted and harmed her family since her birth. She also has to figure out what the Gallowglass might be, and how to deal with a spreading evil that threatens not only her future but the future of everyone she loves. Adventure, romance, and sorcery combine in this Transgender Tale of mysticism, magic, intrigue, and adventure. For all ages, from teen ...

The true behind the scenes story of the World's Greatest Transgender Superhero. That's me, by the way. Pelagia. No matter what you've been told, or read about me, here's the actual story. About how I gained the powers of Isis Pelagia and eventually joined the Protectors and helped defeat Doctor Dominus and the Overlords and...well, just read the book. It'll tell all you ever wanted to know about how I went from a typical suburban teenage boy to being the Guardian of Earth, Sea, and Sky. No radioactive spiders were harmed in the production of this story, either.

In the process of creating some of the most famous children in literature, Charles Dickens revolutionized the storytelling technique by making children the focus of many of his novels. Until Dickens, most novelists featured adult characters who served as role models to the reader. Professor Polhemus shows how Dickens broke tradition by using children as a way of candidly reflecting the dynamics of society.