I'm talking about mamas, motherhood, writing about women's issues, and that dreaded F-word, Feminism, with the wonderful women of Yeah, What She Said.
"Yeah, What She Said is Calgary’s only feminist/women’s radio program.
Each week your hosts Jennie, Allison, Cherise and Emily explore various
issues that affect women locally, nationally and globally.
As the voice of Calgary’s feminist community we inform you about
upcoming events and interview local women who are doing amazing things.
We also bring you women’s stories and news from around the globe,
exploring a wide range of feminist topics from serious issues like
prostitution to fun shows on pop culture.
Most importantly, we give a voice to women, introduce the public to
feminist ideas, and hopefully leave you questioning, thinking and
wanting to know more!"
Listen in.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Thursday, April 4, 2013
I Am Trying To Say Something About What Matters
Where have I been this past week?
I made a mini-movie. I want you to share it with every mother you know.
I got to visit the awesome Luxury Reading site with a guest post: Monsters, Dragons, Castles, And Other Things I Don’t (Really) Write About.
When you visit, stay awhile. There is so much to read. It's a wonderful resources for book lovers.
You can find out five things you probably didn't know about me at the lovely Shelf Pleasures site. I just love their web decor. I also wrote a piece for them about the journey I'll Take What She Had took to get to publication called The Little Book That Could.
I got truly gleeful seeing my book on the new release table at Amherst Books, my favorite local store where I order all my books.
I spent my blogging April Fool's day with the fabulous women's fiction writer Marilyn Brant on her Brant Flakes blog. If you need a laugh, read this!
Tomorrow I go for an interview for the Boston television program The Literati Scene.
It will air in May and I'll keep everyone posted for that!
I can't wait to visit Book Ends in Winchester, MA for a reading and signing April 29 at 7 p.m. I hope all my Boston area friends will come out and have a book party with me!
In all this doing, I really am trying to say something about what matters to me, that in my work and life I can speak into the lives of other mothers and women with humor and honesty. Let me know if I can come talk to your book group or your local bookstore. Book groups that are far away can have a virtual/Skype visit. Help keep me busy, please! My children certainly don't ;-)
I made a mini-movie. I want you to share it with every mother you know.
I got to visit the awesome Luxury Reading site with a guest post: Monsters, Dragons, Castles, And Other Things I Don’t (Really) Write About.
When you visit, stay awhile. There is so much to read. It's a wonderful resources for book lovers.
You can find out five things you probably didn't know about me at the lovely Shelf Pleasures site. I just love their web decor. I also wrote a piece for them about the journey I'll Take What She Had took to get to publication called The Little Book That Could.I got truly gleeful seeing my book on the new release table at Amherst Books, my favorite local store where I order all my books.
I spent my blogging April Fool's day with the fabulous women's fiction writer Marilyn Brant on her Brant Flakes blog. If you need a laugh, read this!
Tomorrow I go for an interview for the Boston television program The Literati Scene.
It will air in May and I'll keep everyone posted for that!
I can't wait to visit Book Ends in Winchester, MA for a reading and signing April 29 at 7 p.m. I hope all my Boston area friends will come out and have a book party with me!
In all this doing, I really am trying to say something about what matters to me, that in my work and life I can speak into the lives of other mothers and women with humor and honesty. Let me know if I can come talk to your book group or your local bookstore. Book groups that are far away can have a virtual/Skype visit. Help keep me busy, please! My children certainly don't ;-)
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Why Size Has Nothing To Do With It
So the Duggars are back on TV which means I have something to watch and all my friends have some ammunition for making fun of me.
I have been open and honest about my love for the Duggars for years. I think it could make a great headline: "Feminist Liberal Loves Conservative, Republican Clan-Family." It's also nice to give my friends and family a reason to think I'm crazy because then they can feel better about themselves and, as everyone knows, I'm all about helping people feel good.
Quick re-cap for the Duggar-trivia impaired. They are a family with 19 children born from the same woman. They have fans (for their TLC show and two books), and they have detractors. When I first learned about them my husband said to me, "Google 'my vagina is a clown car.'" The kind of outrage they inspire is not hard to imagine.
One of the criticisms against the family comes from those who say that no child in a family of that size can receive the love and care he or she needs. Often those who oppose the "Duggar lifestyle" go on to describe their own experience coming from a large family and how terrible it was.
I have a friend who came from a family of eight--neglect, alcoholism, abuse. She hates large families. I have another friend who came from a similar family of eight (similar in culture, religion, age), and she loves large families. She felt cherished and enjoyed having so many siblings. I constantly ask the people I meet who come from larger families: what was it like? My conclusion based on this very casual research: size has nothing to do with family happiness.
Do you know anyone from a small family who had a bad childhood? Who felt unloved? Neglected? Overlooked? Ignored? That their parents didn't have time for them? It is very clear to me that what matters is not, in any way, the number of children, but the parents and family culture (as well as the personality of the child).
Recently I read the fascinating memoir, Call The Midwife, about a midwife working in the London dock community in the 1950s. Family size, in that area at that time, averaged six or seven. She even writes of a mother of 25 children. Yes, 25! And she says that this was a happy family full of happy children who she never heard argue!
The revelation to me (and confirmation) in the book came around family-size. Most of the families she served endured such unthinkable, impoverished living conditions that you shudder just to read it. Families with the exact same circumstances had wildly different attitudes to life, happiness, children, the world.
Frankly, I don't think a child feels loved or unloved based on the number of siblings. And if you don't believe me, go talk to your only children friends. By that theory, all only children ought to grow up feeling the most loved, secure, confident and cared-for of any children. We all know how untrue that is! Only children grow up to experience sorrow, depression, frustration and anger at their parents (um, just like people from every other family size). The Duggars are an exceptional family, but not simply in their number. The kind of industry, ambition, collaboration and ethic they live (whether you agree with it or not) justifies their popularity. They really are unique.
What do you think about family size? What was your experience in your family? I'm collecting date, so please tell me! I truly want to know.
I have been open and honest about my love for the Duggars for years. I think it could make a great headline: "Feminist Liberal Loves Conservative, Republican Clan-Family." It's also nice to give my friends and family a reason to think I'm crazy because then they can feel better about themselves and, as everyone knows, I'm all about helping people feel good.
Quick re-cap for the Duggar-trivia impaired. They are a family with 19 children born from the same woman. They have fans (for their TLC show and two books), and they have detractors. When I first learned about them my husband said to me, "Google 'my vagina is a clown car.'" The kind of outrage they inspire is not hard to imagine.
One of the criticisms against the family comes from those who say that no child in a family of that size can receive the love and care he or she needs. Often those who oppose the "Duggar lifestyle" go on to describe their own experience coming from a large family and how terrible it was.
I have a friend who came from a family of eight--neglect, alcoholism, abuse. She hates large families. I have another friend who came from a similar family of eight (similar in culture, religion, age), and she loves large families. She felt cherished and enjoyed having so many siblings. I constantly ask the people I meet who come from larger families: what was it like? My conclusion based on this very casual research: size has nothing to do with family happiness.
Do you know anyone from a small family who had a bad childhood? Who felt unloved? Neglected? Overlooked? Ignored? That their parents didn't have time for them? It is very clear to me that what matters is not, in any way, the number of children, but the parents and family culture (as well as the personality of the child).
Recently I read the fascinating memoir, Call The Midwife, about a midwife working in the London dock community in the 1950s. Family size, in that area at that time, averaged six or seven. She even writes of a mother of 25 children. Yes, 25! And she says that this was a happy family full of happy children who she never heard argue!
The revelation to me (and confirmation) in the book came around family-size. Most of the families she served endured such unthinkable, impoverished living conditions that you shudder just to read it. Families with the exact same circumstances had wildly different attitudes to life, happiness, children, the world.
Frankly, I don't think a child feels loved or unloved based on the number of siblings. And if you don't believe me, go talk to your only children friends. By that theory, all only children ought to grow up feeling the most loved, secure, confident and cared-for of any children. We all know how untrue that is! Only children grow up to experience sorrow, depression, frustration and anger at their parents (um, just like people from every other family size). The Duggars are an exceptional family, but not simply in their number. The kind of industry, ambition, collaboration and ethic they live (whether you agree with it or not) justifies their popularity. They really are unique.
What do you think about family size? What was your experience in your family? I'm collecting date, so please tell me! I truly want to know.
Friday, March 8, 2013
Wake Up, Celebrity! You Are Trending.
During my photo shoot I looked like this:
Mostly, I look like this:
Actually, this is a staged photo. I gathered up every source of chocolate in the house. But even if it wasn't a real moment in time, it captures a real feeling.
So you can imagine my surprise when I found myself mentioned on Celebrity Balla next to the words, "celebrity" and "trending." Looking at this, made my day.
Continue reading on: 5 Minutes for Books
So am I a celebrity making trending news or WHAT?
Mostly, I look like this:
Actually, this is a staged photo. I gathered up every source of chocolate in the house. But even if it wasn't a real moment in time, it captures a real feeling.
So you can imagine my surprise when I found myself mentioned on Celebrity Balla next to the words, "celebrity" and "trending." Looking at this, made my day.
10 Updates
I’ll Take What She Has
Source: 5 Minutes for Books, Mar 7 2013, 1:24pm CST
The grass is always greener on the other side, so the saying goes.
For the boarding school staff characters in Samantha Wilde’s new novel,
, this is sometimes more than just a passing thought, especially as
they see others getting just what the ...Continue reading on: 5 Minutes for Books
Topics: Parenthood, Parenthood
So am I a celebrity making trending news or WHAT?
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Six Chanes to Win the Book, I'm on the Radio, and I'm Admitting All Kinds of Things
Find out who I envy when I wish I could kill one of my characters (but I can't) at Jungle Red Writers. Today I give away a book to the best envy story.
I'm having my coming out at the Debutante Ball. I will publicly announce what animal I want to be.
Over at Free Book Friday they are giving away FIVE autographed copies of my book. And I say outrageous things like: "Show me a woman who hasn't envied and I'll show you a mannequin!"
And do not miss my interview with the wonderful Julie Joyce of Book Talk Radio. I love that woman! I could have talked to her all day. Find out why she wanted to talk to me about poop, my mother, Michelle Duggar and my own awakening. Listen in live at noon today at WMRN where it will also air again later in the day. If you miss it, you can listen anytime to the archived version at Book Talk Radio.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Sex-Therapy, Missing Grandmothers, Infertility, Proper Foot Wear, and Your Inner Child
I wrote a book. Some people would classify it as "chick lit." I love chick lit. I like hens, too. But what's the problem with that title? People think a book classified as "chick lit" isn't about anything of substance. Or maybe they think it's about chickens lit on fire. Either way, not helpful.
I'll Take What She Has covers many topics in it's enthralling plot, among them, missing grandmothers, infertility, sex-therapy, and proper foot wear. If that isn't the stuff of The National Book Award, I don't know what is.
But one heart in the book, one thread of substance, concerns a mother, Annie, struggling with how to parent her energetic, strong willed daughter Hannah. My friends, there is nothing romantic about parenting a candidate for the World Wrestling Entertainment Network. Any parent of a powerful tycoon-tot knows that trying to mother a difficult child has many adjectives tied to it--chick and lit do not apply.
I like to tell a story in a funny way. Otherwise, we might as well all cry. And I don't like crying. In the words of an old friend of mine, "it makes me feel sad." I want to infuse the world with joyfulness and so I wrote a funny book about the agonizing struggle of coming to terms with the dreadful, appalling, and alarming fact (if you are not a parent yet, don't read these words): YOU CANNOT CONTROL YOUR CHILDREN.
The only thing a person can do, in the end, is find a way to make sure that your child, and your child's maniacal moods, don't control you.
Annie is sparked into delving deeper into the issues of her mothering by a book on her shelf: Parenting From the Inside Out. I actually own this book. I even read the first page. The book explores the idea that our own childhood effects our parenting. No lightening bulbs there, naturally, still how many of us simultaneously parent our children and re-parent ourselves? As in, get out your inner child and give her some lovin'!
I love the plot thread of Annie and Hannah. Annie complains a lot. She's funny and sassy and angry. Yet in her relationship with her daughter, in her dedication to figure out how to best mother her unique little girl, her best self gets revealed. Driven by her desire to mother better she examines her own life (who has done this? This is not easy!), her own childhood, her own motivations, and ultimately reckons with her imperfect parents and discovers a way to make peace with them (and those parts inside herself that are not perfect).
"Motherhood is so failure oriented," Annie says in one conversation with her good friend, Suze. That's two mother hens talking, but not about anything lite. Motherhood's messes are a real thing that matter very much, at least to two important people: the mother and the child.
Pulitzer Prize in Mommy Lit? Give it to me, people. I nursed a baby while I wrote the first three chapters of that book! And that's only the beginning.
I'll Take What She Has covers many topics in it's enthralling plot, among them, missing grandmothers, infertility, sex-therapy, and proper foot wear. If that isn't the stuff of The National Book Award, I don't know what is.
But one heart in the book, one thread of substance, concerns a mother, Annie, struggling with how to parent her energetic, strong willed daughter Hannah. My friends, there is nothing romantic about parenting a candidate for the World Wrestling Entertainment Network. Any parent of a powerful tycoon-tot knows that trying to mother a difficult child has many adjectives tied to it--chick and lit do not apply.
I like to tell a story in a funny way. Otherwise, we might as well all cry. And I don't like crying. In the words of an old friend of mine, "it makes me feel sad." I want to infuse the world with joyfulness and so I wrote a funny book about the agonizing struggle of coming to terms with the dreadful, appalling, and alarming fact (if you are not a parent yet, don't read these words): YOU CANNOT CONTROL YOUR CHILDREN.
The only thing a person can do, in the end, is find a way to make sure that your child, and your child's maniacal moods, don't control you.
Annie is sparked into delving deeper into the issues of her mothering by a book on her shelf: Parenting From the Inside Out. I actually own this book. I even read the first page. The book explores the idea that our own childhood effects our parenting. No lightening bulbs there, naturally, still how many of us simultaneously parent our children and re-parent ourselves? As in, get out your inner child and give her some lovin'!
I love the plot thread of Annie and Hannah. Annie complains a lot. She's funny and sassy and angry. Yet in her relationship with her daughter, in her dedication to figure out how to best mother her unique little girl, her best self gets revealed. Driven by her desire to mother better she examines her own life (who has done this? This is not easy!), her own childhood, her own motivations, and ultimately reckons with her imperfect parents and discovers a way to make peace with them (and those parts inside herself that are not perfect).
"Motherhood is so failure oriented," Annie says in one conversation with her good friend, Suze. That's two mother hens talking, but not about anything lite. Motherhood's messes are a real thing that matter very much, at least to two important people: the mother and the child.
Pulitzer Prize in Mommy Lit? Give it to me, people. I nursed a baby while I wrote the first three chapters of that book! And that's only the beginning.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Book Give-Away: I'll Take What She Has book trailer
Tell me what you think!
Less than two weeks until the I'll Take What She Has hits the shelves.
If you share the trailer on FB, Tweeter or with your email circles, leave a comment to let me know and you'll be entered to win one of 3 copies of the book. Winner announced on my author Facebook site next week.
Less than two weeks until the I'll Take What She Has hits the shelves.
If you share the trailer on FB, Tweeter or with your email circles, leave a comment to let me know and you'll be entered to win one of 3 copies of the book. Winner announced on my author Facebook site next week.
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