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FEATURE ESSAYS
Main Feature – Cover Story – Celebrate Nancy Cleary’s Mom-Writers Publishing Cooperative
The Alchemy of Publishing: Turning Mom Writers into Gold by Tracy Lyn Moland
The alchemist magically combines elements, imbues them with spirit, adds time and space, and attempts to transmute them into gold. Publisher Nancy Cleary is a modern-day alchemist with a secret formula for turning authors into gold...
“Hello Mom Writers!” begins a letter from Nancy Cleary about her golden creation – the Mom-Writers Publishing Cooperative.
“I love what I do - I have been designing books, packaging products, and promoting creative individuals for 17 years. Since launching my publishing company over 7 years ago, I have learned a great deal about the industry, and about building a brand and a powerful author...
Continue reading The Alchemy of Publishing
Guest Features
My Grandma: A Pinky’s Worth of Guilt by Leah Bassoff
How I wish my children could grow up knowing my grandma. When I think of her, I miss her with each one of my senses: If I smell a particular blend of cooking food mixed with a slight smell of mothballs and the old radiator smell from New York apartments, if I hear someone pronounce my name with a heavy New York accent (Lee-er), like she used to, I am filled with the desire to pick up the phone and call her.
In the photograph I have of her, she is about twenty and looking uncharacteristically shy and demure. She must have put her crutches aside because, in the photograph, she is standing solo; her hands seem to be creasing down her skirt, and she looks slightly off-balance, like one who has been propped upright or planted into the ground; her hair is done in tight waves, and she has bright red lipstick on which I‘ve never seen her wear. It is strange to see her with her mouth inked such bold red and without her crutches, since, as a child, they were like extra appendages I always pictured her having. When I was little, my brother and I loved propelling ourselves around her apartment on the crutches, sticking the hand rests underneath our armpits and using them to swing our legs wildly about...
Continue reading My Grandma: A Pinky’s Worth of Guilt
Careful What You Wish For
by Ashley Williams Ellis Nothing melts my heart
more than those three little words: “I want Mommy!”
Even so, with the impending arrival of Baby Ellis #2, my husband and I
jointly decided to begin having him play a more central role in our
toddler’s care. The idea behind our thinking was that if Mommy was
busy with the baby, our son would feel equally comfortable going to Dad.
In theory I thought, great. In practice, I missed my clingy little
boy who thought his mommy ruled the world...
Continue reading Careful What You Wish For
Romantic Weekend Getaway
by Karrie McAllister We had just finished
ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch. The cabin table was brimming with
playing cards, coloring books, and a board game with too many pieces.
There isn't too much to do but entertain yourself when spending a
weekend in the woods with two small kids, and some mothers might cringe
at the fact that there is no TV and no parks. Just miles and miles of
springtime Ohio forests with deer hoof
prints pressed in every inch of soft mud and a soft glow of green in
every direction. Yet each chance we get, when there isn't a swimming
lesson or a birthday party, we head to the family cabin which by most
standards is in the middle of nowhere. We have learned well how to
entertain ourselves, and how by doing that we have made our family life
all that much richer...
Continue reading Romantic Weekend Getaway
Suddenly Single
by Ami Peltier
As the wife of an Army physician deployed to Iraq, I get many questions
from friends who are mystified by the whole process, and whose only
exposure to the army has been through the humorous and highly realistic
antics of the actors on M*A*S*H* reruns (Yes! I get it! He’s just like
Hawkeye! Now please stop sending us Hawaiian shirts!). On normal,
non-war zone days, my husband works in a clinic at the Fort Leonard Wood
Hospital in Missouri, and is assigned to a unit out of Fort Hood, Texas.
When they deploy, he receives a set of orders to join them, which look
something like this...
Continue reading Suddenly Single
Disgruntled Baby on Aisle Seven
by Angel Rutledge It's a rookie mom's mistake. Choosing which check-out lane to stand in
at the grocery store merely by determining which has the shortest line. If it
isn't listed in some parenting book yet, it ought to be...
Rule #1 of Shopping: Never stand in a line behind a woman who is more
than ten years older than you and has a kind face. Inevitably, she will
notice you…and worse, she will notice your baby...
Continue reading Disgruntled Baby on Aisle Seven
And I'll Stare
by Carol Weis My
daughter was always a good student, and one who left her assignments for
the last minute. It used to drive me crazy. Good grief, I thought,
she's a carbon copy of me. But every so often, there was that heart
opening exception, seen in this excerpt from
SparkNotes, Ack!, chapter eight of the yet-to-be-published
mother/daughter project we started when Maggie was fifteen, which we
call, WAKE UP MAGGIE! GO AWAY MOM! A Memoir in Two Voices...
Continue reading And I'll Stare
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