A few weeks ago my kids and I went to Cedar Point, which claims to be the roller coaster capital of the world. My day was filled with moments of absolute terror, exhilaration, and an assortment of pains in my legs and feet. A roller coaster may be a tired metaphor for a book release, but I’m standing by it. It’s my last post on the Ball, and tired is…
I didn’t really have a blooper reel for Girlish. I invented a word, “gack-worthy” which I used in the introduction. I knew it wasn’t a real word, but for some reason while I was waiting to receive my edits I obsessed over whether my editors would let it fly or force me to change it to something more conventional, say yack or gag. I spent an inordinate amount of time…
I had two launch parties for Girlish—one in my hometown of Rochester, NY, and one in my current town, Cleveland. Old Hometown Launch Venue: Writers and Books (a writing center) Food: Beautiful appetizer and dessert trays, which remained largely uneaten. Two kinds of wine + bottled water, most of which remained largely undrank. Agenda: chatting, signing, and general milling about. I did a 10-minute reading from Girlish. Takeways: People don’t care…
I write a lot. I devote the majority of every day to writing, reading, and editing. (It really helps to have a work-and-home SigO who is always working.) I know I’m both incredibly lucky to be able to do so and also incredibly boring by most people’s standards. I get antsy when I’m away from my work for too long. Even when I travel—and I travel a lot—I write…
Stories, Blogs, and Hacked Recipes for the Newly Single Mother Being a single mother means relaxing your cleanliness standards. A lot. Being a single mother means missing your kids like crazy when your ex has them, only to want to give them back ten minutes after they come home. Being a single mother means accepting sleep deprivation as a natural state. Being a single mother means hauling a toddler, a…
I’m so excited to introduce everyone to Rebecca Fish Ewan, author of By the Forces of Gravity. I met Rebecca last year at Hippocamp, Hippocampus Magazine’s annual Creative Nonfiction conference. She approached me after my breakout session on Experimental Writing and talked about her work, which combined drawings and free verse. It was exactly the type of thing I wanted to add to my presentation, so I was extremely grateful! She even…
On the one hand, it’s easy to discount the need for research in memoir. I mean, who knows your life better than you do? There was actually a good bit of research that went into crafting Girlish. I spoke at length with my siblings, various family members and had many conversations with both my childhood friends and some of my parents’ friends. I read a lot of memoir and poetry…
I am so excited to welcome Terese Marie Mailhot to the blog today, and introduce her and her searingly beautiful memoir to the Deb community! About Heart Berries: Heart Berries is a powerful, poetic memoir of a woman’s coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest. Having survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder…
I held a story in my chest and this story breathed when I breathed, and it flowed through my veins and pulsed with my heartbeat. I couldn’t shut it off. Everything else I tried to write was colored by it. My story needed to be told, so I put it down on pages and it became a book, and then I didn’t have to carry it any longer. As I…
I am breaking with the interview format today because I am so completely nuts over RED by Michael Hall, a 40-page picture book about a blue crayon who is mistakenly given a red label at the factory. While it is a wonderful resource for trans and gender-queer kids and those who love them, I think it will resonate with anyone who has ever felt as if the world expects them to…
