I read a lot of heartbreaking books. Not surprising, I guess, considering I read mostly motherhood literature and there’s a lot of heartbreak possible with the whole motherhood thing. Oh, I realize that there are funny books about motherhood out there, as well—I’ve actually been told that those are the only ones that sell—but those…
Just a shout out to all the dads out there. Happy Father’s Day! There are some really wonderful Father’s Day pieces up at Literary Mama this month. I especially love Sheila Squillante’s “All Things Edible, Random, and Odd.” Enjoy!
Thanks to everyone who submitted a haiku for the Annual Mother Words Haiku Contest. Laura has a challenging task ahead of her! I’ll post her choice for winner in the next day or two. On to books: I just finished Kathleen Melin’s lovely book, By Heart: A Mother’s Story of Children and Learning at Home,…
I love the latest Literary Reflections essay, up now at Literary Mama. “A Work in Progress” is about learning to balance motherhood and writing, and about the author’s realization that becoming a mother did not squelch her need/desire to write. Jennifer Itell is lovely. She teaches creative writing at the University of Denver and is…
I have been reading Brevity for years and I’ve dreamt of being published there. The first two pieces I submitted (one in 2004 and one in 2005) were both excerpts of Ready for Air. In each case, I tried to condense a scene or chapter from my memoir into a 750-word essay. It didn’t work.…
I have to post links to two wonderful essays: I love Victoria Patterson’s “Writer Duck,” up now at Literary Mama. (It was also the first essay I worked on as a Literary Mama editor, so, well, there’s that.) And then this wonderful short-short, “July 3rd,” by one of my lovely students just won honorable mention…
Perhaps you noticed that I didn’t post about too many books or essays this fall. I was just in over my head and apparently incapable of digesting anything literary after the girls were in bed. But I’m happy to report that I’m reading again—finally—and I have a ton of exciting books to post about in…
In preparation for my Writing Parenthood class last Saturday, I thought I should shift my gaze (at least for a few minutes) from motherhood literature to fatherhood literature. I designed Writing Parenthood, after all, because I had received a few (subdued) pleas that I include men in my Mother Words classes. But you see, I…
Over the last couple of months I have been slowly making my way through Elrena Evans’ and Caroline Grant’s Mama PhD: Women Write about Motherhood and Academic Life. Anthologies are a perfect fit for my life right now. I don’t need hours at a time of quiet (clearly an impossibility) to immerse myself in a…
Just in case you’ve been worrying about my cough, wondering if I made it through Bernard Cooper’s reading on Friday night without hacking up a lung, I’ll tell you right away that I did. I *did not* begin to cough so hard and relentlessly that I threw up, as I did, say, earlier on Friday,…