the other mother - free writing workshop for moms

Contest! Brought to you by the letter P

bird of paradise (Strelitzia)

School's almost out, the cocoons have hatched into moths and butterflies, the air conditioners hum and the grass sings with insects that will live very short, lovely lives.

Time for a little contest.

It's little because you only have to write two paragraphs. I'll give you a topic, and you can write for as long as you want (or 23 minutes, if you need a limit), but then take your work off into the outside world and hone two paragraphs for me, make them your best.

The winner gets:

• a) the honor of being the first ever Moms Who Write Summer Contest winner
• b) a fabulous car magnet featuring The Other Mother book jacket, so you'll always know which minivan is yours in the parking lot and
• c) an adorable little box of chocolates.

It isn't huge, but it's good. 4 runners-up get car magnets and can call themselves runners-up in any desired social event.

Take your new status to the Hamptons! Or the Shore! Or the Cape! Or the backyard sprinkler! Fire hydrant! If there's enough interest, I'll send out five fridge magnets as well, but mostly I'm hoping to get your best paragraphs. Don't be shy. Write, hone, post. The closing date is TBA.

Enough details. Now more details:

Yesterday my daughter and I were talking about the plum tree, about how for one week we get an explosion of fragrant flowers, then the next week a plethora of pink petal precipitation, and then, which is now, some perfect purple plums. Sure, they're ornamental, but we've used them as a sort of snack since we had a Persian babysitter who ate them by the bushel, and told us, "If I don't come to work tomorrow, they weren't good to eat." She came back. If you're out there now, Nooshin, we're thinking of you!

So summer means perfect purple plums around here. When I lived in San Diego it meant Santa Anas blustering the night-blooming jasmine and the hot dry wind making your throat ache for the east. June Gloom. In San Francisco the single bird of paradise plant bloomed in the tiny little space between our earthquake shack and the apartment building next door. One square foot of dirt enclosed by walls and a bird of paradise perched there.

This week's writing topic: What is June for you? Write your June, perfect plums or terrible rains. Then post your two paragraphs. Have at it. If you have been lurking, this is the time to post!

teach your children well...

free to be you and me:
marlo thomas and friends

What with mother's day, and library visits and book groups (thank you, wonderful folks, who have hosted me in your homes - I've learned so much!), I've been thinking a lot about how although my parents (look of shock) weren't perfect, somehow they managed to teach me that I could do/be whatever I wanted to do/be.

My neighbor, a few years back, rolled down her minivan window as I walked the dog and baby in stroller (years back!) and said, tearfully:

"You tell them they can do anything they want, but I never expected my little girl would want to go to West Point!"

They adjusted, and so, I hope, will I, to whatever passions my children choose (or whatever passions choose them), as long as they don't hurt anyone else.

But meanwhile, I'm doing my best to teach them -- it's okay for boys to think American Girl Dolls are cool; it's okay for girls to love sports -- cliches, for sure, but true.

Remember Free to be you and me? William wants a doll?

This week's writing topic: Make a list: what I want to teach my children. Choose one and write about it for 22 minutes. Go.

Oh, Italia!

ravioli gnudi burro salviac parmigiano
image credit: trozbo : cc-2.0-nc-sa

I've never been to Italy, but I was recently invited to a fantastic event hosted by Kim Orlando of Traveling Mom.com, Beth Feldman of RoleMommy.com, and Andrea Sertoli at Select Italy, his Soho loft/cooking school. First, let me say it was like entering a geode; from Bowery and a nondescript entryway and elevator to an open-armed loft filled with lovely company, extraordinary good will and hospitality, a vast square table that seated about 30 of us, and exquisite food.

I learned to make a little edible cheese basket for salads (we all did; some of the women writers dancing more fervently than others to cool the cheese/polenta mixture in the pan), red snapper baked in foil, and the adorably-named gnudi, pasta sans pasta--just the filling (oh, the filling!) piped out of pastry sleeves, then boiled, then baked.

Yum! Yum! Not just the food, but the conversation. I knew one woman there when I arrived (though it turns out I knew some from cyberspace...or they knew me, and then meeting them in all three dimensions was a joy), and a whole roomful when I left.

I wish I was having a catered affair so I could hire the charming Andrea Tiberi (it was a night of several Andreas), but if you live in the Tri-state area, I highly recommend that you do. I was also very tempted by all the Select Italy tours--making frescos with your family! Driving a Ferrari on the Italian roads! (okay, maybe not that one, though it looked scenic) Hiking in the Italian Alps! Definitely on my someday to do list.

Meanwhile...

This week's writing topic: Write about a place you've never been. Write for twenty minutes. As a bonus topic, make a list of trips you've taken--disastrous, fabulous, enchanting, nauseating...choose one to write about for another twenty.

And if you feel like sharing, that is, about a nonfictional trip, go visit Traveling Mom. You might just publish an essay with her, and inspire (or warn!) the rest of us. Happy Spring, writers on and all!

Lost, Found, Mother's Day

Oh yes indeedy, Mother's Day is coming up. Of course, I highly recommend The Other Mother as a gift. And, if you email me at ggross@gwendolengross.com I will send you a handy signed bookplate "to Elizabeth's Mom," etc.

If your mom likes a good read and already has TOM, check out the lovely Allison Winn Scotch's freshly out in paperback The Department of Lost and Found. It's touching and warm and wonderful, and Allison herself seems to be, too. She has a very writer-friendly blog, Ask Allison, with all kinds of insider advice on writing, especially for magazines, but fiction as well. She's a writer's writer, as they say. Pick up her book today, if not for Mom, for yourself!

If Mom's nuts about knitting (how did this happen? I'm nuts about knitting. Next comes knit-lit, as my husband says, or, if you're joking about skeins, knit-wit. Oh dear.) and your budget's a bit bigger, how about stopping by here?

Or if you're in northern NJ, I just went to the most amazing yarn store on my way back from a book group: The Stitchery. OMG, the colors! The kind and helpful staff!

That's this week's writing topic after all: A letter to Mom, trying your very best to write specific details--and not the usual ones, either--the you-changed-my-diaper ones. The conversation about worms, the letting me pick out anything in the toystore (I chose Misty of Chincoteague the plastic horse model) after the pet catfish died, if you can remember them. Spend 18 minutes. I can't wait to read them!

This week's writing topic: A letter to Mom, trying your very best to write specific details--and not the usual ones, either--the you-changed-my-diaper ones. The conversation about worms, the letting me pick out anything in the toystore (I chose Misty of Chincoteague the plastic horse model) after the pet catfish died, if you can remember them. Spend 18 minutes. I can't wait to read them!

workshops!

I'm all for mothers writing together, as you know, and started a course called Writing Motherhood right here in town some years ago! I don't know these folks personally, but they wrote and asked whether I'd share the following:

MotherVerse Magazine, a journal of contemporary motherhood, is launching an exciting new addition; mother writer workshops. These virtual workshops are designed to help facilitate mother writing by encouraging others to come together to learn and guide one another. MotherVerse will be offering two workshops "Writing Motherhood" and "Publishing a Blog" with will begin at the end of April and early May. The workshops will feature experienced published mentors and are a great opportunity to grow your current writing, develop something new, or begin that blog you have always wanted to start. If you are interested in joining a workshop sign up as soon as possible as each workshop has a limited enrollment. Visit http://www.motherverse.com/workshops

If you go, let us know what you think!

This week's writing topic: Write about not being a mother for 9 minutes. That could be nine minutes of not being a mother, or before you were a mother, or what you are other than a mother...

I'm just back from visiting my mother, which was wonderful. And spring is sprung, the flowers riz, I wonder where the birdies is...

knit a little, talk a little, cheep cheep cheep!

What is it about knitting? I finally broke down and bought The Friday Night Knitting Club to take on vacation—and have to admit, the skeins on the cover are probably the most compelling (I’m not slamming the book—I haven’t read it yet!) book jacket I’ve seen in a while. Dogs and yarn. Note to self: next book should have dogs and yarn on the jacket (instead of whistful women--though I have loved my book jackets, too (thought Luft und Liebe's hilarious.

Anyway, I started knitting back in the ‘80s as part of a winter term project at Oberlin College. My other projects that winter included a Swingle Singers residency and learning microtonal music. My brain was still growing back then. I learned to knit a basic fair aisle sweater, and made about a dozen, designing my own within the basic pattern. I had two pairs of needles. Then after college, I started knitting sweaters for babies, designing my own and branching out into all types of yarn.

But now, now it’s a revolution! I started up again after having bone graft surgery, and I can’t stop. There’s so much locally and online (oo, click me! or me!) and the yarns are glorious, and knitters are ubiquitous. I have friends who hide their stashes (an interesting choice of jargon to begin with) so no one in their family knows how much they spend on yarn. It’s cheaper, in my friend Cindy’s words, than crack.

The other day my friend Kim called to tell me about a knitting event at her local library; my friend Linda left a message about a knit-in at Barnes and Noble, but the strange thing is, I really like knitting alone. Maybe it’s partly that I still can’t get the kind of all-out exercise I used to before the ankle surgery (it’ll take up to a year), but knitting calms me, helps me focus. It’s kind of like the reverie of writing, though not the same kind of almost physical mental effort—more like meditating, perhaps. Anyway, I’m glad it’s this new public festival, I’m glad it’s IN, I’m glad I can lust after glorious yarns  and click on handmade skeins and notice a hand-knit a mile away. I don’t know how long it’ll last. Maybe until I can start taking the other kind of spinning class again. Or maybe my whole house will be covered in lace, knit and purl. Making something out of raw materials, straw into gold, we like making things, whether it’s babies or blogs or books or blankets, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

This entry is cross-posted from the New Jersey Moms Blog.

All that said, here's your new topic: Write about making something: Think Tillie Olson's As I Stand Here Ironing, or building a house, or being pregnant... Write for 14 minutes. Hooray for spring!

Boiled peanuts

It's hilarious, actually, if you say it over and over. Maybe even if you say it once. We went to visit Mom in Florida, northern Florida, so far north it's almost Georgia and you can get boiled peanuts and honeybells at a roadside stand.

Live oaks, Spanish moss, saltmarsh and egrets. I walked on the beach too much and my ankle ached but I loved it. This was the kite trip--I got one for each kid and they took them out on the beach (my husband, too) and flew the rainbows up over the sand.

I don't know about y'all, but I've been able to work only if I make shorter deadlines for myself. Maybe it's the lack of sunlight, but I need to feel accomplishment after, say, 10 pages. After, say, three loads of laundry. After, say, six emails and a single page of writing. It works, though, the small deadlines. It keeps me going while March marches in and there's still snow on the ground. Speaking of which...

This week's writing topic: Do some small ritual of writing (invent one if you don't have one--I don't) like touching the silver elephant (Ganesh?) you wear around your neck or turning once clockwise or looking out the window for a full thirty seconds. Then write, for 11 minutes, about melting.

Heartland, NJ

Did you vote? did ya, did ya? Don't forget to vote when it comes around again, okay?

I'm listening to the new Jack Johnson cd, looking out at the crystal chandelier of naked rained upon dogwood and Japanese maple.

And thinking of all of you, so here's a new topic: Write about the last time you said goodbye.

And just to show I'm not all blues (I'm not, really), send someone a valentine, someone who might not get one otherwise, someone who isn't expecting that sweet cheek-kiss of elementary school wish fulfillment.

XOXO!

I owe some comments,

but fresh from a mom writers panel event at the White Plains Library with Jane Green, Pamela Dorman, and Role Mommy Beth Feldman (if you were there, thank you for coming, and for the fabulous questions!) I wanted to offer up a fresh topic.

I've been thinking about wishes, about how they change over time, about how close they can be to prayer, how selfish, how light.

So here's your writing topic. Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. Using your dominant hand (say, right if you're a righty) make a list of wishes on the corresponding (in this case right) side.

Then put the pen in your nondominant hand and write on the other side. Make a list of secret wishes. This could be in code if it's easier to admit to them that way (of course, they can all belong to a character anyway!).

Now choose one wish from each column and start to write. Don't forget the sounds, textures, taste of it all. Write for nine minutes.

I hope your wishes smell like just peeled oranges.

January, the cold grey sky,

snowy miniature daffodil

the squirrels raiding the birdfeeders, the incensed nut hatch pecking the window with displeasure.

Thank you all for well wishes! I'm more mobile every day. Let's have a quick, quiet moment in praise of excellent physical therapists, now (not that they're all excellent; I've heard horror stories, but I'm feeling very lucky for the careful attention of the past months...).

I feel like I live at the PT office.

Here's a new writing topic for you this week: Write for 11 minutes (don't think, don't worry, and don't stop):about planting flowers, picking flowers, or ruining flowers.

It gives you the option of hope or collection or a good cathartic demolition. Have at it!