Posts Tagged ‘fiction’
Mother Writers and the Hostile Reader
It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a class/workshop situation not heavily populated by mothers. Most of my classes, if not entirely made up of mother writers, are at least populated by a significant numbers of mothers. And that’s because that’s what I do: I help mothers write the stories they need to…
Read Morean hour a week
In the last week, we have made trips to the ER, the doctor’s office, and the Minute Clinic. Zoë was hit with croup and had trouble breathing last week (hence the ER visit). She was up, feverish and coughing, for nights on end. Then this weekend, while D was out of town, Stella developed a…
Read Moremothers and daughters
If you’ve been reading my posts in the last few weeks, you know that as I sat next to my grandpa the week he was dying, I was reading Rae Meadows’ new novel Mothers and Daughters. It was the perfect novel to read as I said goodbye to Spencer because so much of the story for…
Read Morequietly joyful
Both D and I were out with the stomach flu last week, and I’m having trouble getting back in the groove. Usually illnesses don’t keep me away from my computer; I work even when I’m not feeling well. But the stomach flu is, of course, a different kind of animal, and for much of the…
Read Moreplot, narrative urgency, and children’s lit
The other day Stella went to the library with my mom and she came home with The Boxcar Children. When she pulled it out of the library bag, I started to squeal, “Oh that was one of my favorite books growing up. I can’t wait to read it to you!” I could tell she was…
Read Moreremedies
The genre I post most often about on this blog is memoir, because, well, I’m a memoirist, and teach creative nonfiction. But I also love fiction. I love novels! I especially love to come across novels by emerging writers, and especially if these writers happen to be mothers. So you can imagine how excited I…
Read Morechange of scene
I spent the weekend at my mom’s cabin up north (which is what we natives say when we’re talking about Northern Minnesota.) The weather was perfect: sunny and warm during the day, cool in the evening. Stella played and argued and played with her cousin, and Zoë played in the sand and ate the moldy…
Read Moreblack box and an interview with julie schumacher
A couple of months ago, I discussed Julie Schumacher’s essay “A Support Group is My Higher Power,” which appeared in the New York Times’ Modern Love column. I was struck by this piece, which rang true to me and resonated with my own writing about Stella’s birth. Today I’m going to discuss her latest young…
Read Morehow far is the ocean from here
I’m here at the coffee shop near my house, the one where I wrote the majority of Ready for Air, and it’s exactly where I need to be. The sun is streaming in the windows and I’m all by myself (with the exception of the other customers, of course, but I don’t have to carry…
Read Morereading again
D will be home tonight. He’s been gone for ten days with his new job. I doubt the timing, with Zoe just four weeks old when he left, could have been any worse, but there was nothing we could do about it, so he went. Stella missed him a ton. Yesterday morning, she was watching…
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