A Tribe of Warrior Women
By Melissa Springer
Crane Hill Publishers, 1996
Using dramatic photographs and personal vignettes, photojournalist Melissa Springer profiles 32 courageous women who talk openly and honestly about life after being diagnosed with breast cancer. With an introduction by Marcia Ann Gillespie, Springer captures the harsh reality of this disease - which will affect one out of eight American women sometime in their lives - while at the same time celebrating the indomitable strength and spirit of these "warrior women."

Link to Amazon.com

Important Things
By Melissa Springer
Crane Hill Publishers, 1998
"What object holds the most meaning for your life? What represents everything you hold precious? What will you keep for as long as you live, carefully boxed and moved from place to place as situations change: a lock of hair, a ring your mother once wore, a photograph? Perhaps it is something that doesn’t last: a fresh flower, a handful of water, or comforting chocolate. I asked a number of people to let me photograph them holding their most precious object." These are the words from the beginning of the book, Important Things, by Melissa Springer, which takes a photographic look at symbols of significance.

Link to Amazon.com

Salvation on Sand Mountain
By Dennis Covington
Photography by Melissa Springer and Jim Neel
Penguin, 1996
After Covington, a writing instructor at the University of Alabama, novelist (Lizard) and freelance journalist, covered the trial of a preacher convicted of attempting to murder his wife with rattlesnakes, he was invited to attend a snake-handling service in Scottsville, Ala. He found the service exhilarating and unsettling; he felt a kinship with the people, for he was only two generations removed from the hill country of Appalachia. Of Scottish-Irish descent, the handlers are religious mystics who believe in demons, drink strychnine and drape rattlesnakes around their bodies. Covington attended other services with Brother Carl Porter; he eventually handled a huge rattlesnake, and recalls that at the time, he felt absolutely no fear. This is a captivating glimpse of an exotic religious sect.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Link to Amazon.com

The Spirit of the Family
By Al and Tipper Gore
Cover photograph by Melissa Springer
Henry Holt and Co., 2000
This book begins with an excellent objective-to portray the dramatic changes in the American family over the past two generations-and the Gores did a fine job of selecting and arranging an outstanding collection of photographs. The 260 color and black-and-white images are by some of the finest contemporary photographers in North America, including Sally Mann, Mary Ellen Mark, Tina Barney, Mitch Epstein, Lee Friedlander, and Nicholas Nixon. However, the book consists almost entirely of these loosely strung-together photographs, with only brief, informal comments by the authors buried among the early pages and occasional, distracting snippets of quotes. Not a single photograph is captioned, and the fine photographers are credited only in the small print at the end of the volume. The publisher sees this volume as an excellent complement to the Gores' recent Joined at the Heart, but other than the concept of family, no substantive connection is apparent. Carefully selected and beautifully reproduced, the photographs are nothing short of brilliant. Yet so many questions go unasked and so many issues are not addressed that one is left disappointed. For comprehensive Collections.
--Raymond Bial, Parkland Coll. Lib., Champaign, IL
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Link to Amazon.com

Picturing the south
Edited by Ellen Dugan
Chronicle Books, 1996
A visual and literary chronicle of the cultural heritage of the South, this outstanding collection of photographs includes work by Melissa Springer, Walker Evans, Carrie Mae Weems Edward Weston, Sallie Mann, and many more, along with short essays by such Southern writers as Bobbie Ann Mason, Willie Morris, and Josephine Humphreys.

Link to Amazon.com