Bestselling author Erica Bauermeister’s forthcoming title, JOY FOR BEGINNERS, is a book about women, for women. Below, she thanks her own mother for showing her that reading was a free pass to privacy, and for introducing her to a very special --- and rather feminist --- children’s book that would later appear in her first novel.

I was the fourth daughter in six years; my brother arrived eight years later. Suffice to say, my mother rarely had time to read unless it was to us. But I knew she loved books from the ones she read aloud or put into our hands as we got old enough to do the job for ourselves. I was a cautious child and she gave me Laura Ingalls Wilder and Anne of Green Gables, girl characters from Indonesia and Africa and Europe, from my own time and long ago, road maps for a more confident life.

In the midst of a house full of people, reading was a free pass to privacy. On long road trips, my mother allowed me to hide in the far back of the station wagon, surrounded only by luggage, slipping deeply and blissfully into my book of the moment. She gave me what I’m sure she almost never had for herself –-- a room of my own –-- and taught me that it didn’t have to be a physical space.  

Then I hit adolescence, and just like so many of the characters I had read about, I lost sight of how intelligent my mother was. I went to college and graduate school and became inflamed with frustration at the lack of women authors represented in the literature classes I took. I set out to counteract a deep injustice –-- one that I was quite certain I had discovered all on my own. I co-authored a book called 500 GREAT BOOKS BY WOMEN, and then, with my own daughter in mind, I set to work on a reader’s guide for children called LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE GIRLS. In the process I got to revisit Laura and Anne; I got to find books about girls from around the world. And in the midst of that research I came across a book that I had forgotten all about –-- a children’s story of a country bunny and gold shoes.  But this time I read it as a mother and it stopped me in my tracks.  

There is a moment in my novel, THE SCHOOL OF ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS, when Isabelle is remembering her life as a young mother, when she would read to her daughters “the story of the country bunny, until they quieted into sleep and she sat and thought about having golden slippers that would let her fly around the world and do extraordinary things and be back by morning.” I didn’t include the title of the book on purpose --– the scene was, among other things, a love note to my mother. I figured if readers caught the

That first word I learned to write was “flower.” Lame, right? It was the seventies, what can I say? Most kids learn to write their names. Not me. My teacher wrote the word “flower” on an index card and gave it to me. She gave me a word. I felt like Moses. The first thing I did was write a book. It was a simple narrative. Just the word flower, over and over again. I stapled the pages together, and illustrated it. Sales were disappointing, but the reviews were solid. 

Despite this early promise, my plan was not to become a professional writer, or a world famous horticulturalist. I was going to be a firedog. My parents supported this. Neither one pointed out that I was not a Dalmatian. They were hippies, and I guess didn’t want to be buzz kills.

I continued to write all the time as a kid. I was always storming off into my room to “work on my novel.” But I never imagined that I would be an author. A firedog, yes, but an author? That seemed unattainable. 

In retrospect, it amazes me that I ever thought that I’d do anything else. 

Here’s why. 

My mother hid money in books. If you want your kid to read a lot, I really suggest you try this. Opening a book at our house was always a thrilling proposition because I never knew what would flutter out of it: a two-dollar bill, a pressed flower, an old postcard. The flowers and postcards went back in the pages. But the cash went straight to the candy store. Talk about positive reinforcement. I couldn’t wait to pull a book off a shelf. 

Even at our food-stamp-free-lunch poorest, my mother bought books. She found them at thrift stores, garage sales, and used bookstores. Do not dog-ear books, she told me. Do not read them in the tub. This from a woman who wrote in every book she ever gave me. The inscription would include when they were given, the occasion, what we’d been doing that day, where we’d come from, where we were going, why that book at that time. I never kept a journal, but I can pretty much piece my life together reading what my mother wrote on the inside of the book jackets of my childhood.

My mother tricked me into loving poetry. She appealed to my competitive instincts by instituting a mother-daughter poetry slam. We each memorized poems. She from THE NEW YORKER BOOK OF POETRY, me from A CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES. Then we’d re

Rae Meadows' novel MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS deals with the complexities of family bonds through three generations. In this interview, Rae and her own mother, Jane, discuss their relationship over the years.

Jane, after reading Rae’s novel, do you feel like you have a different sense of the complexity of the relationship between the two of you? Rae, did you think differently of your relationship with your mother after you had spent so much time with Iris, Sam, and Violet?  

Jane: I have always thought my relationship with Rae was pretty straightforward. However, it occurred to me at one point while reading MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS that since Rae‘s characters had complicated relationships with their mothers, that perhaps complexity had been part of our relationship, at least for her, and that I had been unaware of its presence. The self-reprimand soon followed that if indeed this was a factor, then I should have caught it and tapped into it. 

Rae:My mom and I have had a remarkably un-fraught relationship, but I did think about her often while I was writing this book. She has lived so much life --- she ‘s a beautiful and amazing eighty-one --- and I think in pondering questions for the characters, it made me wonder what it would be like to see my mom as a young single woman or newly married or a first- time mother. This past Christmas she mentioned that she once had dated a professional hockey player named Moose, and I was reminded of how even though I have heard a lot of stories about her life, there is an endless supply of things I don’t know. 

Do you think (as Iris mentions) that having children is a way to try and understand one’s own mother? Jane, did you learn a lot about your mother when you had children? Rae, did you?  

Jane:Perhaps many might find this to be helpful, but personally I never sought to better understand my mother. I didn’t need to. She was an honest, loving, demonstrative being whom I loved and trusted. 

Rae: Although for me it wasn’t a conscious thing, I feel like I have learned so much about my mom since becoming a mother. That intense, unfailing love mixed with worry that she exuded is something I know now on a gut level. My mom had breast cancer when her daughters were eight, five, and three, and I don’t think I fully understood what strength and courage this required until I became a mother and tried to imagine myself in the same position. 

The existence of the orphan trains is such a fascinating, yet seemingly forgotten part of American history. Rae has said that you introduced her to the subject, Jane, which sparked her to write Mothers and Daughters. How did you hear about the orphan trains? What was your initial reaction to this piece of history?  

Jane:I was waiting for Rae to arrive at the airport in Cleveland, and I struck up a conversation with the woman sitting next to me who was also waiting for her daughter. She mentioned that her daughter had done some research on the Orphan Train Movement of the early part of the twentieth

The author of a string of New York Times bestsellers --- her latest book in the Looking Glass Trilogy, QUICKSILVER (published as Amanda Quick), hit stores April 19 --- Jayne Ann Krentz uses three different pen names for each of her three "worlds” of romance novels. Today, she hones in on the world of her childhood, and a mother who read to her when she was in the cradle.

I learned pretty much everything I needed to know in life from Mom. She was a believer in the whole karma thing –-- what goes around, comes around --– long before karma was cool. She held strong convictions on the importance of not overcooking vegetables. And she never neglected her standing appointments at the hair salon and her weekly manicures which ensured that, until the very end, she always looked twenty years younger than anyone else at her retirement community.  

But most of all I learned that reading was not a spectator sport.

Television, on the other hand, was a spectator sport so the rule was that when you watched TV you were expected to do something else at the same time. You ironed or folded laundry while you watched TV. You knitted while you watched TV. You made up a grocery list while you watched TV. Yep, Mom was into multi-tasking before there was a name for it. But, then, what mom isn’t?

Reading, however, was different. Mom read to us kids while we were in the cradle. And it was clear from the very start that reading was not a spectator sport. When you read a book it was understood that you were expected to be wholly engaged.  Mom taught by example that reading for pleasure --– unlike watching TV --– was an entirely legitimate pursuit.  One did not have to justify what one read. Nancy Drew or Shakespeare, reading did not require any apologies. The concept of a book club struck her as very odd. She read what she wanted to read, not what someone else told her she should read. She was delighted to talk about books but she did not view them as an excuse to socialize. When she wanted to be with other people, she played killer bridge or went out to dinner or to a concert with friends. 

Mom read widely, non-fiction and fiction. With non-fiction, she expected to learn something. When it came to fiction she demanded two things from a book: a good story and a happy ending. See, Mom was an optimist and a big believer in the power of positive thinking. She saw no point in filling her very creative mind with negative energy. There was enough of that in the daily news.

I have always read the same way Mom did and for the same reasons. And that is also how I write. I tell the story to myself, first, last and always.  If I tried to write for someone else –-- an imaginary reader, for example --– I wouldn’t be able to get past the first sentence. Writing --– like reading –-- is not a spectator sport.

And I want the same thing Mom did from fiction, whether I’m reading it or writing it:  a good st