Posts tagged ‘writing’

This Week at Literary Mama

It’s always gratifying to update Literary Mama on Sundays and see pieces–some of which I first read several months ago–find their broad audience. I try to give each just a quick final read–they’ve all been through a couple rounds of editing and copyediting, but sometimes I might catch a stray typo–still, inevitably I forget myself and get drawn into the essay or story or poem as if for the first time.

This week, there’s Hilary Meyerson’s beautiful Voice: A Study in the Writer’s Art, which begins with a nightmare like one I’ve had myself:

The night before my daughter started kindergarten, I had a nightmare. . .that I was nine months pregnant with a third child. Not just pregnant, but in labor. In typical dream-reality, I had missed the pregnancy signs until labor was imminent. My dream voice broke as I told my husband that this child would be born September third, two days after the crucial September first enrollment cut-off date. Didn’t he understand? It meant that it would be almost six more years before this third child started kindergarten. Six more years before I’d have all the kids in school, before I could finally begin my new life as a writer. I woke in a sweat, grasping my belly, relieved to find it still less firm than I’d like, but not in fact, housing a third child.

In Children’s Lit Book Group, Libby writes about a different transition, as kids finish school and move away from home:

It’s back to school time around here. Four of my friends have packed sons or daughters off to college for the first time and are learning how to reconfigure patterns set over the last eighteen years of parenthood. As my friends face their new version of parenthood, their children have the gift of an extended transition, a prolonged adolescence as they negotiate the four years of college.

This month’s poems focus on a place dear to my heart: the kitchen! In Elizabeth Bruno’s Kitchen Daffodils: “their necks tilt Vincent-gold toward the glass.” In Cookie Bakers, Lois Parker Edstrom listens to “radio tuned to Queen for a Day”. I empathize with Yvonne Pearson who writes, in Eaten Alive, “All day I feed and I feed.” And finally Ann Walters notes, In the Kitchen, “A gingham tablecloth makes a fine parachute.”

And finally, I confess I got as caught up as the next girl in the gossip and hoopla surrounding Sarah Palin’s nomination as VP on the Republican ticket: I was up late reading blogs, looking at pictures, wondering what to make of the story, all the while feeling increasingly queasy about the way she and her family were being portrayed — and all my reading about it. So, since I’m in the fortunate position of knowing lots of good and thoughtful writers, I suggested to LM’s columns editors that we put put out a call for some op-eds on the topic, and I’m delighted with the pieces we received this week.

First, we have our own Subarctic Mama, Nicole Stellon O’Donnell, unpacking “The Sarah Myth:”

I never voted for Sarah Palin. Politically, we don’t get along… But I did like her. I’ve never liked any politician so unlike myself so much. Many of my liberal pro-choice mom friends liked her too. She was an Alaskan after all–a mom like me, bundling babies in snowsuits and dragging them around in sleds. She nursed and governed. She seemed real, someone who, despite our differences, I could talk to. Like everyone else in this giant, small state, I was on a first name basis with her. “Sarah,” I’d say if I ever ran into her at the airport, “Hello.”

And in a terrific complement to her piece, Mama, PhD contributor Rebecca Steinitz writes about “Sarah Palin’s Kids, Our Kids:”

On the third night of the Republican National Convention, Sarah Palin finally spoke up. The next morning I woke up to a front-page article in The Boston Globe, announcing that Sarah Palin has reignited the mommy wars.

No kidding. Birth plans, breastfeeding, working moms, teenagers and sex: it’s like the national conversation has become one big mommy kaffeklatsch. Or one big mommy driveby, as women across the country wonder how Palin does it–when they’re not condemning her for doing it.

I couldn’t be prouder of all this writing if I’d written it myself; click on over to Literary Mama to check it out!

And the winner is…

Grateful Gramma wins the Writing Motherhood paperback giveaway; thanks to all of you who entered. I’ll look for another book to give away next month!

Writing Motherhood Paperback Giveaway!


Part of my wonderful Mother’s Day this year involved attending a reading/writing workshop with Lisa Garrigues, with whom I’ve corresponded since I reviewed her book, Writing Motherhood, for MotherTalk. She was in town to celebrate the paperback release of her book, and so a friend and I drove out to the event, where everyone got a chance to write a bit, share their work if they liked, and offer feedback. Somehow within just a few minutes, under Lisa’s guidance, small groups of strangers were offering thoughtful feedback on each other’s work. It was a great way to spend the afternoon.

Today, when I got home from collecting Ben at school, I found the paperback in the mail, courtesy of Lisa’s publisher. Now it’s a beautiful book, and if I didn’t already own the hardcover (now signed!) I’d keep it, too. But that just seems greedy. So, lovely readers, I’m hosting a giveaway. Leave a comment on this post by the end of the week and I will pick a winner at random.

And in case you missed my earlier review, here it is again; it still holds up–though now my copy of Lisa’s book is a bit battered from use. (I’ve updated the final paragraph to reflect changes at Literary Mama.)

Very early on the morning of July 4th, 2001, I climbed out of bed and took a pregnancy test. As I waited for the result, I left the stick resting on the edge of the bathroom sink and sat down at my desk to write a few lines on my computer. A few minutes later, I went back and added some more thoughts, trying to absorb the fact that I was pregnant.

That was the start of my mothering journal.

I’d kept journals sporadically in the past: a small, cream- colored book my aunt gave me before a high school month in England; a cloth-bound book I bought before my junior year at Oxford University. But when I didn’t have a discrete period of time to document, I could never keep a journal going. I’d get fed up with myself for using it as a dumping ground for my complaints about adolescent life, or I’d get hung up with worry about someone finding it.

But this time was different. I’d just started a new job, I was pregnant, Tony and I bought a house: my life was changing fast, changing permanently, and I wanted to keep track of my thoughts.

That January, my computer crashed and took my journal with it. I lost teaching notes, syllabi, years’ worth of emails, but it was the journal’s loss that made me cry. It took me a few days to regain perspective (I hadn’t lost the baby, I kept having to remind myself, only the writing about the baby), but when I did, I took myself to a good art supply store and bought a nice journal with lined pages and an elastic strap to keep it closed.

And now I have a neat pile of six on the bottom shelf of my bedside table, with the current one, a pen in the middle holding my place, on the top shelf next to my lip balm, the current New Yorker, and a water glass.

I’ve kept it going.

The problem, though, was that before long the journal was not enough. I’d start something, jot down a funny thing Ben did or make an observation about my new life, and then it would sit there, undeveloped. I didn’t have any compelling reason to develop my thoughts into an essay. And after years of steady writing in graduate school, culminating in a nearly 300-page dissertation, I didn’t really even know how to write an essay about myself. I cast about for a year or so, writing unfinished essays during Ben’s naps, not knowing what to do with them. Eventually I lucked into a writing group and from there landed a position at Literary Mama and, between the gentle pressure of my monthly turn to present at writing group and the inspiration of the essays I edit, I found my way to a regular writing gig, a book, and a new life as a writer.

But it all would have been much simpler if I’d had Lisa Garrigues book, Writing Motherhood, back then.

I confess, I haven’t read any other writing books, so I have nothing to compare this to. Well, that’s not even quite right; I haven’t finished any other writing books. I’ve poked around Bird by Bird (and found it quite useful when I do), read a few lines of Writing Down the Bones, but I’ve always gotten a little impatient with the books, always had a moment when I realized, “Wait… no one’s asking me for snack, no one needs a dry diaper, I should be writing!” and put them down. So one of the things I like most about Garrigues’ book is that she invites you to do just that. It is not a book to read cover to cover (although I did, for this review, and it holds up perfectly well to that sustained attention), but one to pick up and read for twenty minutes when you have an hour free, or five minutes when you have ten: pick it up, find your inspiration, put the book down, and write. Because just as no one learns to parent by reading parenting books, no one learns to write without writing.

I like the bold orange cover of this book, which won’t get lost on my desk; that bright flash will always peek out from under the messy pile of drafts, bills, and Ben’s latest train drawings, and remind me to write. I like her tone, which is encouraging and friendly throughout; she leaves behind any kind of authoritative teacher voice and comes across as a woman you’d happily share a coffee with. Garrigues calls her writing prompts “invitations,” another subtle way that she manages to lighten up the task of setting down to write. And I like that she gives you lots and lots of good stuff to read, because the most important work in becoming a writer, after writing, is, of course, reading. Garrigues gives you her own short essays (on topics ranging from copying other writers, to marriage, to mama playdates); some of the little essays are hardly about writing at all, but about mothering, and then as she comes to the end and crystallizes the feeling that she’s expressed in the essay, she neatly raises a question for your own writing. She provides sample “mother’s pages” (essays written by her students), and she offers loads of great quotations from other writers. She also offers concrete advice on everything from buying a writer’s notebook to setting up a productive workspace. I have both of those things, but I still picked up a couple good ideas from her. She closes the book with an entire section on moving from new writer to a writer seeking connection and publication, with ideas on setting up and maintaining writing groups and taking one’s writing public. And then, in case there weren’t already enough ideas to keep you going in the text of the book, she offers a list of 99 writing starts and a bibliography.

I am keeping this review short because, inspired by Garrigues book, I want to get back to my writing! But I want to leave you with a couple quotations. The first, from Annie Dillard, resonated with me right now as I struggle to clear
space in my days to write:

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days.

And now here’s Garrigues:

This book is, in part, a story of growing up and into a role I claimed for myself.

Is she talking about mothering or writing?! The point, as she claims throughout the book, is that the two are not mutually exclusive but complimentary roles that feed and develop each other. We should take advantage of that fact, and make time to write our lives.

Garrigues teaches writing classes, and those of you in the NY/NJ area should check them out. For anyone looking for on-line writing classes, I highly recommend Susan Ito’s parent lit workshop (which I have taken) and the poetry workshops led by Violeta Garcia-Mendoza (an editor at LiteraryMama). Literary Mama is now offering monthly writing prompts, with personal feedback from the Literary Reflections editorial staff, as well as listings of workshops and other resources for writers. So get writing!

Calling all Mama Writers!


Literary Mama’s Literary Reflections department is seeking personal essays about writing as a mother, reading as a mother, or developing a career as a professional mother-writer. If any of you have such an essay in your portfolio or an idea brewing along these lines, we welcome your participation. Also, pass along this call to any other writers/mothers who may have an interest in submitting to LM.

Click here for the complete submissions guidelines.

Literary Mama Columns


I’ve been meaning to point you all away from my blog and toward the Literary Mama columns for a couple weeks now, ever since the latest installment of Libby‘s (on the question of boy books vs girl books) and Elrena‘s (on the question of the Bible’s setting boy rules and girl rules…) fabulous pieces.

Now, those columns have been joined by a whole new cycle: Susan Ito’s sweet Valentine to her husband; Ericka Lutz’s funny piece on binge writing; Ona Gritz’s and Rebecca Kaminsky’s different reflections on self-image; and Shari MacDonald Strong’s beautiful dream for a better world. So head on over to Literary Mama and dive in.

(the image is for Shari’s column; you can start there, but be warned: you’ll have “Yellow Submarine”thrumming through your head the rest of the day!)

A Life in Just Six Words


Inspired by Hemingway, who (maybe) wrote:
“For sale: baby shoes. Never Worn.”
6-word memoirs by various writers.

My “memoir” earned a comp copy.
The entry? Inspired by my book:
“Closed a door, opened a life.”
Pretentious? perhaps, but certainly heartfelt, true.

I can’t put the book down!
My copy from e-friend Felicia Sullivan.
Her entry, page 150, quoted here:
“Weird quiet girl, fading from view.”
Others worth a look; my sister’s:
“Learned reading, writing, forgot arithmetic”
(Though note, it’s only five words!)

Also love this, from Ariana Huffington:
“Fearlessness is the mother of reinvention.”
And also, from writer Daniel Handler:
“What? Lemony Snicket? Lemony Snicket? What?”
or commercial approach from Martha Clarkson:
“Detergent girl: Bold. Tide. Cheer. All.”
And a thoughtful entry; Arthur Harris:
“Good, evil use the same font.”
Brilliant understatement from Roy Blount, Jr:
“Maybe you had to be there.”
And I relate to Barb Piper:
“Rich in degrees and student loans”
Ayelet Waldman always makes me laugh:
“New Jersey to California. Thank god.”

Get the book; read some more.

Nice Timing


The fortune in my cookie tonight:

The world will soon be ready to receive your talents.

And they’re ready to be received.

Movie Minutes


Atonement: There was one moment in this otherwise too-dramatic-for-me film that I found moving, when the wrongly imprisoned young man, about to head to France to serve the rest of his jail term fighting in World War Two, meets with his young love and reaches a trembling hand out to touch her hand. That was it. At the end of the movie, when Vanessa Redgrave shows up to play the aged writer, the woman whose story had sent a man to jail and to war, I caught a glimpse of how interesting the novel must be. But I didn’t think the film was, very.

Winter Passing: The premise of this sounded so intriguing. An editor contacts the grown daughter of two esteemed writers, offering her $100,000 for publication rights to their love letters. The daughter, who is down and out, grieving the recent death of her mother and estranged from her father, thinks this might be an easy way to make some money, and goes home to collect the letters. Her father is a drunk and mired in writer’s block; one of his students, a woman somewhat younger than his daughter, lives with him as his cook and housekeeper (she’s thankfully not too fawning, nor does she seem to be sleeping with him — which would have been a tired old eww!), while Will Ferrell works as his handyman and security guard. If you love Will Ferrell, then maybe you could get past Ed Harris as the annoying cliche of the wild alcoholic writer, because Ferrell’s performance is compelling and nuanced. But I don’t love Will Ferrell enough. This is one of those movies that referred to, but did not tell, the story that interested me: the mom! What did she write, and what was her relationship with her daughter like, and what was her marriage like, and what did she write? What did she write?!? Oh, well.

My Kid Could Paint That: Oh, this one kept Tony and me up talking way past our bedtime! This is a documentary about Marla Olmstead, a child who paints. Because her father is a painter, and he wanted to get some work done one day, he gave her a canvas, some paints and brushes, and got to work while his daughter covered her canvas with a bright, abstract, typical preschool painting. Except, you know, on a proper canvas with quality paints, so it looked really, really good. A friend saw it and asked to hang it in his cafe, where a gallery owner saw it and asked if there were more, and before long, four year-old Marla Olmstead had a show. And then buyers. And then another show. And then some press. And then some very big sales. And then of course came the skeptics, led by 60 Minutes, to suggest that her daddy was really directing, if not in fact just doing, the paintings himself.

But the “Is she or isn’t she?” question wasn’t really the question that interested me so much. First, there’s the problem of abstract art (which we happen to be fans of in this house), and people’s strong reactions against it: It’s too easy; anyone can throw paint on a canvas and say “It’s a painting!” It doesn’t tell a story. It’s impossible to evaluate its quality (because of its refusal to represent “reality”). It thumbs its nose at the viewer as if to say, If you don’t like me, it’s because you’re not smart enough to get me. In the documentary, the strongest voice against abstract art happens to be the gallery owner representing Marla, a photo-realist painter who devotes months to a single painting and is peeved at how quickly she produces work. But not peeved enough to avoid making a buck on it.

But what made Tony and me both really sad was one tiny moment toward the end of the film, when Marla is painting and asks her dad to paint with her. And because of the skeptics, and because of all the money involved, he has to say no. The minute he kneels down to paint a picture with his little girl, the whole structure of her career collapses. But it seemed to me that their family had collapsed in some important way already, without their even noticing.

Persepolis: I thought the books were very good, though they didn’t knock me out (they’d been built up too much, I’m afraid). But at the risk of building up anticipation for the film too much, I thought it was spectacular. Here’s a rare instance when translating a book to film opens it up and deepens it; rather than the flat black & white images on the page (which are quite moving in their simplicity), the film gives you black & white and a thousand shades in between, moving subtly on screen, with incredible depth and beauty. Yes, the story’s been simplified a bit, but the film tells such a compelling story, I had to sit in the theater a while after it had emptied out and collect myself before I could leave.

Blog Day for Patry Francis


The call to participate in a blog day for Patry Francis attracted my attention because I’d just enjoyed reading her profile on Literary Mama. To learn that she’s too ill, right now, from cancer treatment to promote her book, The Liar’s Diary, attracted my sympathy.

I don’t know Francis, and I admit I haven’t read her book, but having just started work on a publicity plan for my own book, I feel terrible at the thought of someone publishing a book and not being able to support it with readings and other events. It’s like putting your kid on a school bus for the first day of kindergarten and saying, “Bye! Good luck! See you at the end of the year!”

So if my writing about her writing can help raise attention to her work, I’m happy to participate. Here’s an excerpt from her profile that struck a chord with me:

I really admire writers who can get a lot of work done when their children are small. I was never one of them. For me, trying to understand who each child was and what they needed to grow and develop their own talents took all the creativity I had. There was no room for me to ponder the inner life of characters. Though I made many outlines and filled notebooks with ideas for the novels I hoped to write, nothing much was finished while there was a child under six in the house.

Writing, if it’s genuine and honest, is an act of supreme empathy. In writing a novel, I struggle to understand my characters, to accept their strengths and weaknesses, to allow them the freedom to be themselves (even when it doesn’t fit in with my plans), to celebrate them, forgive them and then to let them go. When you think of it, it’s very similar to the arc of parenting.

I also think my dedication to my work, both when I met with success and during the long years when I didn’t, has had a positive influence on my children. It’s taught them that if you truly love what you do, the process itself is always the greatest reward.

I have always loved my role as a mother, but I am also grateful to have something that is all my own. As my children are growing older and beginning to leave home, there is a sense of nostalgia and even loss, but that is counter-balanced by the joy I have in my other life: my work. Knowing that mom is busy and happy is also making the transition easier for the children. And, oh yes, one more thing: they are so proud of me.

And now go check out her blog, where she’s got many more lovely reflections on writing. And then (don’t forget!), check out her book, which sounds like a good creepy read for a winter’s night.

cross-posted at Literary Mama

Mama at the Movies: Juno


My, there’s quite a lot of ink being shed on this film! And my little column doesn’t cover all I could say about it, either, but here’s an excerpt from my contribution to the conversation:

The best thing the new movie Juno (Jason Reitman, 2007) achieves as it traces the impact of one teenager’s unplanned pregnancy is its refusal to shy away from the complexities and odd juxtapositions of life; in fact, it embraces them, insisting that we look at the messiness of relationships, the rapidly shifting peaks and valleys of emotional intelligence, so that we can begin to understand how a smart girl could have sex without birth control and how a sensitive girl could give a child up for adoption. When sixteen year-old Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) discovers she’s pregnant, she puts her head in a noose — made out of licorice ropes (she frees herself by taking a savage bite). When she contacts a clinic to arrange an abortion, she makes the call on a hamburger-shaped telephone. Her boyfriend, the father of her child, sleeps in a racecar-shaped bed. As Juno responds when her dad asks where she’s been, “Out dealing with things way beyond my maturity level.”

You can read the rest of my column here at Literary Mama. And while you’re there, check out some of our other columns and a new book review, too!