motherbird
some thoughts on art, writing, and motherhoodOther Words for Restless
I heard the cicadas for the first time while taking out the trash after dinner. I know it's been a year and more but I forget until something comes around again. Here we are, I think, tossing another bag in the can. Joy comes in minuscule amounts: the sun warming my shoulders as I cross the yard to take strawberry tops to the chickens; my three-year-old climbing into my arms after I’ve helped him get dressed. The things I daydream about now are too close to achievable. Brass candlesticks, a...
Loved and Wanted
Christa Parravani thought a teaching job at the university in Morganstown, West Virginia was the path towards a better life for her young family. Instead, she found herself unexpectedly pregnant a year after the birth of her second child. With a tenuous marriage and financial situation, Parravani sought an abortion. Although well within her legal rights, Parravani was ignored and misdirected by medical professionals. Once she understood she'd need to leave West Virginia in order to attain a...
Love and Trouble
At 44, Claire Dederer was suddenly crying a lot and dealing with the intense feelings she hadn't experienced since she was a young adult. She finds herself digging through old journals, remembering her youth, and drawing connections to her current "inconvenient" feelings. This memoir has been recommended to me numerous times, including during a workshop I took while I was reading the book (what Julia Cameron would call a synchronicity). Dederer's prose is exactly what I love in a memoir:...
Let's be pen pals.
I write a newsletter called The Workbooks. Subscribe for monthly updates from me, including essays and insight into my creative process.
2020 All Rights Reserved