Mariflo Stephens, the founder of Northwood Press, is a fiction and humor writer who reads her work on public radio. She has received grants for her fiction from the Virginia Commission for the Arts. Her work has appeared in many publications including The Washington Post and the Virginia Quarterly Review. Stephens is a contributor to Simon & Schuster's The Barbie Chronicles.

The Visible Barbie Project

From the site: “The Visible Barbie Project is part of the Foundation for Unnatural Research's long-range plan for advancing the state of human knowlege of things that no normal person would ever think to wonder about.”

The Barbie Chronicles: The Living Doll Turns Forty

This site provides records the customer reviews of the The Barbie Chronicls anthology and provides a number of links related to Barbie. From the site: “The concept of this anthology is simple: collect high-quality commentary pieces on Barbie, that lightning rod of controversy, and put them in a book. This book comprises both anti- and pro-Barbie writings, and the authors find original issues to analyze (e.g., the lack of adults or old people in Barbie-land, the race issue, baby dolls vs. Barbie dolls, etc.).”

Barbie: The icon, the image, the ideal—an analytical interpretation of the Barbie doll in popular culture

From this site: “Our Barbie dolls, whether we admit it or not, understand it or not, helped to make us strong women, ready to take on the world. The author understands this and challenges the reader to acknowledge the early influences that have shaped us.”

Barbie Doesn’t Live Here Anymore