Probably only of interest to book nerds...

...is the story of how I've been rearranging my office.

Can it really be mid-July already? This summer is going by too fast!

Thinking about the Other Mother...

Sometimes my friends and I joke that we need clones—one for work and one for home, perhaps? Wouldn't it be great, some days, to have someone else to help raise the kids—someone who wouldn't be bored by the endless play with Lego, who would miraculously make healthy meals they'll eat, who would come up with rainy day activities that are fun for the whole family? Of course on bad days at work I want the clone to sit at the computer while the "real me" goes off to play with the kids. It's all a matter of perspective.

Read the rest in this month's Children's Lit Book Group column....

(cross-posted from the other blog)

Mama, PhD

If you've followed any of my blog posts on the Mama, PhD blog, you'll know that I have an essay in a book of the same name, coming out any day now. I haven't got my copy yet, but both editors have received theirs--and you can order one now, too! So, go, get it!

Perks

I am stupid-tired tonight. Maybe I'm even espresso cookie-tired, but I'm not in my own house and I can't bake. Still, I can type. (A bit.)

Why am I so tired? Mariah and I are on the accepted-student-open-house circuit. We've covered about 700 miles and two colleges in two days, and we've got one college and many more miles left before we're done. Thank goodness she can share the driving: the 500 miles yesterday would have been impossible without her. And thank goodness that our musical tastes are close enough that sharing iPods through the car stereo is pleasure rather than penance.

Thank goodness, too, for friends and family who are opening their homes to us. Last night we were at Becca's, and we got to meet S and E for the first time, and get reacquainted with M, and talk about books and school and work and blogging. And this morning Becca handed over the ARC of Jenny Davidson's forthcoming YA novel, The Explosionist, which I can hardly wait to read. (I'll review it over on the other blog when I finish it...) A fabulous blogger meet up AND a new book to read--now those are definite perks of this trip.

Tonight I'm at a blogless relative's, in the lap of luxury, then we're off to my parents' house for the weekend: another perk of the trip is that they live in between two of the schools we're seeing.

So it's exhausting, but there are rewards. And at the moment the one I'm looking forward to is a comfortable bed.

Look, over there, shiny things!

I've got a little contest running over at the other blog, and I don't want to leave anyone out. So click over there and see what you think!

(If I can get another copy of the book I'll run another contest soon.)

in stores today...

Six-Word Memoir book preview from SMITHmag on Vimeo.


(I'm on page 60)

Reading Meme

Caroline tagged me with this a while ago and it's taken me until now to get to it. I'm too busy procrastinating drafting working on a paper to be delivered in mid-November. But I have been working through a few novels lately, so I thought I'd give you a taste of the variety of my reading lately.

First, here are the rules:
"Open the book you’re currently reading to page 161, and post the fifth sentence on the page, then think of 5 bloggers to tag."

OK. I read Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go over the weekend, but I'm including it here to prove I do, on occasion, read books for adults. Though I must say, the premise of this novel is scarily like Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion, published two years earlier as a children's novel. And, for what it's worth, I bought the Ishiguro novel used at Plato's Closet, a YA hangout if there ever was one.

Here's the fifth sentence on page 161:
"Well, she never got to make that decision because of what happened next."

Also in progress, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. This one's because I have a student working on an interesting honors thesis on female orphans in children's lit. Rebecca isn't technically an orphan--her mother's living--but she fits the template my student is working with so I'm re-reading the novel.

Page 161 only has four sentences, though, so here's the fourth:
"I wish you could take things easier, child; I am fearful for you sometimes."

(Side note on Rebecca: I'm reading an old paperback I picked up used, but it is one of several books available in the Charming Classics series, packaged along with a necklace. My student and I are amused at how many of the books she's writing about are available in this series: A Little Princess, The Secret Garden (the pendant is a key), Heidi, and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, at least--there are many more in the series, though.)

I'm also slowly working my way through Little, Big again. I first read this in college, when I had a chance to interview the author by phone (one of my first bylines). It's a lovely book, and I'm not quite sure why I'm going so slowly through it this time, but doing so makes much clearer to me all the intertextual references (to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, especially) that I missed the first time through.

Page 161, sentence 5: "I mean," Doctor Drinkwater said, reappearing beside him, "that every Christmas seems to follow immediately after the last one; all the months that came between don't figure in."

Nick and I are also working our way through Daniel Pinkwater's Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars (in his Five Novels). We took a little break for the World Series, but we'll be getting back to it soon.

Page 161, sentence 5: "In Alan's case, they would be so grateful he wasn't there, they weren't likely to look into the matter."

Finally, also on my bedside (along with an ever-growing stack of New Yorker magazines) is Jane Yolen's Take Joy: A Writer's Guide to Loving the Craft. I haven't gotten very far with it yet, but I am enjoying dipping into it occasionally. Here's the fifth sentence on page 161:

"I responded: "Every time an editor wants to talk about plots and depth, they bring in the old onion." Now doesn't that make you want to read more?

As for tagging five more--Life in Scribbletown already did it, even before I did; if you're reading it here, feel free!

The Harry Potter Factor

(Cross-posted at Lessons from the Tortoise)

My new column is up, and it comes with a spoiler warning. So if you haven't finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but you think one day you might want to--and you don't want to know ANYTHING about it--well, then, don't click on this link. (I don't give it all away, by any means, but I just couldn't keep it all to myself.)

Here's a spoiler-free taste:

17 years. That's how long I've been a mother. It's also how long J.K. Rowling has been living with Harry Potter. She started the series while pregnant with her first daughter, Jessica, in 1990; my daughter, Mariah, must be a little older than Jessica, then, as she's rapidly approaching her 18th birthday at the end of this year.

10 years. That's how long I've been the mother of two: Nick's tenth birthday was this month. It's also how long Harry Potter novels have been out in the world available to read. My mothering life, then, has tracked the Harry Potter series in more ways than one.

Mariah and I began reading the books some time in 1998 or 1999, I think, before the biggest hype but after the first book was available in my public library. At first I didn't know I'd be buying them all (in multiple copies, no less!). I just thought I was sharing another fun book with my daughter.

We read the first few books together, sprawled on a couch, each wedged into a corner with our feet meeting in the middle. As we continued reading, she grew taller -- and her reading got faster -- so we read them sequentially, talking about them over meals...

Read the rest here...

free books

Just in case you read this blog but not my other one, I'm directing you over there today to find out about the Pay It Forward Book Exchange. Go, now!

MotherTalk Blog Book Tour: Writing Motherhood

I began reading Writing Motherhood on Monday evening, and Tuesday morning I went out and bought the notebook I'd been eying for months. I had a little notebook in my purse already, but it's littered with to-do-lists, dimensions of the refrigerator we replaced last fall, lists of books to read, knitting patterns, the model numbers for the bionicles Nick most wanted for Christmas—well, you get the idea. It is, in fact, a mother's notebook par excellence. But it's—mostly—missing what I most want to have in it: my writing, daily reflections, ideas for further exploration. Inspired by my reading of Lisa Garrigues' new book, then, I got a bigger one, one that can hold all I'm already carrying around and my own words as well.

The Mother's Notebook is only one of the helpful ideas in Garrigues' new book, but it's probably the central one, the one on which everything else depends. Once you get the Mother's Notebook going, you've got invitations to write, inspirations from other writers, reminders that you're not alone, and suggestions for ways to share your writing. It's almost a parent-writing class in volume form: just add students and stir. That's not surprising, as it comes out of Garrigues' experience as a teacher and workshop leader. It gives the book a useful structure: one really could just work through it, preferably with a group, and jumpstart a writing practice that had gone stale, or get one off the ground for the first time. But it can also be a useful reference tool, a resource like other writing books, to dip into for inspiration and useful reminders. The writing prompts Garrigues crafts—she calls them "invitations," which makes them sound, well, more inviting than "prompts"—are mostly linked to motherhood, but little in the book would be foreign to any writer, especially any writer who does something else, whether paid or unpaid work. (And, really, how many writers don't do "something else"?) What motherhood adds to the writing process, then, in addition to great material, is a sense of balance: other writing books may assume all you do, or all you want to do, is write, but Garrigues knows you've already got a lot on your plate. Fifteen minutes a day is all she asks, for starters; then she adds play-dates and time-outs as well as regular writing group meetings, making it all seem manageable and even fun for a time-pressed parent.

Here's what I wrote in my notebook:

Tuesday morning, conversation w/Nick, ruling out causes for his stomach ache. I ask if he's pooped lately. Yes—so no constipation, I say. "If you got constipated, would you throw up, or would you just explode?" he asks. Much hilarity.

Ah, potty humor. It never loses its appeal. Maybe that's not the most interesting conversation we've ever had—indeed, I know it isn't. But it is representative of our conversations lately—equal parts true curiosity and nine-year-old gross-out. And I know I wouldn't remember it if I didn't write it down.

Will it ever make it out of the Mother Notebook? Well, it just did, didn't it? But no, I doubt I'll use it in a story or essay. Garrigues reminds us, though, that writing begets writing, and that paying attention is one of the skills both writers and parents need to cultivate. I may not need to remember our conversation about constipation, but I do need to listen, and writing things down helps me do that.

Now that I've finished reading the book I want to go back and reflect on it as well, pay attention to the parts I read through quickly, make a plan for how best to use it. This book came to me at a great time: as summer begins I'm thinking already of how to jumpstart my writing, and I have several projects I plan to work on through the next academic year. Inspired by Garrigues, I'm thinking of trying to get a small local writing group going (leave me a comment if you're in central VA and think that might be fun), and I'm making a resolution to write in my notebook every day.

Check out the conversation with Lisa Garrigues here, and the other posts in the blog book tour here.

Valentine's Day

As usual, I'm not quite up to speed for Valentine's Day. Nick went to a cooking class (!) Saturday, and decided to make the peanut butter brownies for his class, so he did not do the laborious one-valentine-for-each-child dance. (Score!) I have a little something for the family later, but it's still a secret. And I teach until dinner time, anyway.

Still, we'll talk about (bad) marriages in Dickens in my Victorian literature class, and we've got intriguing family dynamics in the writing class readings for this week as well, so that'll be fun.

And if Valentine's Day is really all about sharing the love, here are two opportunities:

One, the Camel Bookmobile: check it out! This is a project sponsored by the fabulous Masha Hamilton--her novel of the same title comes out later this spring. This is a great project to bring books, as Masha says, "traveling through the remote desert on the arched backs of camels, like notes from another world sealed in a bottle and tossed into a sea." Share some.

Two, Save Darfur. I know, you've heard about it on the news or read it in the papers, and it seems too big, too intractable a problem. Last Sunday, though, I heard the Rev. Lauren Stanley, Episcopal missionary to the Sudan (currently unable to serve there due to the violence) speak about her adopted country and people. And she says signing the petition really can make a difference, that the Sudan really can be helped by American support and American prayers. So sign the petition, send it to some more folks, and spread the love. It's a start.

New Year's Column

According to Philip Pullman, "There are some themes, some subjects, too large for adult fiction; they can only be dealt with adequately in a children's book . . . . We don't need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do's and don'ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.” In 2007, I want more stories to read, to share, to talk about, to teach. What about you?

Read the rest here, and leave me your suggestions as well!