April 28, 2015
The M Word: It’s funny!
The M Word is a heavy book, but there are certain moments of levity throughout that continue to delight me. Heather Birrell and “get off my tits;” Diana Fitzgerald Bryden chasing a runaway dog into the Don Valley, an infant tied to her chest; when Kerry Ryan gets test results back that say she’s as fertile as a 70-year-old woman—because her results have been mixed up with those of a 70-year-old woman; Priscila Uppal hiding in the kitchen at baby showers; Carrie Snyder’s childhood family packed into a VW for a tour through Europe; Julie Booker kicking garbage cans; Maria Meindl’s amazing firstborn, the grotesque doll christened “Junior”.
And so it doesn’t feel that incongruous to me that The M Word has been included on Brain Child Magazine‘s Top 10 Humour Books about Parenting, alongside Erma Bombeck, Anne Lamott, and the Honest Toddler. In particular, Hilary Levey Friedman cites Ariel Gordon’s “Primipara” as the essay that made her laugh out loud and stayed with her afterwards—especially the part where Gordon notes that if she’d had twins, she would have eaten one or sent it back.
Even better: Ariel’s poem, “Primapara” (which appears in the essay of the same name) is from her collection, Stowaways, which was winner of the 2015 Lansdowne Prize for Poetry / Prix Lansdowne de Poesie at the Manitoba Book Awards last week!
February 25, 2015
The M Word reviewed in Literary Mama
The M Word was reviewed by Monica Frantz in the latest issue of Literary Mama:
“The M Word was an encouragement to me as I celebrated the first anniversary of becoming a mother. I was catching my breath after falling in love and falling pregnant in the span of six months, moving to the suburbs of Washington, D.C., from Manhattan, and surviving one year as a stay-at-home mom with an Ivy League master’s degree. My baby girl was one year old, and my world had shrunk and expanded many times over since that Sunday morning 20 months prior when I saw two lines on the pregnancy test and my boyfriend went out for bagels and decaf coffee to celebrate.
I was beaming at her first birthday party—proud of my girl and myself and thankful for everything our family had—but I also knew that I had lost a lot when I became a mother and that I had gained a new set of fears and anxieties. Reading The M Word gave me—sleep-deprived and desperate for adult conversation—the prompting and inspiration to do some reflecting on what motherhood meant to me. The text was engaging and, in some ways, challenging to my own tendency to seek safety among like-minded mothers.
As I finished reading it, a close friend found out that she was pregnant for the first time. As we celebrated her pregnancy, I hesitated to pass the collection along to her. Superstitious and hoping to protect her, I worried about giving her essays on loss and trauma and regret. But women deserve to hear a conversation about motherhood that is as beautiful and scary and messy and complex as motherhood itself. When her experience of motherhood strays from the accepted stereotype, if it hasn’t already, she’ll know that she is not alone.”
February 17, 2015
The M Word in Understorey Magazine
I was so pleased to have the chance to talk about The M Word in Understorey Magazine, the wonderful magazine from Nova Scotia about mothering. Editor-in-Chief Katherine J. Barrett asked me so great questions about the book and how it came to be and the impact it’s had, as well as the tricky balance of being a mother and an artist. I’m really glad to have the chance to further spread the work about the book, which Barrett calls “unique and riveting.” You can read the interview here.
And I also recommend you reading Barrett’s editorial from the Fall 2014 issue, “Time to Grow Up, Mommy Lit.” An excellent call to arms.
February 8, 2015
More of The M Word in the world
I’m very pleased that Michele Landsberg’s essay from The M Word on grandmothering is excerpted on the February issue of Readers’ Digest, on sale now. The illustrations are lovely. And you can read it here online:
”No, I can only think that love is its own reward. To own the privilege of having these young creatures in my life, to accompany them as they make staggering daily discoveries, to have an excuse to share the childish happiness of Halloween or autumn leaf piles or a sandy beach. Each of them doubles and triples the amount of life in my life.”
December 29, 2014
End the year with The M Word
I am beginning to return to these parts after a wonderful week offline, and am turning up now with some nice news about The M Word, which I was excited to see facing out on the shelf today when I visited Bloor West Village Book City for the very first time. In the sociology section, no less.
I was also pleased to see it included on a list of books published by the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies’ instructors during 2014. It’s good company to be keeping.
Teri Vlassopoulos included The M Word on her 2014 books round-up. She writes, “the beauty of The M Word is that it’s about all different facets, from choosing to be a mother or choosing not to, having children or not having them, the difficulties and joys of being a mother or not being one.”
And the book is in fantastic company (with David Sedaris’ mother, and Jenny Offill’s book) on a list of things that made the wonderful Liz Windhorst Harmer panic less as a parent in 2014. Harmer writes, “Clare gets that it is more important for parents to hear stories than be given advice.”
I was happy to read that Rebecca Cuneo Keenan calls the book “a best book bet on motherhood” at her blog, Playground Confidential. She writes, “The M Word holds motherhood up and then turns it this way and that, exploring it from all different angles. The act of becoming a mother is one of the most identity-shaking experiences for most women. It is rivaled only by the decision to not become a mother. And Clare sets it all out for us here, giving voice to motherhood (or the lack thereof) in many of its myriad forms.”
And The M Word is in the very best company on a list of Books of the Year at the Canadian Notes & Queries blog, selected by Carmine Starnino. I was also asked to contribute to this list—which made it surprising to see my own book there—and naturally, I picked Ellen in Pieces. I’m so looking forward to rereading it for my book club in January.
December 1, 2014
My Favourite Things About The M Word in the world
A year ago, contemplating the year-to-come, the main event was going to be the launch of The M Word: Conversations About Motherhood, the book of which I was editor and contributor. I was excited, terrified, and disbelieving, and the whole experience turned out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done. It’s been eight months now, and to mark The M Word‘s time in the world, I’ve made a list of all my favourite things about the book’s reception by a rather generous universe.
1) It was a best-seller. In Winnipeg, which is the best place to be best-sold, the book sharing a list with Donna Tartt and Gillian Flynn, among others.
2) When reviewer Deborah Ostrovsky placed the book inside a “strong Canadian tradition of public discourse on motherhood, from the late journalist June Callwood’s interviews with unwed teenaged mothers to Marni Jackson’s memoirs, and anthologies like Double Lives and Between Interruptions.”
3) That the book inspired women to tell stories they’d never told before.
4) That my essay about abortion and motherhood came out in the same year as One Kind Word: Women Share Their Abortion Stories, Katha Pollitt’s Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights, and Kaleigh Trace’s story in Hot, Wet and Shaking. Women are more empowered to speak out about the reality of their lives than we’ve ever been. It’s good company.
5) Rachel Harry’s review in The National Post, that left me sobbing at my kitchen table on a sunny April afternoon. I hadn’t had such a visceral reaction to anything else, except the birth of my children. Seriously.
6) All the other writers, reviewers and/or bloggers who wrote about it too. I’m so grateful for your consideration and thoughtful responses. For the attention by radio and newspaper journalists too.
7) The time my friend came across the book sitting on a table in her mother-in-law’s house. And the time someone else saw somebody reading it on the subway.
8.1) Bunting!
9) The amazing indie bookstores that hosted our events—Ben McNally’s in Toronto (and oh, that launch was a dream come true), A Novel Idea in Kingston, Different Drummer Books in Burlington, Shelf Life Books in Calgary, Russell Books in Victoria, McNally Robinson in Winnipeg, Bryan Prince Bookseller in Hamilton, Another Story Bookshop in Toronto, and Parent Books in Toronto. Blue Heron Books in Uxbridge too! These stores are essential for authors who want to get their books into readers’ hands. I’m grateful also to Chapters Indigo, who did a great job having copies of the book prominently displayed. (Goose Lane’s sales reps too deserve a lot of the credit for this too. One benefit of working with an excellent publisher.)
10) And finally, my tenth favourite thing about The M Word in the universe is that it would make a find Christmas gift for somebody in your life—anybody who ever had a mother, is a mother, runs away shrieking at the thought of mothers (or their children, at least). Each of these people will find a bit of their own experience in some of these stories, and will be amused, heartened and/or challenged by some of the others. I’m proud of this book, and so grateful for generosity of all those people who were a part of it—which probably means you!
October 24, 2014
The M Word reviewed in Herizons
“[Motherhood is] like living in an amusement park—on the edge of a minefield.” –Deborah Ostrovsky
In the Fall 2014 issue of Herizons, Deborah Ostrovsky offers a thoughtful and generous review of The M Word, as well as the single best description of motherhood I have ever encountered. In her review, she connects The M Word to “a strong Canadian tradition of public discourse on motherhood”, including legendary work by June Callwood and Marni Jackson, and the monumental motherhood anthologies, Double Lives and Between Interruptions.
She writes, “You won’t keep this book; you’ll pass it on to friends whose current vocation is to changing diapers, or to friends who want a child, or those who don’t. The M Word is vast in scope, featuring beautiful conversations I can finally share.”
(Update Oct. 27: Another nice review has appeared, this time in The Coastal Spectator, the reviewer calling the book’s ideas “diverse and challenging.” You can read it here.)
September 28, 2014
New Books by The M Word Authors
In many ways, it seems impossible to believe that the wondrous reception of The M Word last spring could have ever happened. I still can’t fathom the generosity of both the readers and the writers involved with this project, and I’m so proud of the book itself and the further conversations it has generated since it was published. But a particularly cool experience for me has been seeing elements of the essays at play in their writers’ latest works. If you enjoyed The M Word, I urge you to check out these new books by four writers from the anthology.
Status Update, by Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang:
The “book of secrets” referred to in Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang’s essay, “Mommy Wrote a Book of All My Secrets” was actually this book, Tsiang’s latest book of poetry, which was nominated for the Pat Lowther Award in the spring. It’s a collection of poetry inspired by Facebook status updates, which is only the beginning of what is interesting about this funny, beautiful book and I loved so much when I read it in June.
Between Gods, by Alison Pick:
I’ve not read Between Gods yet—I am hoping to stop by the launch this week and pick up a copy there. But the book has been receiving goods reviews and was a bestseller the week it was released. And I know that Pick’s essay from The M Word, “Robin”, appears in a reworked form in the memoir. I am looking forward to find out how it fits into a larger context.
Girl Runner, by Carrie Snyder:
The connections between Snyder’s essay in The M Word, “How to Fall”, and her new novel, Girl Runner, are more oblique, but when I read the book, I couldn’t help but notice Aganetha Smart’s insistence on never falling (which is pretty much gravitationally impossible) in the novel. Girl Runner has been receiving great reviews, and will be published in countries all over the world in 2015.
Stowaways, by Ariel Gordon:
Gordon’s essay in The M Word, “Primapara”, contains a poem called “Primapara”, which appears also in her new collection, Stowaways. This would be the poem with the immortal line, “If I had had twins, I would have eaten one.” The entire collection is just as mordant and intriguing, the familiar rendered from a whole new point of view.
July 22, 2014
The M Word: New Reviews!
Breaking my holiday blogging fast to report on three reviews which have made my week. The first is from Sheree Fitch, who posted an extended version of her review from the Telegraph-Journal on her blog. She writes, “Think of reading this book as experiencing the difference between moderate and severe contractions in the muscles around your heart. Uncomfortable, yes, but also necessary if we ever want more than the icing on a Mother’s Day cake that too glibly frosts over the realities of our lives connected to the“M word.” So grateful for this, particularly as Sheree is a writer I admire so much.
I also admire JC Sutcliffe, who is equal parts brilliant and lovely, and so I was overjoyed to find she’d written about The M Word on her excellent blog, Slightly Bookist. She writes, “Motherhood–many different, dark, unspoken aspects of it–is no fairytale even when it does have a happy ending. Ambivalence climbs the intertwined helical strands of maternal feeling and artistic ambition like a voracious vine, clinging, powerful. Being a mother heightens emotional extremes (despair to joy and back again dozens of times a day) while muting actual life extremes (possibility of adventure, spontaneity, freedom from responsibility).”
And then a fantastic story about how small is the world. Winnipeg writer Dora Dueck also wrote about The M Word on her blog: ” I longed to put my hand through the page with a pat and say, It gets better. Usually it does, I think. But such a typically maternal gesture, isn’t it? Coming from the stage I’m in now, which is post-Mother in a way, easier on every level but with some terrific adults in my life who happen to be my children. Me still, and again, in Heidi Reimer’s words, “gobsmacked and humbled” by their existence.”
And it’s funny, because while Dora Dueck is the one writer of the three I’ve never met, unbeknownst to her, we’re connected after all. Her granddaughter is Harriet’s playschoolmate, and I’ve spent countless hours over the past two years hanging out in the park with her and her mom, who told me all about her mother-in-law and her books. Which made me all the more pleased by her generous reading and the review.
I continue to feel so lucky at how kindly the book has been received by the world, and gratified too that we were so right that there was such be a place for it.
June 19, 2014
The M Word at Parent Books
Update: So pleased that Nathalie Foy took excellent notes and recapped last night’s conversation about mothers in children’s books. You can read all about it here.
One last event for The M Word to cap off a wonderful spring of excellent indie book shops. Oh, it’s been fun, a whirlwind. And this was the perfect way to finish, an intimate gathering at the bookshop just around the corner from my house. The sun poured in the windows as evening rolled in, and we had a really good time talking moms in children’s books–dead moms, overbearing moms, harassed moms, and moms with lives of their own. Reading books, talking books, and buying books. Terrific fun. Thanks to Parent Books for hosting such a fun event, and to the excellent women of The M Word for turning out and being fabulous. It has been such a pleasure to work with all of you.
The Book Table
Ransacked book table at the end of the night. The BEST!
