a double life: discovering motherhood

I’m so pleased to have another author interview to post this week. Today, I have the pleasure of introducing Lisa Catherine Harper, whose debut memoir, A Double Life: Discovering Motherhood, won the 2010 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize.

This is a lovely, meditative memoir that takes the reader through Harper’s first pregnancy and early motherhood. The book blends narrative and research, and, for me, is a wonderful reflection on the complexities of life and celebration of fully living in the moment. I won’t say too much more about the book here, because I’ve written a full review of it for Literary Mama.

So without further ado, please welcome Lisa to Mother Words!

KH: I’m wondering if you can talk a little about the process of writing this book. Did you know when you began writing that you were working on a memoir?

LCH:  I did. I began writing nearly as soon as I became pregnant. I have a PhD, and one of the things I do as a matter of course is research. I realized almost immediately that my body was changing in ways I hadn’t anticipated and which no one had told me about. I researched extensively in OB/GYN textbooks and medical journals and soon began to understand that the biological changes of pregnancy were just the beginning of the enormous emotional and psychological changes of motherhood.  I wrote the book because I wanted to translate the experience of a very ordinary pregnancy for a general reader.  I believed that becoming a mother was an interesting category of experience—not an isolated experience for women only, but an experience tied to life at all corners.

KH:  One of the things I love about A Double Life is your essayistic style. You ponder concepts like movement, dance, pain (to name a few), and circle around and around each of these, really trying to search out meaning and figure out what you really think and believe. I’d love if you could talk a little about the construction of the book, and whether this essayistic circling was a conscious choice or if it’s just how the narrative emerged in the writing process.

LCH:  The style was a conscious choice. I love the essay form.  On the one hand, I wanted to write a book in the very American tradition of long form journalism, which can take the form of (personal) narrative supported by research.   I intended from the start to support my story with research and the kind of rigorous reflection I was trained in by my doctoral studies. On the other hand, I wanted to write a story that was more than my own.  I aspired to write a story that investigated the universal changes of maternity. The essay form was perfect for both of these ambitions.

KH:  Another thing that I really love about the book is how you so deftly wove research into the narrative. Can you talk a little about the research you did in writing this book? Is there anything that surprised you as you began your research?

LCH:  I read everything I could get my hands on:  every book in the bookstore, all the material from my own doctor, pregnancy websites, etc.  But it wasn’t enough, so I turned to medical textbooks, OB/GYN textbooks, and medical journals. I did a lot of research in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association).  I read extensively about all aspects of the evolving pregnancy. Some days the research itself was so interesting I had to make myself stop to get to the writing. I read a lot more than I had to (which is so often the case with research!). Only a small fraction of my research made it into the book. I had to translate all this sophisticated material for a general reader (and check and double check my facts). I also spoke extensively with my own doctors at UCSF and with a good friend who was a labor & delivery nurse.

Everything surprised me—but most especially the totality of the changes that occur in pregnancy.  The fact that your lung capacity changes, that you have more blood in your body, that your brain is washed by hormones that can cause you to have an orgasm in your sleep –those things seemed to me astonishing and deeply weird.  They still do. It’s not just your reproductive system that changes. Your entire body is transformed. This, of course, is a metaphor.

I was constantly surprised by the metaphors I found in the research. This was one of the most rewarding aspects of writing. In researching, then writing the morning sickness chapter, for instance, I understood for the first time that pregnancy overtakes your whole body in much the same way just as the nausea can: completely and without warning. Working on the sciatica chapter I found the biological explanation for how we experience pain to be the perfect explanation for some of our most cherished notions of identity (I think, therefore I am). These things helped me understand my own maternity better.

KH:  I love the way you write your relationship with your husband, Kory, and this part of the book really feels like a wonderful love story to me. How did you handle writing about your relationship? Did you get his approval before you went to print? How do you balance your need to create as a writer with your family’s privacy?

LCH  I am, however, in everything that I write constantly balancing the true facts of the story (personal details, revelations, confessions, etc.) with the real demands of the story.  I ask myself: is this fact really necessary? How much do I really need to tell? And in the telling, am I really saying something new? I’m even more conscious of this now that my children are older.  I won’t write a story that involves personal details unless I feel I have something significant to say, it does not violate their privacy, and I am not telling it simply to broadcast a seemingly interesting experience. There must be something more at stake when you write about personal history.  For me, restraint must always temper the use of personal facts when important relationships are at stake.  However, I also believe that if you have to tell the story, you also can’t avoid the hard facts for fear of hurting someone’s feelings.

 

KH:  Lisa, you are a mother, wife and a full-time professor (and dancer, friend, etc.). How do you balance writing, your career, and your family?

LCH:  Over the years I’ve learned to accept and embrace the changes that being a parent brings to my work life. I’ve learned to cultivate discipline and silence in my work life, to work very hard during my work time and to set my work aside completely when the kids come home.  (Though I am not always successful at this latter task.) These things, of course, took years to figure out. The most important practical things I’ve done to protect my work life include: 

·      Cultivate discipline: write during the children’s naps, every day.

·      Before my children were school-age, I took Grace Paley’s advice and resigned myself to “writing at different paces.” It was okay if I worked more slowly some weeks or months. I knew that would change.

·      Don’t stop writing until you know where you will start the next day.

·      Give yourself small, specific assignments: one scene, one section, one chapter revised.

I still use these precepts, even though my writing life has changed enormously with the book publication and the beginning of kindergarten for my youngest.

KH:  What was the most challenging part of writing A Double Life? 

LCH:  Getting published.

Writing the book joined my geeky commitment to research and my lyric love of narrative. It was a joy to write. I found it interesting to dive into the material, investigate the story, and tease out the larger meaning. 

But I had a long road to publication.  Motherhood journals/sites often asked me to take out the research. Literary journals were not so interested in the story of motherhood. And the first publishers we approached didn’t know where it would be shelved: memoir or parenting? It’s both, of course, and readers understand that now, but it took years of perseverance.

KH:  Can you talk a little more about the process of finding a home for A Double Life? What would advice would you give to other writers as they embark on this process?

LCH:  In addition to the where-to-shelve-the-book problem I mentioned above, I had editors who loved my prose but found the book too quiet. There are a lot of stories about motherhood that are sensational or exceptional, but this was not my story. But I had a deep belief in my approach and my book, and I worked very hard to write the most incisive, compelling narrative I could, and then I knew I just had to be patient.  I actually got to the point where I was convinced I would have to publish another book first, and then A Double Life would come out as my second book once I had a better platform. But then I submitted the manuscript to the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize, and won, and with that award came the publication deal. Most gratifying was that the Prize series editors understood the book’s mission and ambition completely—as have the readers since publication.  Since then, my agent has been able to sell foreign rights in Taiwan, Brazil, and Italy, so it’s been incredibly satisfying after such a long wait to have readers who understand the book as I envisioned it. The thing is, in spite of the challenges writing this kind of a book posed, in the end the it just took that one editor saying “yes” at the right time. This is always the case: “right editor, right time, right place.”

My advice is always to perfect your craft and write the very best story you can. This is the first and paramount responsibility of any writer. Then the writer’s job is to figure out how to enter the conversation.  To whom are you speaking? Seek out publication in the places having the conversation you want to be part of.  These might be local, regional, online, print, niche markets. There are many ways to begin.  Expect editors to say no, but don’t take that no personally. Be brutal and objective about your work, revise if necessary, and persevere. I often think of the opening lines of Wallace Stevens’ poem, “Well Dressed Man with a Beard”:

After the final no there comes a yes

And on that yes the future world depends.

No was the night. Yes is this present sun.

KH:  I love that, Lisa. And I love how the message of perseverance is echoed among so many of the writers I know and love. Don’t give up, writers. And never let the “no” stop you. 

Lisa, thanks so much for taking the time to be here at Mother Words! 

some thoughts on dying

Warning: This is long and tangential. It’s the only way I can write it.

On Thursday afternoon, my mom was helping my grandpa walk to the door, when Grandpa’s legs gave out and both he and my mom went down. He didn’t have a stroke; he just didn’t have any strength left in his legs, couldn’t put any weight on them.

Luckily, my step-dad was home, and was able to carry Grandpa back to his bed. (Even at 102, Grandpa has some heft to him.) Later, after Grandpa realized that he wouldn’t be able to stand, even with help, he and my mom talked about what he wanted to do, what came next. “This isn’t the kind of life I want to live,” he said. “It’s not worth it.”

Understand: My grandpa is one of the most active people I know. Being stuck indoors in his reclining chair all winter was difficult enough for him, but he always had the hope that as soon as spring came (and then after his hospitalization and the placement of the pace maker) he would be out, cruising the River Road in his borrowed electric wheelchair. “I can even pack a picnic lunch,” he’d said. And I know he had dreams of finding some other old geezer sitting on a bench, someone he could talk to, someone who could relate.

Thursday afternoon I was at a meeting, and when I came home, D said that my mom had called and they were going to start hospice care. We were there in a half hour, and when we arrived at her house, my sister and nephew were there too. My mom and step-dad. D and I went downstairs to see him.

“Hi Grandpa,” I said, and he smiled, “Well Katy, D., hello.”

I sat down next him and reached for his hand. “Well,” he said, “I’ve had a great life.” His voice wavered. “I had great parents, a great family—Lucille, Nancy.”

“And wonderful granddaughters,” I said, smiling through my tears.

“Ha! And wonderful granddaughters,” he agreed.

I started to cry. D put his hand on my shoulder.

“I’m ready to go. I’m not scared,” he said. “I know what’s going to happen. I’m not in pain.”

How many people get to do this? Grandpa was totally lucid, seemed fine, really, other than not having much physical strength. “I won’t be eating anything solid now,” he said. What he wanted was strained oyster stew—just the broth—which my sister fixed for him in the next room, and which he drank through a straw. (It smelled disgusting to us, but he thought it was delicious.)

Grandpa raised his head from the pillow. “Stella is going to really be something,” he said. “She’s a bright one.” He laughed. “She takes after her grandfather.”

Stella was the first great-grandchild, and she and Grandpa have something special, I think—a connection. When Stella was a week old, baking under the phototherapy lights in the NICU, Grandpa stood above her with tears in his eyes, his hands clutching the edge of the warming table, and said, “Well, she has all her fingers and all her toes.” I think at that point he had thought we were keeping something from him. Maybe he thought she wouldn’t make it. I remember wondering then if his own losses—several miscarriages and a stillbirth before my mother was finally born—hovered close to the surface. Do they ever fade completely?

Now, whenever Stella is at my mom’s, she draws a picture for Grandpa, her Great-Gahgee, and tacks it to his refrigerator. She always remembers to speak loudly when she talks to him, leaning in to give him a hug in his chair. I had hoped that he and Zoë would have time to develop the same kind of bond, but she’s three, and well, that’s all: She’s three, and I’m much more lenient with my three-year-old than Grandpa thinks I should be. I hold her when she whines, let her drag me upstairs in the middle of a conversation, let her run around naked (a battle I’m not willing to fight).

I wanted Stella to understand that Grandpa was dying so she could really say good-bye, but maybe she’s too young? I’m not sure. She first asked about death years ago, after Mimi died. (For those of you who don’t know, Mimi was the woman with whom D and I lived after we were married.)

After Mimi died, I explained that Mimi was gone, but that she would live on in our memory, that we could look at pictures of her and remember her.

“But where did she go?”

“Well,” I said. “Her body just stopped working. She’s not alive anymore.”

What did she say to that? I can’t remember.

“Some people believe that you go to heaven when you die,” I started, not sure how I could make this idea tangible for her.

“But where is that?”

“Well, it’s not really a place.” I paused. “It’s like in Lion King after Simba’s father died, and Simba looked up into the sky and saw Mufasa in the clouds.”

I’m not sure if it made sense then, and I’m not sure if it would help now. Coincidentally, Stella’s spring dance performance was to “He Lives In You” from Lion King

I don’t know why I love that song so much, but a couple of weeks ago I downloaded it from iTunes and now, as I run along the river, I listen to it over and over again, goose bumps prickling my skin as I cross the Mississippi and then cross it again in my loop. (I know. I’m totally cheesing out these days. I can just imagine you rolling your eyes as you read this.)

Interestingly, it has only been since my grandpa started to die that I have felt like a runner again. In the last months, my heart and head haven’t been in it (even though my running injuries have mostly healed…) My legs have felt heavy, my breathing strained. It’s as if, having made it through what has been a very stressful and often-difficult year, my body was worn down. But how could I, at 39, be worn down when my grandpa, at 102, was not?

As I ran yesterday, I felt strong for the first time in a long time. My mind was trying to make connections between my thoughts, which are all over the place: My grandpa, whom I love, is dying. A couple of friends, whom I love, are trying desperately to conceive. My mother, who has cared for her father for years, and who is fully in charge of helping him die, is exhausted, resigned to his death at the same time she still feels glimmers of hope for a recovery (even as she realizes how ridiculous that is). Death, life. Death, life.

Thursday night when I put Stella to bed, my eyes red and puffy from crying, I told Stella what Grandpa had said about her being really something, and she smiled. “You know that he’s dying, honey, right?”

Tears started to run from her eyes, catching on the bridge of her nose, dripping into her hair. “You’re making me sad,” she said, her voice accusing.

“I know. I’m sorry. I just want you to be able to say goodbye to him.”

“I want to catch him one more fish,” she said, the tears coming faster.

Last summer, Stella caught a bass that D cleaned and filleted, and my mom and I breaded and fried with butter and lemon. Then Stella and Grandpa sat across from each other eating, contentedly absorbed in their meal.

“Oh honey, that’s so sweet,” I said, hugging her close.

On Friday, my grandpa was still so lucid—he seemed fine, really—that my mom asked him whether he had made his decision to die in haste. “You don’t need to do this now, Dad,” she said. But he insisted: “I’m ready to go.” Friday was the twelfth anniversary of my grandma’s death—they were married for 67 years—and I think part of him wanted to go then, on the same day. But he didn’t. He talked about the memorial service we’d have for him. He gave my brother-in-law his golf clubs.

And on Saturday he was much weaker. He insisted on saying his goodbyes, telling D and others to “have a great life.”

“I’m ready to slip away,” he said.

I wanted to tell him what? That I wouldn’t be who I am if it weren’t for him? That he will live on in each of us? I would have loved to say that soon he’d be reunited with my grandma—how comforting would that be?—but my grandpa is a life-long atheist, and he would have told me I was full of crap. I was able to choke out only this: “You know how much you’ve meant to me, Grandpa, Right?” He nodded.

When he slept, I sat next to him, reading, giving my mom a break. I started Rae Meadows’ new novel, Mothers and Daughters, on Friday. Rae sent it to me a few months ago, and I had been anxious to start reading it, but I couldn’t have anticipated how perfect it would be for me right now, as I sit next to Grandpa. It’s a story of mothers and daughters—a story about connection, grief and letting go. (I hope to have Rae as a guest here at Mother Words in the next couple of weeks…)

Yesterday, Mom took a walk and then a nap, and as I sat beside Grandpa, I read, and then I stared at him, and read some more. I fed him a sip of water through the straw when he was thirsty, but his eyes were closed most of the time. He wasn’t interested in talking. When he fell deeply asleep, his cheeks puffed out slightly with each exhalation. But his breathing was labored, and there were more and more long pauses between breaths. With each of these, I looked up from my book, holding my own breath, thinking, Let this be it. Let go, Grandpa. And then: Oh Grandpa, I love you. But his chest always stuttered into action again.

Something is clearly going on in his lungs—filling with fluid maybe? When he breathes it sounds like the fizzing of a newly opened can of soda.

I tried to commit him to memory even though he wouldn’t want to be remembered this way: with sunken cheeks, the tendons visible in his neck, straining when he swallows. He would want to be remembered as a young man, all early-century swagger, or next to his love Lucille on their 50^th wedding anniversary—my Grandma dressed in her teal dress, Grandpa next to her, his frame solid, smiling in his gray suit, his hand on Grandma’s lower back—or on the golf course, yes on the golf course where he spent thousands and thousands of hours perfecting his game.

During a break yesterday, when my mom was sitting with him downstairs, I stood at her kitchen window and watched the neighbor across the street mulch her garden. I listened to the sputtering hum of a mower down the block, the steady ticking of the clock on the mantle, the birds chirping in the tree outside. The sweet juice of an orange filled my mouth and I felt oddly content. This—these small moments, loving everything fully—are what make up a life, no?

I lay down on my mom’s couch and picked up Meadows’ novel again, and this is what I turned to (from one of the chapters in Samantha’s perspective—she is the daughter in the novel):

In a span of months she had been present for birth and for death, the wondrous first breath and the horrible last. But wasn’t it an honor to be there at the end of a life as well as the beginning? To mark the extraordinariness of a lifetime, to bear witness to its completion? Could she ever convince herself of that?

I’m convinced.

musings at 4 a.m.

Last night D. brought home Blizzards for the girls and for himself, and my “I’ll just have two bites of yours” turned into me eating half of his Oreo Blizzard. (Can you see why he doesn’t like to share with me?)

I have a friend who insists that DQ is not a “deliberate dessert” (meaning it’s not worth the calories the way a chocolate torte would be), but I beg to differ. (And what’s not deliberate about driving to Dairy Queen?) I haven't had a Blizzard in a while, and I had forgotten how much I love them. I also forgot that eating ice-cream (even if it’s soft serve) in the evening makes it difficult for me to sleep. 

Which is why I woke up at 4 a.m.

And I got up because I have a ton to do. I had pushed all my other responsibilities to the edges of my plate in order to finish Use Your Words, and now those things are clamoring for attention: a book review; student writing that is long overdo (sorry, ladies!); a summer-fall freelance project I took on so I could (theoretically) have a break from teaching and have more time to write; a few outstanding permissions issues for the book (such a nightmare); and my grandpa, who is back home with my mom now, but not doing well.

So I’m awake and thinking about the next few months. I really want this to be a summer filled with hours and hours of reading. There are a couple of books I started this spring and had to put down in order to finish my manuscript, but now I’m desperate to get back to them, to spend my days immersed in someone else’s words.

This is what’s on my desk (some in various stages of being finished):

Tracy Seely’s My Ruby Slippers

Caitlin Shetterly’s Made for You and Me

Angela Balcita’s Moonface

Rae Meadows’ Mothers and Daughters

Alexa Stevenson’s Half Baked

Charles Baxter’s Gryphon

I’m hoping to have at least some of these authors as guests here at Mother Words, but with everything else I'm doing when will I finish these books? We have reduced childcare for the summer, and I’m so tired at night that it’s hard for me to stay awake to read. Maybe I need to start getting up at 5 a.m.? Going to bed as soon as the girls do?

How do you fit your reading into your day?

an update and an essay

Thank you all for your thoughts and good wishes for my grandpa. He has done the seemingly impossible and bounced back at 102 years old. On Friday afternoon he had a pacemaker put in, and he felt so good after the surgery that he wanted a plate of BBQ ribs. “I know I’m talking too much,” he said, “but I just feel so damn good.”

On Saturday he was transferred to a nursing home where he’ll do physical therapy and grow stronger before he goes home. (And then he’ll get regular blood transfusions to keep him from becoming anemic again. There is some internal bleeding, but he didn’t want to have any invasive procedures to discover the source of bleeding. A wise choice.)

Yesterday he said that the difference between some of the people at the home and him was that they were there waiting to die, and he was there to get stronger so he could live. He’s truly remarkable, and has already charmed the whole staff.

So, there’s that. And I’m grateful for the extra time with him.

But truthfully, most of my time (and my emotional energy) these last days has been focused on the book and getting permissions for the excerpts and essays I use as examples. What a process—a huge process—but one that will make the book what I want it to be.

I probably won’t be writing long posts here for the next few weeks, but I’ll pop in and let you know how the looming deadline is affecting my mental health.

Today, instead of any more of my own words, I want to leave you with this wonderful new Literary Mama essay by Lisa Catherine Harper. Her wonderful new memoir, A Double Life: Discovering Motherhood, is just out from University of Nebraska Press. My review of it will appear in Literary Mama this summer, and I also hope to have Lisa as a guest here at Mother Words in the coming months (after June 1^st). Enjoy her wonderful piece!

hot (sweaty) mamas giveaway

I had a wonderful time at the book launch for Hot (Sweaty) Mamas on Saturday night. What could be better than helping friends (and a former student!) celebrate publication? But the next day I started coming down with strep throat, and between that and all my teaching and editing, I haven't been able to post about the fact I actually have a copy of Hot (Sweaty) Mamas to give away. I received an additional copy from Andrews McMeel last week, so now I can share with one of you, my wonderful writerly motherly runnerly readers (and of course you need not be all three). 


So, please leave a comment below by Monday, April 18, and I'll randomly pick a winner. In your comment, I'm interested on how you balance health and motherhood or health and life. Have you found something that works to get your "me" time?

hot (sweaty) mamas!

I never set out to be a runner. Sure, I ran cross country in high school, but most of the time I hated it. I tried to trip myself during races when the exhaustion became unbearable, and my friends and I often took short cuts on long practice runs. We hid in the bushes or ran to Burger King for French fries while the rest of our team trudged through six miles. (How we got away with this, I have no idea.) In those years, I didn’t consider myself a runner, and when I stopped running after high school, I didn’t miss it.

Fifteen years later, when Stella turned one and I still hadn’t lost my pregnancy weight, I started running again. I didn’t particularly enjoy it. It felt like work—hard work. But when a friend encouraged me to try a half-marathon, and I began running serious distances, a surprising thing happened: the more I ran, the more I liked to run.

I lost a little weight and was able to wear clothes I hadn’t fit into for years, which was nice, but running also made me feel more grounded and less frazzled. There was something in the rhythm of my gait that loosened my mind and allowed me to forgive the Tinker Toys and Little People scattered around our living room. I breathed deeply, and by the time I got home, I felt revived, which gave me the energy and inclination to help guide Stella’s little hands as she assembled her farm puzzle for the gazillionth time in a row. I smiled and cheered for her when she found the right home for the cow and the barn and the tractor and the chicken.

Motherhood made me a runner. And running made me a better mother.

Fast forward a few years: I have run the Twin Cities 10 mile and Grandma’s ½ Marathon. I could spend hours looping the bridges along the river roads in Minneapolis and St. Paul. I love running now more than ever and still consider myself a runner even though injuries have kept me from running most of the last year.

And this still holds true: running makes me a better mother and motherhood makes me a better runner.

One of the things I love most about being a runner is that it helped me become the kind of role model I want to be for my daughters. When they see me take the time to lace up my running shoes and head out the door, I am not only making exercise a priority in my life, I’m helping them see it as a priority in their lives, as well.

But being fit and staying fit when you are juggling work and kids and volunteering and family obligations isn’t easy. (And now that I can’t run, it’s even harder to find time to get to the gym or to find the space and quiet I need at home to do a pilates video.)

That’s why I’m so excited about Hot (Sweaty) Mamas: Five Secrets to Life as a Fit Mom by Kara Douglass Thom and Laurie Lethert Kocanda. This is not a get-thin book, not an over-the-top fitness book. Hot (Sweaty) Mamas will help any busy mom figure out how fitness can fit into her life and into her family’s life. From prioritizing fitness, helping moms to take much needed “me” time, to how to develop a support network for your fitness goals, Thom and Kocanda take a no-nonsense approach to fitness and family. They are funny, engaging and practical without being preachy or patronizing. For any mother who is fit or wants to be, this book is a must-read.

Come celebrate fitness and motherhood and the publication of Hot (Sweaty) Mamas on Saturday, April 9^th at the Herb Box, inside Eden Prairie Life Time Athletic from 4 – 7 p.m. It’s free and open to the public. Come have some refreshments, buy a book, and hang out with other hot sweaty mamas. (And bring your kids, too!)

Where: 755 Prairie Center Drive, Eden Prairie, MN 

When:  4 -7 p.m., Saturday, April 9

And to learn more about Hot (Sweaty) Mamas, visit their website!

parents with pens

Thanks to all of you for your kind birthday wishes for my grandpa. He’s had two lovely parties so far and one more tomorrow. (It makes me tired to think about three parties. Imagine doing it when you’re 102.)


I’m pleased to announce that I have Kris Woll here at Mother Words today. Kris is a local Minneapolis writer and mother. She writes the blog A Little Practice, and is about to re-launch Parents with Pens, a local writing group for parents.

KH: Can you talk a little about Parents with Pens?

KW: Parents with Pens is a free writing group for parents who write and/or writers who tackle parenthood as their subject. It is casual and meant to be very supportive -- the kind of place where you can read something your are working on and gather a little feedback, float a few ideas, ponder where you might go with what you are working on. It is also a place to read and discuss some of the great work that is out there on the topic of parenthood. And I hope it's a place where a group of writers can really connect and get to know each other.

Parents with Pens is one of the Open Writing Groups that The Loft Literary Center hosts each month. The Loft kindly provides a space -- their cozy book club room -- where interested writers to gather and talk and read and support each other. Like all the Open Writing Groups, Parents with Pens is free and convened by a volunteer facilitator. And really it's low commitment -- once a month, 90 minutes.

KH: What was the impetus for starting this group?

KW: I first created Parents with Pens in 2009. Then I was still relatively new to Minneapolis, just emerging from the fog of early parenthood, and really eager to connect with other parents and other writers. In PWP’s first incarnation, a small group of us met through most of that year sharing our works-in-progress, but for a number of reasons (you know them -- no time, too much work, stuff to take care of at home, general craziness of life) the group took a break for most of 2010.

This fall I took a writing/reading course at the University of Minnesota, and it was so nice to meet with other writers to read and discuss. As it came to a close it occurred to me that it was very worthwhile to get the PWP group started again. And here we are, about to get started ...

KH: How do interested parents get involved?

KW: The group kicks off on Monday, January 24 at 7pm. For more info, including how to sign up (for this group and others) visit The Loft.

And hopefully, Kate, you might agree to be a special guest at one of our meetings!

KH: I’d be delighted, Kris! Thanks for being at Mother Words today! Head over to The Loft if you’d like to sign up for Parents with Pens.

proud

Cecilia, one of my talented former Mother Words students, has a wonderful piece in Cassie Premo Steele's Birthing the Mother Writer column at Literary Mama this week. Lovely writing, Cecilia. If you don't read Cecilia's blog, you should. She's so fabulous. Congratulations, Cecilia!

kudos

I’ve spent the last few days obsessively reading the New York Times and listening to public radio as they cover the devastating shootings in Arizona. I can’t stop thinking of the victims’ families, and I feel heartsick about the whole thing.

But today I want to focus on something positive. I *will* be positive. Here it goes:

One of the most satisfying things about being part of a writing community is celebrating the hard work and successes of my friends and colleagues. There are many successes and new books to celebrate this year, and I’d like to start with my dad, David Hopper:

I’m thrilled to announce that my dad’s fourth book, Divine Transcendence and the Culture of Change, was just published by W.B. Eerdmans. The book explores several significant historical and cultural effects of Reformation theology. (Check out these amazing blurbs.) It’s not the kind of book I generally read, but I’m so proud of and happy for my dad. He spent SEVENTEEN years writing this book. Talk about persistence and perseverance. Way to go, Dad!

My high-school friend, Michael Ebner, just came out with his first book, Ordinary Violence in Mussolini’s Italy. Like my dad’s book, this probably wouldn’t be considered light reading, but it looks fascinating.

Charles Baxter’s Gryphon: New and Selected Stories is getting rave reviews. Baxter is clearly a master of the short story form, so you can’t go wrong if you buy this book. Whenever my characters feel flat, I turn to Baxter’s stories, which are full of nuance and subtly. You can hear Baxter read and discuss Gryphon at Micawber’s on Friday, January 28 or at the University of Minnesota Bookstore on February 8.

I am also very excited about the following two books, which I helped edit:

Kara Thom’s and Laurie Kocanda’s Hot (Sweaty) Mamas: Five Secrets to Life as a Fit Mom. Kara was in my first Mother Words class (and a number of subsequent classes), and I used to trail behind her on the track until I realized I wouldn’t actually catch her. This book will be out March 29, and it’s a must-read for any mom who is fit or wants to be. Kara also writes the wonderful blog, Mama Sweat.

Elisabeth O’Toole’s In On It: What Adoptive Parents Would Like You to Know About Adoption was published in October, 2010. It’s a wonderful guide for friends and relatives of adoptive families. (I know I feel better able to support adoptive families after reading this book.)

And last, but certainly not least:

Kevin Fenton’s debut novel, Merit Badges, which won the 2009 AWP Awards Series in the Novel, is just out from New Issues Press. Kevin’s prose is lovely, his characters quirky and relatable. You’re not going to want to put this book down. You can hear Kevin read on Wednesday night, January 12 at 7:30 p.m. at the Virginia Swedenborgian Church in St. Paul.

Congratulations to all of these wonderful authors!! I’m lucky to call you my friends!

snowy days

Across the Twin Cities, snow is heaped in piles as tall as houses. The roads have grown narrow, encroached on either side by towering boulevards. Cars inch across the city and back again. I have taken to driving with a shovel riding shotgun so I can leap out and clear a path through freshly plowed mounds when necessary. It’s Minnesota. It’s winter.

Stella was home from school both Monday and Tuesday because of the snow and sub-zero temperatures. She was thrilled beyond description. We swapped childcare with friends. Forts were built. Movies were watched. Popcorn was eaten.

It all makes me want to pull out the crock-pot and fill the house with meaty goodness, then curl up on the couch with a book and read all day. I’m currently caught up in Maggie O’Farrell’s The Hand that First Held Mine, which contains two alternating stories—one set in postwar London, one in present-day London. I’ll write more about this book as I make my way through it (if I get that time on the couch), but I’m excited that I’ve discovered O’Farrell’s writing. Her prose is exquisite.

So I’m reading. And in those few hours of the night when Zoë isn’t flipping around next to me, I’m sleeping better. The Christmas tree is up, sparkling in our living room. And I’m back to work on the memoir—a little tweaking based on the insightful comments of my fabulous agent. Things are a little easier. And soon, soon, the days will be getting longer rather than shorter. Oh, I realize that winter will go on forever this year, but at least there will be light, a little more light.

profile of bonnie rough

Thanks for your kind words and your lists last week. I hope you had a lovely long weekend.

D and I spent lots of time playing with the girls and reading in bed as they played. It was heavenly. I read two wonderful books: Toni Morrison's A Mercy and my friend Alex Lemon's raw and stunning memoir, Happy. I highly recommend both.

And today my interview with the wonderful Bonnie J. Rough is up at Literary Mama. Check out her memoir, Carrier, if you haven't already.

Happy reading!

plot, 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 pleased by my excitement, and I was excited to read the book with her, but I was secretly nervous that I wouldn’t like it as much as I had as a child. It was the first book that grabbed hold of my imagination. I remember spending hours and hours sitting in the pink beanbag in my room with it propped in my lap, thinking about where my sisters and I would hide if we became orphans and had to take to the woods to flee an unloving relative.

D and I alternate putting the girls to bed. (If I read to Zoë one night, the next night I’ll read to Stella.) So I made Stella promise that The Boxcar Children would by my book and that she would read a different book with D. (I hate it when I’ve read the first three chapters of a book to her and then I two nights later I have to pick up at the 7th or 8th chapter. I feel completely lost.)

She promised, and as we cuddled into bed with the book the other night, we were both giddy. As I began to read—“One warm night four children stood in front of a bakery. No one knew them. No one knew where they had come from.”—I was immediately swept back in time, to the excitement I felt the first time my mom read me this story.

And the book moves! Talk about narrative urgency, from that first sentence. I didn’t want to put it down, but I could tell Stella was exhausted, so I stopped after four chapters.

I remember that Julie Schumacher, a wonderful fiction writer who has been primarily writing young adult novels in recent years, said that she turned to YA fiction because she felt she needed to work on plot and structure, and that because YA novels are very plot-driven, she thought she’d try it out. You can read an interview with Julie here.

The Boxcar Children is all plot. (I remember certain plot details from when I read it, almost 30 years ago, which is extraordinary.) But as we made our way through the first chapters, I kept getting the siblings confused. I know I’ll be able to differentiate them as the book goes on, but I was surprised that we weren't given a few more character details in those first chapters. But then maybe I spend too much time thinking about character development. (I’ll admit that I’m a little obsessed lately.)

Do any of you out there write for children or young adults? I’d love it if you’d weigh in on plot and character (or really anything else that you’d like to share about writing for young people.)

In the meantime, I’m going to try to sneak away with Stella to read the next chapter of The Boxcar Children.

for the running mamas

I spent last weekend at my mom’s cabin in northern Minnesota with my family, and it was just what I needed. The weather was gorgeous on Saturday (think mid-July heat and sun), so I decided I’d take a day and not work at all. (I clearly have an unhealthy relationship with my computer if it’s that remarkable that I didn’t open it for one day.)

Instead of work, I went for a too-long run around the lake (on a combination of country roads and small highways) without any water. That wasn’t such a good idea, but I did end up making it back to the cabin without passing out. Then I ate a big lunch and collapsed into bed for a wakeful sort of nap. Then there was the pontoon ride and white wine and my brother-in-law’s ribs on the grill. The kids were outside for 12 straight hours. It was perfect.

And this week I’m excited to post about a new book for mother runners by Dimity McDowell and Sarah Bowen Shea. Run Like a Mother contains alternating essays by McDowell and Bowen Shea that detail what it’s like to be a mother runner. They offer encouragement, practical tips, and basically make it seem possible to get yourself up and out the door for an early-morning run even when you feel sleep deprived and over-extended. I especially like that they make this seem possible even for those of us who aren’t hardcore marathoners (which of course you know I’m not.)

But while I’m not signing up for a marathon anytime soon, I am ready for a 5K, and that’s what I’ll be doing on Saturday morning. Dimity will be in the Twin Cities promoting Run Like a Mother this week and she'll be doing a number of readings and fun runs.

Thursday, June 3, she’ll be reading at The Bookcase in Wayzata at 7 p.m. On Friday morning she’ll lead a 5K fun run followed by a short reading at Title Nine in Edina. On Friday night at 7:30, she’ll be reading at Magers & Quinn Booksellers in Minneapolis, and on Saturday morning, June 5, she’ll lead a 5K around Lake Calhoun from the Running Room at 9 a.m. Strollers and walkers are welcome on the runs, and apparently there will be lots of prizes at the end!

So if you’re a local mama runner (or if you want to be a mama runner, but need a little motivation), come to the Running Room on Saturday morning. I’ll be there plodding along in my slow, happy way.

by heart

Thanks to everyone who submitted a haiku for the Annual Mother Words Haiku Contest. Laura has a challenging task ahead of her! I’ll post her choice for winner in the next day or two.

On to books: I just finished Kathleen Melin’s lovely book, By Heart: A Mother’s Story of Children and Learning at Home, which tells the story of her family’s journey from public education to home schooling. But this book is about more than mothering and home schooling; it’s about the kind of life a couple chooses for their family. (Instead of a bustling urban life (mine?), Kathleen and her husband embrace rural living—wood burning stoves and maple syrup collecting and all.) This collection of essays explores how one family navigates the choices they make, choices that are sometimes outside what society considers “normal” and “expected.”

Melin questions what socialization is and who it serves. After an encounter with a neighbor who thinks Melin’s three children are missing out because they don’t “go” to school, Melin writes:

It was my first encounter with the question most often asked of home school families: socialization. […] Our (society) accepts as natural rather than strange that the proper socialization for children is institution-based rather than home-based.

We’ve come to doubt that a family, regardless of its plunge into the society around it, can pass on the necessary values and behavior modifications in order to ensure the stability of the social group. We’ve come to suspect parents, the indoctrination they might execute, the things they will do to their own children in their private homes. This frightens us.

Melin dives into history and research and discusses how compulsory school attendance began and to what effect. This aspect of her book was particularly fascinating to me.

Her prose is also lovely, and I found myself wanting to linger with her story. I wish it had been 100 pages longer, so I could have immersed myself more deeply in scene and character, so I could steep myself in her lyrical language.

In my favorite chapter, towards the end of the book, after a fight between Melin’s son, Jack, and her husband, Cy, Melin tries to comfort Jack. Jack says, “Dad hates me. I know he hates me.” And Melin writes:

I want to remind this child of the days he cannot remember, of the days when Cy carried him newborn through the winter woods in the South, showing him the trees, the red clay creek, and explaining the sudden neighing of horses. I want to tell him about the summer I lay in bed two months during (my second) pregnancy and watched as Cy guarded his son’s climb up the ladder in the old orchard where he picked cherries, and how afterward, they swayed in the hammock and feasted on the red fruit.

Lovely.

I am not a home schooler, nor do I want to be. I am a much better mother for the hours I have at my computer, away from the girls I love so dearly. But I love to peek into others’ lives, into other ways of being in the world, other ways of mothering. And for that I’m very grateful for Kathleen Melin’s book.

Kathleen Melin lives on her ancestral farm in northwestern Wisconsin, where she operates a retreat for artists and is at work on a young adult novel series. If you’d like more information about Kathleen and her work, you can contact her at kathleenmelin{at}centurytel{dot}net.

marie howe

Back in 2007, when I was pregnant with Zoë and deathly afraid of losing the pregnancy, I spent weeks on the couch with my feet up, willing my uterus to hold tight to that little bean. I lay there, wishing I could read, wishing I could focus, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t follow any kind of sustained narrative. Then a friend recommended Marie Howe’s What the Living Do. I ordered it, and as soon as it arrived, I devoured it, poem after fantastic poem, letting myself slip out of my life and into Howe’s words. I hated coming to the last poem in the collection.

I meant to revisit Howe’s work and buy her latest collection, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, but well, I got busy with my little Zoë, with making sure that Stella knew we still loved her. I got busy with teaching and writing and—everything. But then last week, one of my lovely students—hi, Carrie!—sent me one of Howe’s poems, and I remembered, instantly, why I love her work.

In honor of National Poetry Month, and because I love Marie Howe’s poetry, here is “Hurry,” reprinted with permission of author:

Hurry

We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store
and the gas station and the green market and
Hurry up honey, I say, hurry hurry,
as she runs along two or three steps behind me
her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.

where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?
To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown?

Today, when all the errands are finally done, I say to her,
Honey I'm sorry I keep saying Hurry--you walk ahead of me.
You be the mother.

And, Hurry up, she says, over her shoulder, looking
back at me, laughing. Hurry up now darling, she says,
hurry, hurry, taking the house keys from my hands.


Please check out her work if you’re not familiar with it. Revisit it if you are. And then raise your glass in honor of all the poets whose words save us just when we need to be saved.

reading and teaching

Perhaps you noticed that I didn’t post about too many books or essays this fall. I was just in over my head and apparently incapable of digesting anything literary after the girls were in bed. But I’m happy to report that I’m reading again—finally—and I have a ton of exciting books to post about in the coming weeks. My wonderful and talented friend, Alex Lemon, just published his first memoir, Happy, which I will hopefully get to soon. I just read Kao Kalia Yang’s amazing memoir, The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, which details Yang’s family’s escape from Laos and eventual arrival in the United States after the end of the Vietnam War. Over the holidays I read two very interesting anthologies, Who’s Your Mama? and Unbuttoned, which I reviewed for Literary Mama. (I’ll let you know when the review is up at LM.) And I’m currently finishing Hope Edelman’s lovely memoir, The Possibility of Everything. So, I have lots to write about.

I’m also beginning to gear up for my winter/spring classes and my end-of-February Mother Words Retreat. There are still a few spots in my next online Mother Words class, which begins February 10th. You can read more about that on my website, or contact me with questions.

I’m teaching a two-hour mini-workshop, Mother Memoir, at Mother’s Day, Inc. in Chanhassen, Minnesota, on Saturday, January 23rd, 10:30-12:30. You can register for that here.

I’m also teaching an 8-week Introduction to Creative Nonfiction course at the Loft, beginning February 4th, which you can register for here.

And there are still a few available spots for my Mother Words Retreat at Faith’s Lodge, February 26-28. More information on that here.

I feel energized (still tired, but energized) for the first time in a long time. And it’s nice to remember that the more I read, the more I want to read.

respecting differences

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday and didn't eat beyond capacity, something I seemed to do. Two meals, spaced five hours apart = too much food.

I’m sure many of you have read Lynn Harris’ Salon article “Everybody Hates Mommy,” in which Harris tries to unpack why there is so much anger and downright hatred directed towards mothers, particularly white, middle-class mothers (and particularly those that live in Park Slope).

Whoa, people. The comments that this article elicited are incredible—so many are full of such vitriol that I stopped reading after two pages.

But I’m interested in what Harris has to say. I think one of the important points she makes is that mothers are judged no matter what they do or don’t do. Everyone has an opinion about what makes a “good” mother, and if the mother in front of you isn’t fulfilling the role, well, hell, let her have it.

Another point she makes has to do with the fact that women—and especially women who are mothers—are supposed to be invisible. She says, “Women—still—are not ‘supposed’ to take up space. Mothers, in particular. We are—still—supposed to remain in the background, doing whatever it is mothers do, smiling. We grow a belly, we need a seat, we say ‘excuse me, please,’ we speak up (or, God forbid, blog), and we’ve crossed the line, said or asked too much, become ‘entitled.’”

The reason I do what I do—write about motherhood literature, teach my Mother Words class, host an annual Mother Words reading, work for Literary Mama—is to help create a space where literature (and yes, it is worthy of that word) about motherhood—the varied and complex, often stunning and often heartbreaking writing by women who are mothers, is taken seriously as art. Because of course it’s often not taken seriously for the very reasons that Harris states in her article. Women are still supposed to be quiet. Mothers, especially, should be quiet. We should not write about the truth of our experiences. We should definitely not write against the myths of motherhood.

Motherhood writing is often discarded (or ignored or not published at all) because of its subject matter. But memoir is never so much about its subject matter as it is about, as Brett Lott says, the relationship between the writer and the subject at hand. I don’t like boxing, but I love Toure’s “What’s Inside You, Brother?” and Gay Talese’s “Ali in Havana.” William Zinsser, in On Writing Well, says, “Ultimately, the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is. I often find myself reading with interest about a topic I never thought would interest me—some scientific quest, perhaps. What holds me is the enthusiasm of the writer for his field. How was he drawn into it? What emotional baggage did he bring along? How did it change his life?”

But it’s funny—and not in a ha-ha sort of way—that when the subject is motherhood, people don’t seem to be as willing to read, to let themselves be drawn in.

One of the people who commented (early, before I stopped reading) on Harris’ article posed this question: “When are people going to start treating respect as if it mattered?” When indeed?

I forwarded the link to Harris’ article to my current Mother Words students, and one of my wonderful students responded with a link to an article in the new online literary journal Candor.

It was Women Writer + Writer Mother: A Conversation Between Sarah Manguso and Rachel Zucker, and in this conversation, writers Sarah Manguso and Rachel Zucker discuss what they have in common and what they don’t, and both are very honest about what kinds of stereotypes they’ve bought into and what kind of judgments they’ve made about mothers and women who chose not to be mothers. This is a long conversation, but it’s worth the read, and I think it adds another dimension to Harris’ article about the way mothers and nonmothers are pitted against each other. (Which on some level has to do with the cultural myths of motherhood still perpetuated in our society…)

I very much like the way this conversation ends. Rachel Zucker says, “I had assumed that what we had in common was what would bring us close, but of course this is not necessarily true. In our case what brought us closer was a shared interest in exploring a difference between us.”

I wonder what would happen if people were truly interested in exploring differences and similarities rather than pointing fingers and slinging insults at one another. Could we come to some understanding? Could we learn to be kind, to respect each other? Could we—please—learn to respect each other’s writing?