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FEATURE ESSAY Mom Publisher Nancy Cleary Up before the sun, passionate about her work, Nancy Cleary strives to keep her finger on the pulse of the publishing industry. For Nancy, it's her author's experience that reigns supreme, and her dedication to empowering mom authors has created a worldwide following. Since launching Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, named for her son and daughter, Nancy has printed over a quarter of a million books, many of them award-winning, and each of them a career stepping stone for the author. Her own Fall '07 release, A Book is Born, chronicles the publishing journey with insight, humor, and heart. Nancy works out of her home-office in rural Deadwood, Oregon, with her office companion, a chocolate lab appropriately named “Book.” Continue reading Mom Publisher Nancy Cleary Guest Features Her Golden Time There are few sights so beautiful, I think, as my daughter in her golden dress. Golden is her word, and one well-chosen. She marches up the aisle long before the raised crucifix and is seated next to the rest of her kindergarten class. They are preparing to sing a hymn. I sit with her father, several rows back. I can still see the back of her head, her ponytail tied in black satin. But in this same moment, even as I marvel at the perfection of her graceful shoulders, I realize that she and I are miles apart in belief...
Continue reading Her Golden Time
The Cat in the Closet My son Henry is learning how to read. He knows plenty of so-called sight words – dog, jump, funny and so on – but he doesn't have the confidence yet to tackle a lengthy chapter book on his own. Books have a lot of type and pages, and chugging through all that alone can be daunting, not to mention frustrating, to a 6-year-old who doesn't like to flub up. Continue reading The Cat in the Closet
Vintage Baby I dance the Charleston with my little son. If I knew older dances, I’d do them, but waltzes are complicated. I read him ancient English nursery rhymes and sing early American folk tunes, and when he’s bigger I want to get him interested in listening to Depression-era radio shows and watching black and white movies. If it’s old, I like it. I climb around the nursery and paste Victoriana everywhere, and mine e-Bay for a vintage rocking horse, despite the fact I think that already (at barely 2 years of age) my son would prefer a tiny racecar. Oh, if only life was simple and sweet – like the old days... Continue reading Vintage Baby
Miles in the Morning It is 6:45 a.m. I have just drifted off to sleep, having been awakened at 4:30 by a jubilant chorus of birds. This is the third morning in a row the birds have awakened me. I am not the kind of woman who goes back to sleep easily, once awakened. "I want the mail truck." My eyes open. I look next to me. My husband has already left for work. Of course he has; I watched him depart at 5:45. "I want the mail truck." It is the voice of my son, Miles. He's three. He wants the mail truck...
Truth Without Answers Truth is easy to spot when you’re a kid. It sticks out like a grownup on a playground. Truth: I played with that sand toy last week, so it’s mine. Truth: I will totally die if you make me wear that. Just totally die. Get a bit older, and things get a little murkier. We join the rest of humanity in the search for Truth. It’s a slam dunk for some, but for others of us it’s not so easy. Sure, a few issues are still “gimmes.” Truth: I don’t earn what I’m worth. Truth: My kids won’t even wear the color green, much less eat it. But for me, truth has become something that changes based on my life experience – a moving target. I call it situational truth... Continue reading Truth Without Answers
Catalyst A spring morning, and the days are waxing longer. I slip on my crocs™ and head down the path to the coop to let the chickens loose to free range. I discover that Blanca, our white silkie Bantam hen, has head-pecked two chicks to death. Blanca was always on the verge, a distant aunt with troubled nerves wringing her hands, retreating east from the new frontier, too bewildered to scratch up seed pods and tombed grubs. Her once endearing dumbness, as in bird brained, now seems twisted. Her strange scarlet eyes glare vacant and moon cold. I do not look for a thready pulse in patches of transparency as I bundle the chicks under the spreading rhubarb leaves with their promise of toxicity. Certainly hens, though clearly they aren’t in the mammal family, come equipped with some version of maternal instinct. I scan through my very limited knowledge of bird behavior including someone’s famous experiment with imprinting ducklings or was it goslings? No matter, my mind can’t quite accept death at the hands of a mother hen’s beak...
On Watching American Beauty Yesterday, when Andrew came home, I was in the kitchen, nursing the baby, or rather keeping her from crying by allowing her to hang from my breast. This had taken up much of my day. Sitting in the corner, I knew my mood by the feel of my face. It was hanging from my skull, limp and heavy, lifeless and ugly. Andrew had arrived with a bouquet of roses. I wanted to be happy about that, but wasn’t. They were roses he was obliged to buy for his charity group fund raiser. It happens every year around this time. I attempted a smile. It came out a sneer. Eleanora started screaming from somewhere in the house. Izzy had probably hit her or taken her blanket or called her a poopy butt (his favorite word, he tells me). I didn’t care. My expression fell again to despondence. Andrew seemed scared... Continue reading On Watching American Beauty
Welcome to Preschool It’s a tiny brown wren with a curved beak and a white stripe over its eye. It arrives every evening at the very second the sky darkens from gray to black. We stand silently, peering through the glass in the door, watching. It flies right into the corner of the porch overhang where the roof and wall meet. It will sit there for 10 minutes, then tuck its head under its body and go to sleep. Gaby and I know this. We watch the little bird every night.
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