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Busy spring!

Lots going on lately in our household with birthdays, Mother’s Day, spring winery trips and the end of the first year of preschool. So, I have also had a lot of web happenings that I’m late on reporting. Here’s a round-up:

• Caught Between Two Curses (CBTC) news: I’m so excited that YA author Brian Katcher reviewed CBTC over at Foreveryoungadult.com  and he said, “There’s a lot of creepy stuff going on in the wings, with baseballs flying out of nowhere and the grim specter of death hanging over Julie’s family. But they’re Cubs fans. They’re used to living in hell.”  He also said, “Dill does a great job of linking Julie’s family curse to the cursed Chicago team. Can Julie and Matt stop the curse that is destroying her family? Will the Cubs go all the way this year? Keep in mind, this is a work of pure fiction.”
• I was also lucky enough to be featured as the Indie Spotlight on Reading Teen, writing about how I got my idea for CBTC and how I wanted to explore the question of destiny and why some people survive accidents and others don’t, as well as the Cubs Curse. You can read about that at the link above. I also was lucky enough to answer some questions about writing fiction on the St. Louis Writers’ Guild blog, The Writers’ Lens.
• News-Gazette Book Reviews: As many of you know, I write a Sunday Book Review column for the News-Gazette. I recently reviewed two very interesting books, one science fiction and one non-fiction parenting book. To check these out, both written by strong and interesting women, click on the titles: The Self-Esteem Trap (parenting) and Zero Time (science fiction).
• Over at WOW! Women On Writing, I posted about writing in multiple points of view, how to do it well, books that do it well, and why authors may consider using more than one character’s point of view to tell the story. We have an interesting conversation going on The Muffin and on our Facebook page!
• 

  At Lit Ladies critique group on May 5

  Lit Ladies blog: On the Lit Ladies blog, I am blogging about strong women and girls (GIRL POWER!) on Tuesdays now, and I talked about a book that changed my life, Half the Sky! Put it on your summer reading list. Find out how you can help women and girls find their voices around the world. I also blogged about my friend Kelly who exemplifies the Margaret Mead quote about never doubting what a small group of citizens can do.

And last but not least, I am currently organizing a blog tour for myself and my YA, Caught Between Two Curses. If you have a blog and want to participate, I have some dates in July! I am writing guest posts about young adult topics, writing, strong girls and women, baseball, curses, adult illiteracy and more. Please email me at margo (at) margodill.com if you would like to participate. You get a free ecopy of CBTC for your participation!

I’m so happy to welcome back my writing friend Lela Davidson (Blacklisted from the PTA) with her second book with another hilarious title, Who Peed on My Yoga Mat?. Need a Christmas present for a mom who needs a good laugh–look no further because you have found it right here. I have laughed as hard at this second book as I did the first one! And I got the chance to talk to Lela a bit about her book. Here’s what she said:

Margo: Welcome, Lela. I’m so glad to have you back with your second book on what it’s really like to be a parent and being able to laugh about it! How would you say this book is similar to Blacklisted from the PTA? How’s it different?

Lela: Thanks for having me! Yes, this book is very similar to my first book in that it is made up of short essays that can be read while you are sitting in the carpool line or pretending to do yoga. The kids are older now, so there are fewer stories about babies and toddlers.

Margo: It’s funny how we forget those baby and toddler times–I think that’s why people have more than one child. . . If readers accidentally missed the chance to read Blacklisted from the PTA, can they start with Who Peed On My Yoga Mat? Do they have to be read in order?

Lela: No, they are fully independent! All of the essays in both books are stand-alone reads. I hope new readers will want to go back and discover my first book.

Margo: I’m sure they will! Do you have a favorite essay or section in your new book? If so, which one and why?

Lela: I have a few pets, and most of them are the ones that star my husband. Marriage is just so hard. It’s easier when you laugh about how hard it is.

Margo: That is such a nice way to say it: “starring my husband!” Not only do you talk about parenting, but you also discuss what it’s like to be married and a parent in the section, “Marital Bliss.” Based on your essays, communication is key (along with calendar scheduling!). What are a couple tips you can share with readers about how to handle your spouse and your kids?

Lela: Oh, my. I don’t think I handle them. I think they handle me. Everyone in the family is good at something different; so, yes, I keep the calendar. I keep food in the house and the kids on their dental schedule. I do 643 loads of laundry every week. These are the basics. Everything else is over-achievement.

Margo: Completely agree! For my readers that are also writers, what tips do you have for getting a series of essays published–whether they are about travel, parenting, teaching, etc?

Lela: It’s just like money: “Watch you pennies, and the dollars will watch themselves.” Work on publishing one essay at a time until you have enough with a common tone that can be called a collection. I have been published hundreds of times in parenting magazines all over the US and Canada. Write an essay, and then get it out into the world. Over and over and over.

Margo: Great advice! Thanks for stopping by. Now let’s clue readers in on the important stuff–where can they get a copy of Who Peed On My Yoga Mat? And where can they find out more about you?

Lela: Thank you! This is fun. Who Peed on My Yoga Mat? is available on Amazon and my website, www.leladavidson.com. My website is a great place to find out more than you ever wanted to know about me, watch my book trailers, and read my blog. Thanks!

I am very excited to be a part of Blacklisted from the PTA‘s birthday party! I first met the author, Lela Davidson, at the Missouri Writers’ Guild conference in St. Louis in April. She’s a riot, and I liked her immediately! When I read the title of her book and saw the subject matter was not your typical parenting book, then I knew I had to have it.

I read it and laughed and smiled all the way through. You see, I, myself, am not a typical parent–I’m not that into crafts (I do like to scrap book, though), I don’t bake, and I don’t like to cook. Sometimes, I let my toddler eat meals in front of the TV, watching Family Feud or Big Bang Theory, and I take her everywhere with me, including to Weight Watchers and writing conferences and critique groups. As a matter of fact, she is lying here beside me in the bed sleeping while I write this blog post because she woke up from her nap when I took a shower, screamed her head off, and when I laid down with her to calm her down, she fell back asleep. So, I grabbed my computer and started blogging. . .

Anyway, back to Lela, you will love this book. You will want to buy two copies and give one to a friend. You COULD win one if you leave a comment for Lela and me below (she is giving out e-books OR hard copies). You can tell us WHY you are the type of parent who might be blacklisted from the PTA OR why you are Mrs. Cleaver from Leave it to Beaver. You can ask a question or just leave a comment like, “Sounds like a good book.” As long as you leave it by Sunday, July 29 at 8:00 pm CST, you are entered to win. If you have a mailing address outside the United States, you may only have the choice of an e-book.

Here’s my review of Lela’s book:

Take some time to see how one real, honest mom deals with forgotten piano recitals, date nights with her husband and those pesky questions children always ask at the wrong moments. Lela Davidson shares the stories of her motherhood experience in several hysterical, true essays in the book, Blacklisted from the PTA.

Davidson states in her introduction that she didn’t plan to write this book. She wanted to write a novel: “one of those quirky romantic titles that get made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon or Kate Winslet.” She said she didn’t know how to do that, so she set out to learn. While she was learning, she wrote the essays in this book.

“All I seemed to be good at was sitting on the driveway drinking boxed Chardonnay and talking to my friends,” Davidson writes. “So that’s what I wrote—the stories that made us laugh.”

And that is exactly what these stories do—they make you laugh. They also make you realize that you’re not alone. Every mother has the idyllic dream of how she’s going to approach her babies and handle motherhood. She looks back at her own childhood and says either, “I’m going to be just like my mom,” or “I will never do that to my children.”

No matter what you’

I'm doing a radio show this afternoon on topics from my latest parenting book, The Preschooler Problem Solver (Peachtree, 2009). I'll post the announcement for the show below, which you can listen to on the radio, the internet or by podcast. Pat Montgomery, the host and a parenting expert herself, and I will cover lots of interesting topics, including how to handle oppositional kids, coping with meltdowns, talking to kids about fun topics like sex or family finances, how to help your child make and keep friends, and of course, that perennial favorite, how to get your kid to quit picking his nose at the supermarket. Should be a good hour - please join us or send Pat your questions!

photo credit: Briana Orr

I am happy to host Masha Hamilton on today’s Maniac Monday! She is the author of 31 Hours, an adult novel. Here is the product description from Amazon:

“A woman in New York awakens knowing, as deeply as a mother’s blood can know, that her grown son is in danger. She has not heard from him in weeks. His name is Jonas. His girlfriend, Vic, doesn’t know what she has done wrong, but Jonas won’t answer his cell phone. We soon learn that Jonas is isolated in a safe-house apartment in New York City, pondering his conversion to Islam and his experiences training in Pakistan, preparing for the violent action he has been instructed to take in 31 hours. Jonas’s absence from the lives of those who love him causes a cascade of events, and as the novel moves through the streets and subways of New York we come to know intimately the lives of its characters. We also learn to feel deeply the connections and disconnections that occur between young people and their parents not only in this country but in the Middle East as well. Carried by Hamilton’s highly-lauded prose, this story about the helplessness of those who cannot contact a beloved young man who is on a devastatingly confused path is compelling on the most human level.”

Since my blog is all about using books with children and teens, I wanted to post Masha’s essay titled, “Parenting the Nearly-Grown,” on Maniac Monday because I think many high school teachers and parents who have young adults feel the way Masha and Jonas’s mother do in 31 Hours. You may be able to relate to several themes in her book. Here’s Masha’s essay:

Parenting the Nearly-Grown
by Masha Hamilton
“Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.” Roman philosopher and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106-43 B.C.

Not long after the second of my three children was born, I sat at the kitchen table late one evening talking to my dad about parental responsibility. It’s a big topic and we were covering lots of philosophical ground, but what I remember most is my pronouncement that my primary job could be boiled down quite simply and starkly: I had to keep safe these beings released into my charge. I needed to keep them alive.

These were the musings of a new parent, of course. The circumstances, too, should be considered; the first child had been born in Jerusalem during the intefadeh, and the second was born as I was reporting from Moscow during the collapse of Communism. In both situations, I repeatedly came face-to-face with life’s fragility.

But even in calmer times, even after the birth of my third child, I never lost the feeling that my main duty was to pass them on into adulthood as unscathed as possible, as healthy in every way as they could be.

It sounds pretty simple, on the face of it. We perform many jobs as parents: nurturers, playmates, cheerleaders, short-order cooks, nurses, disciplinarians, detectives, spiritual leaders. Keeping them safe should not be the hardest, not with the help of baby monitors, plastic devices to cover electrical outlets, pads for sharp corners, child-proof medicine bottles, the list goes on.
And in fact, we passed through well, with just the usual rounds of stitches, one violent dog attack, a rabies scare and a few months when my youngest fell so often and got so many bumps on his forehead that my husband and I joked someone was surely going to call child services on us.

Now, though, my youngest is 14, and as they’ve grown, I recognize my job has been transformed. It is to give them trust and space so they can develop confidence in their ability to make their own lives. And yet the two oldest, at ages 19 and 20, are in a period of time that seems almost like a parentheses in their lives. They are certainly not children, but nor are they quite adults. Meanwhile, I say and think all the usual things parents have been saying and thinking since—well, perhaps ever since Cicero, whose words I keep taped to my office wall: it’s rougher out there than it was in my time. More chaotic. More violent. More dangerous.

And everyone is writing a book.

It was, in fact, into my latest novel, 31 Hours, that I channeled my fears. Among other things, the novel offered a chance to explore what it means to be the parent of someone on the cusp of adulthood but not yet there. The mother in 31 Hours, Carol, is strong and independent, free of empty nest syndrome, but her maternal intuition is strong and she’s concerned about her 21-year-old son’s growing emotional distance, the way he seems tense and depressed. Her fears are amorphous and hard to convey; nevertheless, as she lies awake in the dark, she decides to trust the hunch that something is wrong, and to spend the next day trying to track her son Jonas down and “mother him until he shrugs her off.”

There are many themes in the novel, but one question it asks—one pertinent to all parents and one I’m still trying to answer for myself—is this: after years of being vigilant and protecting our kids, what should we do—and what are we allowed to do—to keep them safe once they are nearly, but not quite, grown?

Masha is hosting a contest about parental intuition on her blog. Check it out here.

If you are interested in starting a career or part-time career in writing for children, I am offering an on-line course through WOW! Women On Writing. Find out all the details here.

Tomorrow morning I'm putting on my parenting expert hat and doing a spot on Pittsburgh Today Live (KDKA - the CBS affiliate) with Kristine Sorensen on helping parents survive the short winter days when trapped indoors with a mess of little kids. I remember those days well, even though the White Power Ranger in the above photo of my kids just celebrated his 2oth birthday, a fact which kind of freaks me out.


Anyway, here is "SMI," or the first three parts of my SMILE system - five easy parenting strategies that work in almost any tough situation, even snow days! (For that matter, they work pretty well for people of any age, with or without kids.) I've included some practical examples of how to implement them, with a focus on ideas that work well this time of year. I promise to add the last two strategies - the "LE" - tomorrow. (I'd put everything up today, but I need some time tonight to do something about my hair and figure out what I'm going to wear, especially since I have to sit next to the skinny and lovely Ms. Sorensen tomorrow morning. And I know for a fact she has two kids, so I can't just blame the difference in our looks on my motherhood status. Drat. Well, I am a lot older than she is.)

STICK TO SAME AND SIMPLE Routines, rituals and clear rules keep your child secure and happy.

• Develop a schedule and easy routines for each day's Big Events like meals and bedtime. (Visit www.flylady.net if you need help with family life routines, or if you're like me and are prone to a certain, well, slobbiness.)


• Ease post-holiday blues with a few fun traditions as you transition back into normal routines, like letting everyone eat a little of the now-stale gingerbread house on the day you put the holiday decorations away.


• Teach the Golden Rule (over and over and over), and use catchphrases (like “Use your words not your body” or “Inside voices please”) to remind your child that punching and screeching are more than you can bear at the moment.

MAKE THE MOST OF MUSIC AND ART These soothe the savage beast – and help civilize her too.

• For some reason, kids are more likely to comply with demands if you sing them. Singing in an opera voice will even make my husband do what I want, as long as I agree to stop the minute he cooperates. Adapt the lyrics to familiar all-purpose tunes like “The Wheels on the Bus” and “Here We Go ‘Round the Mulberry Bush” or just make up a chant that kind of has rhythm.


• Know why movies always seem better than real life? Soundtracks. (And professional make-up artists help too.) Put on music to create or change the mood in your home. It doesn't have to be kid music. In fact, on a blizzardy, cranky day - it's probably best to avoid anything sung by purple dinosaurs or by adults acting like freakishly cheerful little kids.


• Use arts and crafts to bust stress and teach kids to follow directions. I highly recommend my friend Judy Press's arts and crafts books if you need ideas. Try The Little Hands Big Fun Craft Book (Williamson).

• Here's a quick and easy "craft" or "science project" (depending on which your kid prefers). Pour about an inch of milk into a shallow plastic container. Drop dots of food coloring over the surface (they should kind of sit tight where you drip them). Pour a small amount of dishwashing liquid into another small container and give your child a toothpick. Show him how to dip the tip into the soap and then lightly into the center of one of the food coloring drops. WOW! If you go easy on the soap, you can repeat this for quite a long time before there's just too much soap in the milk. Just be nice and don't hog this activity just because it's so much fun.
  

INVOKE IMAGINATION AND HUMOR They’re great tools to prevent rebellion and create warmth.

• To make your child stop pinching her little brother, ask her to fly like a dragon or trot like a pony to the other room and fetch something for you.


• To encourage hat-wearing, put a mirror at kid-height by the winter clothes hooks - and allow considerable vamping and silliness. Get boots on reluctant tootsies by pretending to be Prince Charming outfitting Cinderella with her glass galoshes.


• Stock up on funny books, silly CDs, outlandish dress-up clothes, and anything else that gets your gang giggling.

Need more ideas than this and can't wait for me to post more of them? Check out my award-winning parenting books, FussBusters at Home and FussBusters on the Go (Peachtree).

By Anatoly Liberman

Strange things have been observed in the history of the verb shine, or rather in the history of its preterit (past). To begin with, a reminder. Verbs that change their vowels in the formation of the preterit and past participle are called strong (for instance, sing—sang—sung, shake—shook—shaken, smite—smote—smitten), in contradistinction to verbs that achieve the same results with the help of -t or -d (for instance, shock—shocked—shocked, cry—cried—cried). For practical purposes this division is almost useless, for weak verbs can also change their vowels, as in sleep—slept, and mixed types exist (the past of strew is strewed, but the past participle is usually strewn). (more…)

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Rebecca OUP-US

I’m emotional. I sob in movies. Even bad movies like Boiler Room. Remember that one? It came out in like 1999 or 2000 and starred Giovanni Ribisi. There was a scene in which Ribisi’s character has an emotional break down in front of his father while reminiscing about a childhood biking accident. I sobbed like a baby and I didn’t even like the movie! So you can just imagine my reaction to the end of Tess of The D’Urbervilles. (more…)

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