If you have read Yvonne Thornton's first memoir, The Ditchdigger's Daughters, this sentiment will be familiar. Thornton is one of five daughters born to Itasker and Donald and raised in the housing projects of New Jersey. Donald Thornton worked many jobs -- at one point as a ditchdigger -- to provide for his family. He wanted a better life for them. He wanted his daughters to be physicians.
Yvonne Thornton achieved her father's dream. In fact, she became the first African-American woman in the US to be double-Board Certified in obstetrics, gynecology and maternal-fetal medicine.
In her latest memoir, Something to Prove, Thornton establishes herself as an exceptional doctor and formidable personality, often amidst blatant discrimination. Much of the story focuses on her rise from an assistant professor in the underfunded sub-basement of the New York Hospital through many promotions to full professor, vice-chair and Director of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at NYC's Jamaica Hospital. The path is not always easy and Thornton is as candid about her faults and defeats as she is about her considerable strengths and triumphs.
But Thornton does not want to succeed in medicine only. She has two children now, and is determined to excel at parenting too. She races from her duties in the operating room to school concerts, chess matches and graduation ceremonies.
....I refused to let my schedule interfere when my kids needed me.... Never mind hell or high water -- come quintuplets or emergency cesarean, if my own babies needed their mom to show up, I'd find a way to be there.
It seems Thornton does, indeed, have something to prove and she aims to instill that drive in her children. More than that, she wants to fulfill her father's legacy and ensure that both children will one day have that "MD after their names."
Amy Chua made waves as a "Tiger Mother." Yvonne Thornton, according to her website, prefers to be called a lioness.
Something to Prove is well-written and a pleasure to read. I can't help wonder though, as I watch Thornton deliver one high-risk baby after another, follow her back to college for yet another qualification, applaud her promotions and ballroom dance competitions, and marvel as her children win national chess championships and, yes, become doctors themselves: How can one woman accomplish all of this?
Thornton returns again and again to her parents.
All my life they'd told me, keep going, just keep going. It doesn't matter that you came from Long Branch. It doesn't matter that you're black. It doesn't matter that you're a woman. If this is the goal that you want to reach, this is the goal that you should aim for.
Thornton has clearly taken this advice to heart, and in Something to Prove she passes it along to her readers. "With hard work, determination, and education," she says, "we can achieve anything."
We have two copies of Something to Prove to give away to our readers. Please leave your name and email in a comment for a chance to win! (US and Canada only.)
Do you keep a journal - or wish you could get one started? Literary Mama wants to help.
Three times a month, I'll post a writing prompt. Open a notebook and write for 10 minutes. Don't worry about grammar or punctuation - just write. Then let the writing simmer and your mind wander for awhile.
And who knows? Maybe you'll discover a character for your next short story or a theme for a narrative essay. Or maybe you'll use the idea to create a special holiday card or photo album for someone in your family. However you decide to use your journal entry, I know you'll enjoy re-reading it months--and years--down the road.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Consider these results from the 2010 Kids & Family Reading Report conducted by Harrison Group and Scholastic:
- 71% of parents wish their child would read more books for fun; 75% of kids say they know they should
- Over half of kids (ages 9-17) say they are interested in reading an eBook, and a third of children ages 9-17 say they would read more books for fun if they had access to eBooks on an electronic device.
- 6% of parents surveyed owned an e-reader; another 16% are interested in buying one. 83% of these parents say they do, or will, encourage their child to use it.
Journal Entry: Make a list of five books you want your children to experience. Do the books need to be printed and bound? Why or why not?
Please join us for our March 1st dinner party on the theme Unsaid: Stories Between Bites. We will be featuring poets Bill Berekson and Micah Ballard as well as Yasmin Goland, chef of Calio Pie Edibles and Delights.
More information about the guests, theme, and evening can be found in our Press Release. Join us for an evening of unspeakable deliciousness and whispered poetry!
Listing Info:
What: Feast of Words: A Literary Potluck
Where: SOMArts Cultural Center (934 Brannan St, between 8th and 9th)
When: Tuesday, March 1, 2011. 7:00pm to 9:00pm, doors open at 6:30pm
What else: Tickets are $10 advance, $5 with a potluck dish and $12 at the door. http://feastofwords.eventbrite.com/
Contact: feastofwords@somarts.org
Literary Reflections is pleased to present our featured writing prompt response from Gretta Moorhead. Earlier this month, we asked: Who showed you that books are more than text printed on a page? Describe one specific interaction with this person and the book that was discussed.
Gretta wrote:
Mrs. Hobson was my fourth grade teacher. She was a quiet woman, round and soft, friendly and firm. Every day after recess she read to us, twenty-eight sweaty, spent fourth graders. I'd settle into my wooden chair, wrap my feet around its legs, nestle my head in the nest of my arms, and close my eyes.
One day Mrs. Hobson read a story set in ancient China. The flare from a burning pen of pigs stung my eyes. My stomach knotted in fear. While the embers smoldered a child stuck his finger into the side of his dead pet pig, pulled it out and licked it. I tasted the warm savory juice of the pig.
Once we spent three weeks in a dark Southern swamp, a boy drifting without a paddle, hoping somehow to get home. My skin chilled when a snake uncoiled and dropped into the gloomy water. My heart raced when a muskrat's red eyes appeared ahead. The smell of the fetid swamp made my nose narrow and my eyes run. I imagine the boy eventually got home; I don't remember. But I do remember the terror of that swamp. I do remember what it was to be lost there, even though I'd never been lost and never seen a swamp.
The week Mrs. Hobson read us a story about Ella, a girl who learned to walk again after contracting polio, I became mindful of the power of a book. The day Ella surprised her mother with her first steps I cried, in class, in front of others. I cried about a person who wasn't even real. I knew then the might of a book.
I don't recall the titles of the books Mrs. Hobson read. But I remember a rising awareness that books could take me somewhere new in the world and somewhere new inside myself. I knew in fourth grade that being read to after recess was the best part of the day. Mrs. Hobson had shown me the enchantment and the mystery of books.
###
Gretta can be reached at grettamoorhead(at)gmail(dot)com.
A new Literary Reflections writing prompt is published the first weekend of every month. Responses are accepted until the 15th, and I promise to comment shortly after that. Look for it - we'd love to hear from you.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Demeter Press
is seeking submissions for an edited collection on
Incarcerated Mothers:
Oppression and Resistance
Co-Editors: Gordana Eljdupovic and Rebecca Jaremko Bromwich
Publication Date: 2012
Deadline for abstracts: May 31, 2011!
A large proportion - and in many jurisdictions the majority - of incarcerated women are mothers. Popular attention is often paid to challenges faced by children of incarcerated mothers while incarcerated women themselves often do not "count" as mothers in mainstream discourse. This anthology will explore complex issues relating to incarcerated mothers, from connections between mothering and incarceration, through criminalization of motherhood to understanding experiences of mothers in prison.
This book will examine the experiences of incarcerated mothers as well as how incarcerated mothers are understood in popular discourse and discounted as good or "real" mothers in Western patriarchal society. We encourage submissions that interrogate popular discourses about mothering, virtue and criminalization and especially those that focus on resistance and agency by incarcerated mothers.
Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
-health of mothers in prison -,- experiences of mothers in prison, -representations of incarcerated mothers in popular culture - prison narratives by and about mothers- history of incarcerated mothers- public policy- the law, - stated above - Criminalization of pregnancy and motherhood -constructing identities - survival patterns as incarcerated mothers- negative cultural portrayals of mothers who are criminalized - relationship of patriarchal discursive systems to portrayals of incarcerated mothers - Incarcerated mothers in the press and other mainstream cultural media - adolescent incarcerated mothers - race, class, ethnicity and incarcerated mothers - foster families and incarcerated mothers- mother and caregiver relationships - mothers after incarceration - transitioning from carceral settings to the community - Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered and Transsexual incarcerated mothers - gender identity, criminalization and the social construction of motherhood
Submission Guidelines:
Abstracts should be 250 words. Please also include a brief biography,
including citizenship (50 words).
Please send to Rebecca@jbbarrister.com
Deadline for Abstracts is May 31st, 2011
Accepted Papers of 4000-5000 words (15-20 pages) will be due November 1, 2011
and should conform to MLA citation format.
Demeter Press
140 Holland St. West, PO 13022
Bradford, ON, L3Z 2Y5
http://www.demeterpress.org info@demeterpress.org
Do you keep a journal - or wish you could get one started? Literary Mama wants to help.
Three times a month, I'll post a writing prompt. Open a notebook and write for 10 minutes. Don't worry about grammar or punctuation - just write. Then let the writing simmer and your mind wander for awhile.
And who knows? Maybe you'll discover a character for your next short story or a theme for a narrative essay. Or maybe you'll use the idea to create a special holiday card or photo album for someone in your family. However you decide to use your journal entry, I know you'll enjoy re-reading it months--and years--down the road.
Also: Every three months, I'll accept submissions and choose a few pieces to post for LM readers to enjoy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My basement is a mess, and it's the preschool teacher's fault.
She encouraged us to save toilet paper tubes, orange juice lids, and egg cartons for the classroom's Art Area. I doubled my efforts when my kids asked to glue and paint at home, and now, our craft table is peppered with dried glue and glitter, the chairs speckled with yellow paint.
This same teacher also encouraged pretend play and dress up, so I collected shirts, ties, shoes, hats, and purses and in no time, filled a wicker storage basket with the items every princess, firefighter, and construction worker needs. And to foster coordination? An indoor basketball hoop and a variety of basketballs, soccer balls, footballs and bouncy balls that roll from one side of the room to the other.
So when my husband emerged from the basement one evening and asked who let the purple chicken--the one that had lost all its feathers--into the house, I was more intrigued than surprised.
"That's not a chicken, daddy," our five-year-old daughter explained. "That's my boa. We played tug-of-war with it and shook it all around."
I had a good picture of what had happened, but when I descended the steps, I discovered there was more. Not only was the carpet covered with hundreds of purple feathers, it was also sprinkled with white specks of ceiling tile.
"But Mom," the boys explained, "we had to practice our soccer kicks. It's too muddy outside, and we have a game on Saturday."
Now how could I argue with logic like that?
Journal Entry: Describe a mess your child made. What was really at the bottom of the pile or glued to the chair? Did you see determination? Cooperation? Collaboration? Creativity?
Congrats to these LM staffers!
Joanne Hartman, Profiles Co-Editor: "My essay, She's Mad, was published in The Monthly. I wrote it a few years ago, in my past life as a middle school teacher, and dug it up after receiving a call for submissions for the theme "Crossing A Line." I love the illustration they designed to accompany it."
Kate Haas, Creative Nonfiction Editor: "A few months into my first pregnancy, my mother sent me a box of maternity clothes. Her old maternity clothes. The story of those dowdy, 35-year-old dresses was recently published on Salon. I knew the minute I opened the box and pulled out the first item--a bilious, green smock with blue polka dots--that I wouldn't be wearing any of those dresses, but I would definitely be writing about them."
Rebecca Steinitz, Columnist: "After seventeen years, two moves, one dissertation, five jobs (including one with tenure), two children, seven research trips, and countless essays, reviews, articles, and columns, my book, Time, Space, and Gender in the Nineteenth-Century British Diary will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in October 2011. The book is based initially on my dissertation, augmented by those research trips, and excerpted into a few of those articles from the past. I'm frantically revising, formatting, and trawling archives for photographs, and am happy to report that the final stages of writing a book are more satisfying than I had ever imagined."
Karna Converse, Blog Editor: "An essay I wrote with my daughter, 'Doin' the Macarena with My Dad,' appears in the February/March issue of Our Iowa. It explores the daddy-daughter bond in terms of our community's annual Father-Daughter Dance. We originally wrote the essay as a Father's Day card, complete with photos of each dance they've attended. You can read the essay on my blog, and if you have Google Docs, you can view a pdf of the two-page spread."
Christina Marie Speed, Literary Reflections Editor: "I'm excited about my new position as an intern with Upstart Crow Literary here in Brooklyn! Over the past few months, I have applied for various editorial internships in the larger publishing houses, but have found most only hire college students as interns. I, sadly, do not fit that category, even though I feel my writing career is that young. With each rejection, I polished my resume and cover letter further. I pursued another editing class. I continued to read and write and submit. The Upstart Crow posting did not list 'recent or current college grad' as one of its qualifications; it simply listed the skills desired in the intern. I followed my instincts and went for it."
Do you---or does someone you know---have an interesting story about changing careers? The Working Chronicles will publish the top stories in our online magazine and publicize them on Facebook and Twitter. Your story may also be included in a future book.
Details:
Submit stories on the topic of career transitions of 1,000 words or less to submissions@workingchronicles.com by March 18th, 2011. These can be autobiographical or interviews with someone else.
Some ideas to write about:
What prompted the career change?
How did you/they navigate it?
What have been the rewards...and the regrets?
Please view complete guidelines here:
http://workingchronicles.com/submissions-2/
and check out our stories on the site.
If you have questions, please post them on the wall of our Facebook page or email submissions@workingchronicles.com
Harper writes, "I wrote my award-winning memoir, A Double Life: Discovering Motherhood, when I was pregnant with my first child because none of the books I read captured the totality of my transformation. Physically, emotionally, psychologically-I felt myself becoming a new person. And more than that? I found it interesting. People told me it would be hard, that I would get sick, that my life would never be the same. But no one told me that my politics would change, that my water might not break, that I would be sick for 3 months straight, that how I experienced time would morph like a science fiction plot, that I would have an out-of-body spiritual experience, that I would become crippled and so tired my bones would hurt, and that I would be transported by joy and heartache, sometimes at the same time.
And no one-not even my mother-told me that it would be interesting. I found that by combining my personal story with a serious investigation of the biology of pregnancy, I could begin to get to the heart of what this transformation was all about, and why motherhood is so hard and so joyous. My book is about all the ways that motherhood turns women inside out. I hope it will resonate with readers who are parents, who are in the process of becoming parents, who think they might want to be parents, or who just don't get what this breeding business is all about in the first place."
Check back this spring for Kate Hopper's review of the book, and in the meantime come to a reading:
Sunday, March 6
Oakland, CA
Diesel Books
5433 College Avenue
3 PM
Thursday, March 10
San Carlos, CA
The Reading Bug
785 Laurel Street
7:00 PM
Tuesday, March 15
San Francisco, CA
Books, Inc., The Marina
2251 Chestnut Street
7:00 PM
and in Los Angeles:
Monday, March 21
Los Angeles, CA
Book Soup
8818 West Sunset Boulevard
7:00 PM
Do you keep a journal - or wish you could get one started? Literary Mama wants to help.
Three times a month, I'll post a writing prompt. Open a notebook and write for 10 minutes. Don't worry about grammar or punctuation - just write. Then let the writing simmer and your mind wander for awhile.
And who knows? Maybe you'll discover a character for your next short story or a theme for a narrative essay. Or maybe you'll use the idea to create a special holiday card or photo album for someone in your family. However you decide to use your journal entry, I know you'll enjoy re-reading it months--and years--down the road.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~"The Birthday Candle" is the story of a candle that doesn't want to be a birthday candle. (He didn't like it when children blew spit on him and licked the frosting off of him.) But when the baker needs a candle for an anniversary cake--an event the candle learns is very special to humans--he walks over to the cake and sits down. ("And no one spat on him or licked the frosting off of him. The End.")
The 300-word story my three children wrote and illustrated doesn't make a lot of sense--the narrative arc is flat and the dialogue silly--but we laugh every time we read it because we remember the morning we spent creating it. At that time, the drawings were hilarious and the family jokes side-splitting.
Grandma and Grandpa thought so too.
Journal Entry: Write and illustrate a story with your child about a household object. Start with "Once upon a time" and prompt your child with "Then what happened?" and "What happened next?" Add your child's drawings and staple it together.