"Your heart's pounding, you sweat, and you feel like you're going to vomit..."

Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise is far from the only celebrity to overcome bullying to attain huge success. If bullying is a problem for many in high school, it is even more of a problem for those who are different - which often means those who are particularly gifted in some way. What a bully makes a curse may later turn to be a great gift. But too many young people give up before that can happen, turning to substance abuse or even suicide.

This collection of original monologues looks at this national problem from many different points of view: those of the victims and the bullies, of teachers and parents, of bystanders who may or may not step in. It focuses on high school, but also looks at how bullying occurs in college and the adult world, and at the scars it may leave years later. The book is intended both for actors and for those who want to make others aware of the issues around an experience that is too familiar to too many.