Happy Mother's Day!

What else does Mother's Day make you think of but shopping?

Flowers, candies, chocolates...books!

New motherhood can run the gamut from simply exhausting to severe-depression inducing, and a card once a year makes it all worth while.

Seriously, now, there is no other time like that first year: intense, overwhelming, amazing, acute. That's the main reason I wrote my first novel--when my son was nine months old. I'd never known anything like it, despite what friends and family had told me. And every time I talk to a new mother, my heart responds in sympathy.

So I've concocted a Mother's Day challenge. For every person who gives a copy of my novel, THIS LITTLE MOMMY STAYED HOME, to a new mother (first year of motherhood) in her/his life, I will donate two dollars to MotherWoman. MotherWoman is an incredible local (to the Amherst, Mass) resource for mothers of all kinds and stage. If you don't know a new mother to give the novel to, you can simply blog about the challenge and the book, and send me the link, and I will donate two dollars to MotherWoman. (When you visit their link you can also see their mother's day fund raiser.)

True, there's some shameless self-promotion in here. I DO want people to buy the book. But it's also been powerful for me to receive the letters and emails from the mothers who have read it who feel that it is has helped them tremendously. Here are a few samples from a few of these--and keep in mind these are all people I do not know. (And I didn't bribe or pay them to say these things!)

It is 5:00 am, that terrible time you describe in your book when it's too early to get up and too late to go back to sleep - I've been up since 2, actually, and just finished your book - I cannot even tell you how much it helped me... thank you, thank you. --A Massachusetts Mama

Thank you for writing the book This Little Mommy Stayed Home. It was one of the best books I have ever read, honestly. Very truthful, very funny, very real. Reading your book helped me focus on something else, and laugh along with you. It was great, and I am so thankful that I found your book to help me through the hard times. I am just sad that I am done with the book now. --An Iowa Mama

I just wanted to write you to let you know how much I'm enjoying "This Little Mommy Stayed Home." I've been reading it non-stop (in my "free" time between working full time and taking care of my four year old daughter) and I am so amazed by how funny, accurate, and wonderful this book is! I just took it with me on my lunch break and almost started to cry (I am toward the end now). You've captured everything I was feeling as a new mom and it's really made me think about and remember how hard that first year was. --West Coast Mama

Thank you for the gift of this book. --NYC Mama

That's just a small sample!

Here's all you need to do: Give a copy to a new mom. Pick one up at a local bookstore, at Cradle, in Northampton, or online.
OR
Blog about the challenge and the book (if you don't know a new mom) to spread the word to other new moms.
Then, drop me a line at wildemama@hotmail.com and let me know. I will donate $2 for every book given or blog posted. I would love to make more than a small offering to MotherWoman! (More than ten bucks, anyway!) They do so much good for women in a time when we really need it--when don't we need it?