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…
Read MoreJust 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!
Read MoreThanks 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,…
Read MoreI 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…
Read MoreI 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.…
Read MoreI 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…
Read MorePerhaps 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…
Read MoreIn 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…
Read MoreOver 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…
Read MoreJust 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,…
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