#motherlines

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

Suzy McKee Charnas 1939- 2023 Image description: Black and white photo of a middle-aged white woman with short grey hair looking directly at the camera in a way that tells the viewer quite dispassionately that she sees you, and she understands Suzy McKee Charnas died last night. I found out this morning and have been weeping since. I have a lot to say about her—without her work, my work would…

The women of my writing motherline

Today in Electric Literature I talk about five women who shaped my writing. They are part of my writing motherline. The rules were that I had to choose just 5; I could just as easily have chosen 25.

Too few writers, in any form or genre, talk about the women who shaped them. This distorts the history and shape of real influence. As part of the piece I say,

If you want to understand the shape of…

Sister Night,Sister Day- Poetry Daily celebrates anniversaires in my motherline.

It is a day for remembering and honouring those who are now among the ancestors, but vibrantly live in our memory. These are my motherlines’ women.

Sister Night, Sister Day Her sister was much more fair with sunlight in her hair, her eyes the colour of sky, stick skinny. Who knows why? It happens in families, how two such thick allies, so unlike, could be conflated, one an unexposed plate in Dad's…

A friend alerted me to the old Yuletide traditions of Mother’s Night. Initially, celebrated on Solstice Eve, the night before the Great Goddess gives birth to the sun once again. In the Christian tradition, especially in Germanic countries, it would be celebrated on Christmas Eve. Last night was Solstice Eve since in my time zone winter solstice arrives at 22:23 tonight. So it was natural for my…

Day 17 NaPoWriMo and I am feeling a bit more serene. I am taking my time to walk around my poem a day today. And the prompt is more congenial, too.

Our prompt for the day (optional as always) follows Gowrishankar’s suggestion that we write a poem re-telling a family anecdote that has stuck with you over time. It could be the story of the time your Uncle Louis caught a home run ball, the time your…

My mother taught me to tie my shoe laces, balance a cheque book, the correct way to pack a suitcase for a trip. In my latest jaunt I packed Mom, too. Back in the spring I wrote a stage 10 speech for Toastmasters titled “What My Mother Taught Me.” A Canadian professor friend noticed my Facebook post about this and promptly invited me to speak at the Motherlines conference at NUI Galway this…