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.
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In recognition of Memorial Day, we salute the men and women who died while serving in the American military:
American Revolution, 1775-1783
War of 1812, 1812-1815
Mexican-American War, 1846-1848
Civil War, 1861-1865
Spanish-American War, 1898
World War I, 1914-1918
World War II, 1939-1945
Korean War, 1950-1953
Vietnam War, 1954-1975
Persian Gulf War, 1990-1991
War in Afghanistan, 2001-present
War in Iraq, 2003-present
Journal Entry: How do you respond to your child's questions of "What's war?" "What does a soldier do?" and "Why is the flag only halfway up the flagpole?" How does your response change based on the child's age?
Congrats to these LM staffers!
Kate Hopper, Literary Reflections Editor: "I'm thrilled to announce that my first book, Use Your Words: A Writing Guide for Mothers, will be published by Viva Editions in April 2012. Use Your Words is a guide to the art of creative nonfiction for women who want to give written expression to their lives as mothers. It includes excerpts of quality writing about motherhood (including pieces by Literary Mama editors and contributors!) and teaches readers how to find the heart of their writing, learn to use motherhood as a lens through which to write the world, and turn their motherhood stories into art. This book developed from my classes for mother writers, which I've been teaching at the Loft Literary Center and online for the past five years. I'm so excited that this content will be accessible to so many more mothers now."
Suzanne Kamata, Fiction Editor: "My essay, 'Home, at Last,' appears in the June 2011 issue of Real Simple. I wrote it in response to the multiple disasters that struck Japan, my home of over twenty years, on March 11. Although my family and I live far from the devastation, we - and everyone else connected to Japan - were deeply affected by the tragedy. Many expatriates, decided to leave the country. I wanted to stay."
Medical residency, Michelle Au reminds us in her funny and moving memoir, This Won't Hurt a Bit (Grand Central Publishing, 2011) was originally so named because new doctors resided in the hospital. Freed from social and domestic demands, their meals and laundry provided for, young physicians were able to focus with singleminded zeal upon disease and the care of patients. Naturally, none of the dedicated participants in this monastic scenario were mothers.
Over a hundred years later, Au, a young anesthesia resident on her lunch break, sits hunched over her breast pump in a grimy, unused, hospital shower stall, simultaneously eating lunch, checking in with her six-month-old's nanny, and attempting to schedule a visit with his pediatrician, all before rushing back to the OR. The demographics of medical residents have changed; and they no longer live in the hospital -- technically, anyway. But the commitment expected of these doctors in training remains as intense as ever.
Currently an anesthesiologist in Atlanta, Au has spent years chronicling her adventures in medicine and motherhood on The Underwear Drawer, her honest and often hilarious blog. This new memoir presents a more nuanced, in-depth examination of those twin jobs; but fundamentally, it's a story about growing up.
We meet Au as a hapless medical student, attempting -- under the impatient eyes of her supervising resident and a contemptuous nurse -- to retrieve a stool sample from an obese eighty-five year-old man. Why, she wonders dispiritedly, would anyone want to become a doctor, anyway? Is it possible that she's the worst medical student in her class? Will there be bagels at the nursing station when this procedure is over? It's Au at her funny and self-deprecating best, gamely taking on the scut work thrown at medical students, while managing to maintain her sense of humor and the idealism that propelled her into medical school in the first place. In the vignettes that follow, Au ushers readers into medical training from the ground up, an experience she compares to negotiating an invisible maze.
What should I be doing? Where should I stand? Is this the time to ask questions? If I step up now, will it be construed as inappropriate or overly aggressive? If I don't step up now, will I come off as passive and uninterested? What are my responsibilities and what are the boundaries?
As she progresses from student to resident, we watch her gain skill and confidence, despite doubts, the grueling hours, and the difficulty maintaining a life outside the hospital -- specifically with the engaging Joe, a medical school classmate. "No amount of dim lighting can disguise the fact that Joe is A White Man and therefore instantly suspect in the eyes of [my] zeroth generation Chinese parents," she writes. "However, being clean cut and having a master's in Chemistry from UC Berkeley apparently counts as being Chinese enough."
When Au and Joe marry and then have a baby during residency, they confront head-on the conflict between the desire for a private life and their very real dedication to a profession that seems to demand nearly all their time. It feels like a triumph when Au concludes, "just because medicine tries to consume our entire lives doesn't mean we have to willingly hand them over." Yet as she makes the transition to motherhood and, six weeks later, prepares to return to work, she realizes, "I now have two full time jobs -- residency and motherhood -- each of which demand my complete attention, almost all of my waking hours, and both of which society has drilled into me are my first, most important priorities. The stakes are huge. Half-assed efforts at either would be unacceptable."
Au's efforts, as a physician, a mother -- and a writer -- are far from half-assed. Her vivid depictions of medical procedures are an intriguing window into an arcane world (who knew that administering anesthesia could be so exciting?), and her thoughtful take on marriage and motherhood is equally compelling. This Won't Hurt A Bit introduces us to a woman who loves what she does and is able to convey that love with poignancy and humor. It's a treat to read.
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.
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My first grader ran home from school and raced into the kitchen, eager to challenge me to a new game he'd learned on the playground.
"It's really fun," he informed me. "You draw a square on the cement. Then you draw lines down the middle. Then four people stand in the square and you try to get them out.
"I'll get it set up. Come outside in two minutes." Just as quickly as he'd entered, he was out the door in search of our sidewalk chalk.
The square he drew was not truly square, nor were his lines completely straight, but his determination to teach me how to play Four Square was genuine.
"I serve to you," he explained. "You have to let the ball bounce before you hit it back to me. And then we just bounce it back-n-forth."
Turns out the rules I remembered from my elementary school days were a bit different from his. Sometimes, he caught the ball before bouncing it back to me and sometimes, he added a spin so it bounced opposite what I expected. But I had to call a timeout after he yelled "Typewriter!" followed immediately by "Cherry Bomb!" and I'd nearly fallen in my attempts to reach the ball.
"Oh. Sorry." He flashed a sly smile. "That's how the fourth graders play. Sometimes they make up different rules."
Remember Four Square? Check out the official rules here and the cool rules here.
Journal Entry: Write about a time your child taught you how to play a game. What was the most important rule?
Author, teacher, and friend of Literary Mama Christina Katz is hosting an amazing book giveaway on her website. Every day in May, she'll be giving away a book to one person who comments on the day's post. So far, the books have included a great range of books, from The Write Start by Jen Hallissy, Christina's own Writer Mama, How To Raise A Writing Career Alongside Your Kids, a picture book by Elizabeth Rusch, For the Love of Music: The remarkable story of Maria Anna Mozart, and April Henry's thriller Heart of Ice.
On May 17th, she'll be giving away one copy of LM editor-in-chief Caroline Grant's anthology, Mama, PhD: Women Write About Motherhood and Academic Life, plus fiction co-editor Suzanne Kamata's new short story collection, The Beautiful One Has Come. Check here for the contest rules, and enter to win a book every day!
Anonymous Research Project On Mothers and Grief: The goal of this study is to enhance the understanding of bereavement and coping among mothers parenting children five years old and younger. The hope is that by better understanding the grief process during motherhood while parenting young children will eventually increase available resources and support for mothers, families, and clinicians.
This study has been approved by the Institutional Review Board at the California School of Professional Psychology (CSPP) at Alliant International University and will be supervised by Mojgan Khademi, Psy.D.
To be considered for participation in this study, please visit the link: https://alliant.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_bCsTruQdUeXvIDG Or, contact Brittany Chidley, M.A. at brittanychidley@gmail.com.
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In her new memoir, Between Expectations: Lessons from a Pediatric Residency (Free Press, 2011), Meghan MacLean Weir shares a number of such moments that lead up to and follow the death of a child. Weir offers a fascinating perspective, that of the doctor - the person always present in the hospital room with family and loved ones, yet often considered too objective to be emotionally attached. With her book, Weir lets readers know just how emotional doctors can be.Death is an obvious answer to the question of what it is about medicine and pediatrics in particular that can make its practice difficult, but death itself is simple. It is a single moment, and a moment, no matter how painful the flash of grief that accompanies it, is easy enough to endure. Death is nothing compared to all the moments that lead up to it and those that follow.
Consider her reaction to a child requesting a pinky swear that he wouldn't die that night:
I am overwhelmed with the singularity of the moment. I feel the connection between myself and this creature before me, still new and untested, but profound in his depth. This is what they talk about, those physicians who have come to the end of their careers, when they say that it has been fulfilling in a way that no other job can ever be.
As an ER pediatrician, Weir treats the smallest of patients while their parents are at their most vulnerable. She maintains empathy and respect for the parents, but enlightens readers to the silent reflections of doctors. For example, after she speaks to the parents of a child clinging to life in the NICU, Weir writes that they must not fully realize, or else they are in denial about the severe challenges their baby will face if he survives, and she seems to judge their irrational actions to keep their child alive at all cost.
Yet, when another couple decides to let their baby go, Weir finds the scene unbearable:
Even though I had asked to come as an observer - so that should it ever be my job to oversee such a tragedy, I would know the things that are right to do and say - I cannot stand the cluttered silence.
"Did you give her a name?" I ask her mother.
"We named her Candi. With an 'i'."
It is a wretched name, but I lie without guilt as I say, "What a wonderful choice."
The baby's heartbeat drops from 140 to 60 and then to 40, and Weir says to the crying mother, "She's so beautiful," reflecting on the description as "both a falsehood and a truth." As this passage occurs in the first half of the book, readers might grapple with the equivocation of a dying baby and beauty. Undoubtedly, a career as a doctor includes death, but does it also entail beauty?
By the end of Between Expectations, readers will likely answer yes because they will have shared the transformation Weir experienced during her residency. There is tremendous pain in accepting that a child will enter life seriously ill, yet there is also beauty in seeing that child loved and cared for unconditionally. Indeed, Weir considers it the privilege of a doctor to witness love in its purest form. Here she reflects on the fate of a premature baby and his mother:
I know that it is possible that he will live into his twenties or even beyond, that there might be decades of diaper changes and tube feedings and around-the-clock care ahead. And while I know that it will certainly be difficult, I feel strangely confident that Kay will still have the strength throughout it all to remain at his side.
Albert Einstein is oft-quoted as saying, "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is." It's obvious which Meghan MacLean Weir has chosen.
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.
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In her book, First Mothers, Bonnie Angelo explores the lives of the 11 mothers who gave birth to America's 20th-century presidents. The book is a fascinating look at how each mom--from Sara Delano Roosevelt to Virginia Clinton Kelley--helped mold the boy into the man. Here's some of the advice they shared:
"Try not to write your signature too small as it gets a cramped look. So many public figures have such awful signatures and so unreadable."
--Sara Delano Roosevelt, in a letter to Franklin when he was assistant secretary of the navy. She was the first mother to cast a ballot for her son for president.
"You put on your fighting harness and do all you can. Now, you be a good boy, Harry."
--Martha Young Truman, in a phone call to Harry just hours after he'd taken the oath of office in the White House after Franklin Delano Roosevelt's death.
"I exercise discipline, as well as love. Provide limits, as well as freedom. I tried to tend the roots as well as the stems, and slowly and carefully plant ideas and concepts of right and wrong, religion and social implications."
--Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy
"In this as in all the many letters I have written you there is the same theme: I love you; I believe in you. I expect great things of you."
--Rebekah Baines Johnson, in a letter to Lyndon when he was elected to Congress. At age 28, he was one of youngest members.
"To Richard--You have gone far and we are proud of you always--I know that you will keep your relationship with your maker as it should be for after all that, as you must know, is the most important thing in this life. With love, Mother"
--Hannah Nixon, in a note to Richard which he kept in his wallet throughout his presidencies.
"If we lost a game, I'd be downhearted. She taught me a good lesson: 'You shouldn't sit around and wring your hands. Think about the next game.' And 'Tell the truth, work hard, and don't you dare be late for dinner.'"
--Gerald Ford, about what his mother, Dorothy, taught him.
"I have always believed you ought to try like hell to take care of the things you can take care of and just let the rest of it go hang."
--Lillian Carter
"From my mother, I learned the value of prayer, how to have dreams and believe I could make them come true."
--Ronald, about his mother, Nelle Wilson Reagan, who died before he took office.
"George, I've noticed how thoughtful President Reagan is to Nancy. I've never seen him climb off a plane ahead of her or walk ahead of her."
--Dorothy Walker Bush to George, when he was Vice President .
Of Dorothy, George said: "It was about values. Give the other guy credit. Be kind. Don't whine and complain. Count your blessings. Honesty. Your conscience will be your guide."
"Be who you want to be and don't worry about what people say about you. Pretend you have confidence, even when you don't--and then you may actually get it."
--Virginia (Cassidy) Clinton Kelley to Bill.
Journal Entry: Pretend your child is president of the United States. What advice would you share and how would you share it?