My husband is a recovering librarian. This means that when we were first dating and he wasn’t yet recovering, I’d call him and say things like, “Hey, Babe. How does ‘822.33 SHA’ sound to you?” William Shakespeare—one of the many Williams we named our son after (see also William Wallace and my grandfather)—has his own […]
books
Book Update: Alphabetical Awesomeness
Yesterday, I discovered that Skyhorse Publishing’s Spring/Summer catalog is out. My book, which releases May 1, is in there. I love Skyhorse’s eclectic offerings. You may remember that when I signed with them last June, I searched their recent deals in Publisher’s Marketplace. I was sandwiched between some quirky titles: Well, now that Skyhorse’s Spring/Summer […]
The Hobbit, Teens, and Ladies of the Night
My eighth graders had just finished studying The Hobbit. We’d followed Bilbo’s epic journey, we’d watched Peter Jackson’s awesome production vlogs, the girls had declared Kili the Dwarf “hot.” [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOGsB9dORBg] Twenty minutes remained in this particular class. “Let’s find our Hobbit names,” I said. I opened my laptop to a hobbit name generator site, got […]
Bizarre Book Pairings
I adore found humor. To me, there is little that amuses me more than finding humor in the ordinary, in something you know hundreds of people have walked by and have failed to see. My favorite found humor in Calgary used to be this sign, outside a strip mall a mere ten minute drive from […]
Stephen King on Parenting
If you have children, you’ve lived a horror story or two. You know that bad things happen at night and that fear (of disease, of cheese curd vomit on your shoulder) drives anxiety. No one exemplifies the horror genre more than Stephen King. Below are 10 of his titles applied to parenting. It: What you […]
Shakespeare on Parenting
We have to study Shakespeare to graduate from high school, yet we don’t have to study anything to become a parent. What if Shakespeare could instruct us on the demands of childrearing? Or easier yet–what if we could twist the titles of his plays and apply them to parenting? Here are 10 titles of Shakespeare’s […]
Reading: An Autobiography
It’s Monday and I’ve shoved irony under my bed to party it up with the dust balls. Before I coax irony out with a vacuum cleaner (which is a machine near extinction in my house), I thought I’d direct you to my “other blog,” where I”m posting today. It ain’t funny, but you might learn […]
Breaking My 10 Parenting Commandments*
As a woman who birthed later than the national average, I had plenty of opportunities to be an armchair parent. By observing an array of friends – some of whom should have used birth control – I saw a range of parenting styles. I witnessed well-meaning parents make not only single goof-ups, but legions of […]
When Kids Hate Movies
Our six-year-old twins are afraid of movies. Not let’s-cuddle-with-our-blankets scared, but full-on, we’d-sooner-lie-down-in-a-pit-of-snakes scared. This is why. First, we tried Ratatouille. Now, I love the crew at Pixar, but this is not a movie for kids; well, at least not for my kids. By the time the opening credits finished rolling, Remy was lost in […]