The End

I recently published my first edited book,  Labor of Love: A Literary Mama Staff Anthology ,  with  Small Harbor Publishing . It's an anthology of writing from  Literary Mama  staff over the past 20 years. It's a beautiful collection and I am proud of the writers and proud to share the book.  It seems a fitting moment, as I pondered sharing about the book here on the blog, to reflect on my life as a blogger, and acknowledge that it is time to officially end this blog.   I started blogging in about 2007, when my baby was learning to toddle, when I was learning how to be a mother and stepmother, when I was just starting to see my way as a writer. I needed it back then. I craved it. I had a variety of blog iterations--family, art, creativity, writing things I delved into. There's a freedom in blogging, a casualness, an easy familiarity that's lacking (for me anyway) in other kinds of writing. I loved blogging and the words came pouring out.  Ove...
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The Other Way to Listen

I recently discovered The Other Way to Listen by Byrd Baylor and Peter Parnell.  This is a beautiful and very moving book.  It is simple and to the point.  But there is an ephemeral sense of mystery to it as well. 

It is the brief story of a child asking to understand how an old man can hear stars, or flowers or the very hills speaking to him.  The old man gives brief and poetic direction about how to learn to hear the hills.  The story is backed up perfectly by the illustrations.  Which all can be seen one way, but if you look a bit longer can be seen as something else. 

I adore this book.  It is spiritual, natural, easy to read to kids.  In fact I read it to my Earth Scouts/Champs group last week as we sat in the park.  Afterwards, before any voices had a chance to break the spell of silence the book casts, I sent them quietly off to each sit by themselves and just listen to the nature around us.  They did.  5 and 6 year olds, and parents alike, all spread out, sitting silently and separately around the open clearing, watching the sky, the trees, the wind.  All waiting, listening, striving to hear what our hills had to say to each of them. 

It was a great way to listen.



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