Category: Parenthood

MAINE knits

12/18/2016

I'm thrilled to announce that the lovely book, MAINE knits, is now available for preorder. The book is a compilation of knitting patterns inspired by the sea, farms, and wilds of Maine, as well as essays by Maine writers, including one of mine. It is a beautiful publication filled with heart and soul and lovely projects. If you love Maine and love to knit, this is the book for you! Preorders will arrive in January 2017 (and if you want to order it as a gift, you can have a card sent indicating the book's January arrival!). Order your copy here!

Love Again

10/7/2016

Today would have been my 10th wedding anniversary. In honor of that (and because my daughter had a random in-service day off of school today), we drove to the western mountains of Maine to Smalls Falls, a beautiful area near Saddleback Mountain, where her father and I got married. Smalls Falls has waterfalls, some light hiking trails, and a picnic area. The day was warm and sunny and beautiful - just like the day Steve and I got married. We had a picnic lunch together and then spent a while wandering around. We connected with another mom and her 9-year-old son and explored with them for a while. On the way home, we stopped for ice cream and bought pumpkins from a roadside stand.

When I got home, I learned that one of my essays had been published a little ahead of schedule. Not only was this an essay about dating and finding love again after my husband's death, but the inspiration that started the essay in my brain was the coincidence that my boyfriend's birthday is the day after my husband's death anniversary. And now, uncannily, it had come into the world on what would have been my 10th wedding anniversary.

Without further ado: On Finding Love Again as a Single Mom

Our Family and Camp Ray of Hope

8/19/2016

Two years ago this September, Zoe and I attended Camp Ray of Hope for the first time. CROH is a camping weekend for grieving families and individuals. It's a safe and wonderful place to talk about your grief openly with others, and it made a huge impact on Zoe and I. Here's a little essay about our experience, published today in the Bangor Daily News.

Patching the Holes

7/27/2016

My family was exceedingly lucky when innumerable friends, family members, and community organizations came to our aid during some of our most difficult days while Steve was dying. This essay, up today at the Bangor Daily News, explores the support we received and how I am trying to raise Zoe to understand the importance of giving back.

No Greater Gift

7/20/2016

When Steve and I were newlyweds and in our early twenties, we made the somewhat unwise decision to adopt a boisterous and socially inept pupster named Gabbie. Fast forward almost nine years and we all lived through so much together as a family and Gabbie was by my side while Steve was dying. Now, quite uncannily, Gabbie is dying from a spinal tumor. My latest essay, When Cancer Comes for Those You Love, is up on The Establishment today, and explores this complicated experience.

Alive and Breathing and Happy

6/18/2016

Very pleased to have another essay published with Brain, Child: Alive and Breathing and Happy explores the challenges of embodying what doesn't meet the eye and rolling with the actions and words of others when you fall outside the "normal," nuclear family.

Home

6/15/2016

Happy to have a poem, Home, up on Literary Mama today. It's about the different ways we see the world and the experience of my daughter helping me scatter my husband's ashes on White Head Island in the Bay of Fundy two summers ago.

Snow

5/29/2016

My prose poem, "Snow," is the first installment of Entropy's "On Weather" series, and is up today. I wrote this poem over the course of two winters, when Steve's death was looming but not yet certain, and things were challenging but not yet nearing the end. Meditations on the natural world (and even just my own backyard) frequently show up in my journals and writing and are a source of exploration for me.

Rag Rugs & Old Friends

5/22/2016

This past week, my latest piece was published in the Bangor Daily News. It's about good friends and the good life and about people that I am ever grateful to have in my life (and my daughter's), including one of my oldest and most favorite teachers from my coastal Maine childhood, and you can read it here.

A Brief Family History

5/18/2016

I'm excited to have an experimental flash nonfiction piece, "A Brief Family History," up at Hobart today. I love writing essays, and it's what I do most frequently, but playing with form and breaking the mold is also something I very much enjoy. When I write, the subject, words, characters, etc, often determine the form: poem, essay, or experimental nonfiction in my case.

Thanks for reading.