Happy Mother’s Day!
Dear Writers,
If you’re a writer, you’ve probably got stuff with your mother. Maybe she was there for you. Maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she thought you hung up the sun in the morning. Maybe you drove each other crazy. Maybe she worked constantly and wished she could be home. Maybe she was a full time mother who wanted to be elsewhere. Maybe you lost her too young. Maybe you cared for her deep into old age. Maybe you adored her. Maybe she was absent. Maybe you miss her more than words can say. Maybe you were mothered by friends, aunts, teachers, grandmothers, coaches, cousins, brothers, sisters, fathers and friends’ mothers.
Mother’s Day is a crazy-making holiday and yet we are forced to acknowledge and celebrate it every May. To me, it is a holiday that highlights the difficulties of love, and thus presents an opportunity to write.
My longtime student, Hilda Chazanovitz, published this beautiful piece, The Loving, Complex Relationship I Had With My Mother, a Holocaust Survivor in The Forward last week.
Another longtime student, Elizabeth Emrey, won second prize from The Girlfriend for her essay, “Mother Knows Best.” My friend and co-teacher Judy Rabinor’s essay was also honored. Both were published in The Girlfriend this week.
I published a piece, The Purchase That Made Me Feel Like A Sexy Woman. It’s not about my mother, though to paraphrase my old Wellesley English professor, William Cain, who once wrote in a book dedicated to his wife: “Her presence is in every word I write.”
Two years ago, Katherine Heiny, the novelist and short story writer, wrote this beautiful essay for the Guardian about visiting her mother, who had Lewy Body Disease. I asked Heiny what prompted her to write the story:
“I was about to visit my mom for the first time since the pandemic and decided to write about that,” Heiny says. “I actually wrote it in real time, visiting my mom in the mornings and then writing in the afternoon and evening. I'm a slow writer and it was very challenging to write 3,000 words in a single week. I cried a lot while writing it—it was very hard to articulate thoughts I'd barely allowed myself to have about her life and what it was like now—but it was cathartic.”
“I've gotten so many emails from people with loved ones with dementia who said I'd described their exact feelings and helped them feel not so alone and that alone made it time well spent. My mother died in January and now I can think of her with joy instead of sorrow. The night she died, I left the nursing home and there was a huge power outage in Midland. It seemed like the world had dimmed its lights in order for her to ascend. She was that special. I'm so grateful that I had the chance to write about her.”
Heiny just published a wonderful new short story collection, Games and Rituals.
This Mother’s Day, give yourself a hug and a kiss and watch Judy Blume Forever. The documentary starts with Blume reading a passage about masturbation, and only gets funnier and better from there. Blume has two adult kids and was married three times (she doesn’t think her first husband read any of her books). She debated Pat Buchanan on Crossfire. Her books have been banned and she wrote so many great ones, including Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Then Again Maybe I Won’t, Forever, Deenie, Blubber and Wifey,. She has sold more than 85 million books, owns a bookstore in Key West and maintains an active correspondence with her readers. Readers write to her about their families, friends, bodies, bullying, gender identity, divorce, incest and suicide. Blume writes them back; she nurtures them through words. The documentary features powerful interviews with Lorrie Kim and Karen Chilstrom, two women Blume has corresponded with for decades, The movie version of Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret is out this week. Let’s all see it!
These days, my kids, 22 and 26, are a joy. To quote a former student: “As a mother, I have gone from being a full time employee to a part-time consultant.” I’ve learned to keep expectations low. Maybe my kids will acknowledge Mother’s Day this year; maybe they won’t. Regardless, I will nudge them to call their grandmothers. Over Mother’s Day weekend, I will eat gluten-free chocolate cake with my mother, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, husband’s aunt and maybe one of my kids. We’ll discuss the wonderful people who made us mothers. I’ll run around the Central Park reservoir or practice yoga, drink strong coffee, write, read, maybe watch “Call My Agent” and peel frosting off the cake. My husband may or may not write me a Mother’s Day poem. What’s certain is my friends and I will text each other, wishing ourselves Happy Mother’s Day.
Wishing you a happy Mother’s Day. Thank you for being part of Sweet Lab.
✤ Alice Elliot Dark, Fellowship Point (Novel. Two friends nurture each other over a lifetime)
✤ Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry (Novel. Unusual mother-daughter relationship)
✤ Claire Keegan, Walk the Blue Fields (Short stories. “The Parting Gift” is a devastating mother-daughter story.)
✤ Ann Patchett, These Precious Days (Essays. In “There are No Children Here” Patchett writes about her decision not to have children. In the title essay, she writes about caring for her dying friend Suki. Read the title essay here.)
✤ Ann Patchett, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage (Essays. Patchett writes beautifully about mothering and being mothered by her mother and grandmother.)
✤ Judith Ruskay Rabinor, The Girl in the Red Boots: Making Peace with My Mother (Memoir by therapist about conflicted relationship with mother)
✤ Mary Rodgers and Jesse Green, Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers (Sharp memoir by daughter of composer Richard Rodgers; explores complicated relationship with her mother, Dorothy )
✤ Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful (Funny, bracing memoir about infidelity and divorce, and the influence of author/poet’s own mother)
✤Qian Julie Wang, Beautiful Country: A Memoir of an Undocumented Childhood (Gripping story about author’s childhood and influence of mother)
Writing Retreat in Peterborough, New Hampshire, July 10-13, 2023
With only two spots left, time is running out to book your spot for our writing retreat in New Hampshire at Cranberry Meadow Farm 🪵🌿. Join us for three days and nights at Cranberry Meadow Farm in the beautiful Monadnock Mountains of southern New Hampshire. Private accommodations in this luxury, boutique property near MacDowell, where Thornton Wilder wrote Our Town. Cranberry Meadow Farm is spread out over 80 acres and includes a trout pond, hiking trails, chicken coop and vegetable garden. We’ll hold two-hour writing workshops in the mornings, write, hike, swim and relax in the afternoons, eat dinner and hold open mics at night. Carolyn, the innkeeper, worked at Chez Panisse and will prepare our meals. Her food is sublime.
Price: $3,600. Includes three nights at the inn, nine meals, writing workshops and feedback, hikes and visits to the chicken coop to gather eggs.
Excluded but highly recommended: Yoga, massages and alcohol.
Writers don’t have to submit work ahead of time but those who want to can submit up to 30 pages (7,500 words, double spaced) for line edits, feedback and discussion.
Bonus: Katie Hafner, author of the fabulous novel The Boys, lives locally and will join us in for an in-person discussion. Katie is also the author of the memoir, Mother Daughter Me.
We’re running our second Writing Our Secrets workshop in New York City on Monday, May 8, with Dr. Judith Rabinor. Held in person (155 West 68th Street) & virtually. Join us as we ponder: Is it true that every great memoir, short story and novel contains a secret?
The power of secrets has shaped the stories by Liane Moriarty (The Husband’s Secret), Anita Shreve (The Pilot’s Wife), Alice Elliott Dark (Fellowship Point), Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry), Katherine Heiny (Bridesmaid, Revisited), and Tara Ison (At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf), among others. In our workshop, we will draw inspiration from these authors, discuss the uses of secrets in storytelling and examine how to write about your own secrets. Secrets propel stories, and a concealed fact—whether kept hidden or ultimately revealed—will transform a character’s life and influence your story’s narrative arc.
Choose from two options:
A. Writers can submit up to 10 pages (2,500 words, double-spaced in 12-14 point type) for line edits and written feedback: $350.
B. Writers can just show up without submission: $250.
Learn more about how to register below.
Manifest & Publish Your Work: A Summer Submissions Workshop
Friday mornings, 11-12 p.m, June 23, July 21 and August 18
Many of you want to submit your work. We’re going to run a hybrid workshop on Submitting Your Work and will run it three times over the summer—once each month in June, July and August, both in person and via Zoom. (We’ll record the workshop so if you miss it, you can listen to the recording.) Publishing takes organization and persistence. We’ll try to answer these questions and others:
✤ Where should you submit flash fiction?
✤ Where should you submit a short story that is 6,000 words?
✤ Where should you submit an essay that is 800 words?
✤ How do you know when your piece is ready to send out?
✤ What is a reasonable amount of time to wait for a response?
✤ Will you ever get published in Modern Love?
✤ Should you submit to The New Yorker?
Choose from two options:
A. Submit work (5 pages, 1,250 words, double-spaced) for line edits and feedback, and attend workshop, $250.
B. Attend workshop without submission, $150.
Bonnie Jo Campbell, The Solutions To Ben’s Problem (fiction)
Roxanne Gay, Contrapasso (fiction)
Mieko Kawakami, For That One Moment (nonfiction)
