Ann Imig's Blog, page 14

The Listen To Your Mother Book is Born!! Happy pub day #LTYMBOOK!!

Today is a defining day for me, for 55 additional contributors and for LTYM. Two years ago I got the first email from my agent Elizabeth Kaplan, and today LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now hits bookshelves everywhere.

There SO are many people to thank–especially my editor Liz Stein, my national LTYM team, over 100 director/producers across the country, everyone at Putnam Books–especially Stephanie Hargadon and Elena Hershey who coordinated the launch event with Book Court (with help from LTYM: NYC team of Amy Wilson, Elizabeth Robinson & Barbara Herel) all of our live & online audience–and thousands of people who’ve shared their stories. BlogHer, of course, LTYM’s National Media Sponsor who celebrates with us with meet-ups in 5 cities this season–beginning Wednesday night (see below). Time for more thanks will come soon enough, but first let’s launch this book, and oh my gosh I really need to finish packing.

 “Some will leave readers laughing out loud, while others will leave them crying. All of this collection’s stories, however, have one thing in common: readers will be left planning to call their mothers.” – Publishers Weekly

 

“This collection serves as a significant contribution to literature on and about motherhood… these candid writings feel like a dinner date with a group of smart mothers who share their successes and failures with wit, fear, melancholy, playfulness, and all of the emotions that surround the reality of parenting.” – Library Journal

 

 “The essays are short, which enables the book to cover a lot of ground, but they also pack a strong emotional punch—and they’re almost certain to leave any mother feeling less alone.” – Kirkus










Celebrate with us and buy yourself (your friend, your mom) a copy!

I’m heading to NYC for our launch event tomorrow night, Wed 4/8. If you’ll be in the area please join us at Book Court in Brooklyn. Details here. Following the launch you can also join me at SheKnows #BlogHer15 meet up, right around the corner. Details and RSVP here.

Here are some half-priced, day-old, still delicious Ann links:

Over on ReadBrightly, I wrote about how you can score the easiest and only neurosis-free parenting WIN simply by reading with your kids.

Me on TV talking about LTYM with Leigh Mills WMTV

 

‘Listen To Your Mother’ goes from stage back to the page in new book by Lindsay Christians as featured in The Capital Times

Don’t forget to join us at The Barrymore on Mother’s Day for the 6th annual Listen To Your Mother: Madison!! Meet the cast and find ticket info here.

Now to finish that packing. It’s almost midnight. Oh dear.

Welcome Mats & No Soliciting Signs: A Passover Prayer

The debutant spring came out this week. The belle of the ball swept into Madison on Monday, and with her a bouquet of stomach virus plaguing our home. Then, a knock at our door. Make that several knocks.

Despite the “no soliciting” sign above our doorbell, once the snow melts window sellers, house-painters, and fund-raisers come knocking. In fairness, our stoop offers both a welcome mat and a no soliciting sign, because intermarriage. I think I hear Solicitor Brisket knocking from the fridge right now, yelling for me to get off the computer and prepare tonight’s Seder (and offering me a trial of free lawn-care, WTF?)

A human bearing boxed baked goods knocked yesterday; not an industrious girl scout peddling Thin Mints to celebrate winter’s end, but a kind Orthodox man with a gift of unleavened bread. For Passover is coming, and both the angel of death and the Kookaburra shall passover our home, so that we may survive another year and become svelte Keepers of the Matzah!

On Passover we say Next Year in Jerusalem, Next Year may all be free. For most diaspora Jews a return to Jerusalem serves more as metaphor or idyll, and freedom from shackles as a fervent hope on behalf of those enslaved in distant lands–that freedom a given for those reclining around the Seder table.

This year I pray not just for freedom afar, but in my own neighborhood and in my own community– freedom from poverty, oppression, racism, and stigma, and the slavery of inequity, incarceration and violence. Freedom from structural racism and white supremacist thinking and actions too.

I pray for the courage and wisdom to make my own welcome mat more intentional and less cursory. Also, less a place from which to yell at my children and especially Husband “THE MUD. YOUR SHOES. I CAAAAAAN’T” and more  “Hi, Love. Thank you for buying saltines and Gatorade and cleaning up round 7.”

I pledge to watch my own “no soliciting signs” and stay curious about their inherent biases. I pray especially that those in positions of power do as well.

Next year in Jerusalem and Palestine, in Nigeria and Syria, in Ferguson and Dane County, in immigration detention centers and debtor’s prisons (yes, they still exist) and everywhere that injustice and suffering pervade.

Next year may all be free!
And Next year, girl Scouts, may you please bring back the Kookaburra. Amen

***

Thank you, Jen Rubin, for making me aware of this Jews For Racial & Economic Justice #BlackLivesMatter Haggadah

On this Passover, as we remind ourselves of the preciousness of freedom, let us be reminded that we
are not all free. Black people in the United States continue to suffer from oppression. And while Black people are not physically enslaved as during the dark part of our nation’s history, they still suffer from education inequality, mass incarceration, police brutality, and other forms of both blatant and subtle racism    — Evan Traylor

 

Author Advice: Save your Elle Magazines for 30 years for when you end up in Elle

Now that I’m almost an author, I have some pretty sage advice to pass along. All that nostalgia you’ve been hoarding in your brain and in boxes over the years? Time to drag it out and parade it across the internet!

Exhibit A: Save your 1980s-era Elle Magazines from when you were a PRETTY WITTY mustachioed Freshman in High School quietly terrorized by her OH BOY BEAUTY percentage of “male hormones,” and likely still reeling from THE SHOCK OF SHEER white swimming suit that allowed your camp friends to see your butt over the summer. That sweet girl couldn’t imagine the CHILLS AND THRILLS of seeing her tiny name in the April 2015 issue of Elle!!

Exhibit B: Wondering how much of your kids’ artwork to save? What you should really upset yourself about, Author, is how much of your own artwork did you save? Now LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now doesn’t have illustrations like “The Book of Love Part 2″ (Ann Krinsky, Randall publishing Company, 1983) but hopefully the dedication means just as much to Nancey/Nancy/Mom.

Exhibit 3: Accompanied Major! As a child I made a few solo trips to Brooklyn to visit my grandparents. Back in the halcyon days when grown ups could receive children at the gate, they fed you full meals with silverware on airplanes, and “unaccompanied minor” meant your typical 9-year-old after school with TV and several hours to kill, I flew from Madison to Manhattan and tried not to cry when they announced our arrival in some land called “LaGuardia” instead of New York City.

My grandparents gave me New York City. They gave me Broadway shows, concerts at Lincoln Center, the Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, Barge Concerts, South Street Seaport, 5th Avenue, Tavern On The Green (I ordered a hamburger. Yes, I did.)–on and on and on.

On April 8th, I’ll return to Brooklyn for our book launch at Book Court as an Accompanied Major. I won’t have Grandma Jo and Grandpa Milton, but I will have my own family and my nostalgia in tow. No, I can’t believe any of this is real, either. I do hope you’ll join me and some fabulously talented LTYM folks from far and wide. RSVP on Facebook here.

You can still pre-order our book, coming out April 7th, at Book Court or any of these merchants.

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Tickets on sale NOW for the 6th annual Listen To Your Mother: Madison via The Barrymore Theatre, Barrymore outlets, Happy Bambino, Dragonfly Hot Yoga Middleton, and The Century House gift shop!

 

Keija Parssinen’s “The Unraveling of Mercy Louis” release day GIVEAWAY!

Keija Parssinen is an incredible writer and storyteller. Her debut novel, The Ruins of Us, was simultaneously beautiful and shattering. Her second book, The Unraveling of Mercy Louis  releases today and possesses a similar quality, but with even more mystery and an even sharper edge.

Mercy Louis is one part Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, one part Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park, and a little Louise Erdrich’s The Round House too, in terms of rich settings, riveting plot, and family dynamics. Parssinen transports you to teenaged life in small town Texas, and presents the evangelical and psychic/psychological with nuance and thoughtfulness. She skillfully toes the paranormal with modern American pathos and even humor. The plot gripped me, and the fear of being a teenager in this southeast Texas refinery town during a modern-day witch-hunt felt very real and immediate to me–despite my life as a Midwestern mom.

Keija’s storytelling grips, while dangling you beyond the precipice of comfort. She keeps the tone rooted in reality just enough for even the most logical-minded reader to trust her and stay with her wherever she leads. Congratulations on another glorious book, Keija!

 

Keija Parssinen, Author

 

Buy a copy of The Unraveling of Mercy Louis here, or leave a comment below by Friday 3/13/15 (SPOOKY) 11:59 PM to try to win a copy. I’ll choose one winner at random and announce next week.

Stay with Keija’s blog tour, as she stops at her sister/my good friend Tarja’s The Flying Chalupa today (a brilliant writer herself) and then Alison’s Writing, Wishing tomorrow.

Note: I received a galley copy of The Unraveling of Mercy Louis, but was not compensated for this review. The opinions are strictly my own. I loved this book!

Unhelping by Zachary Zugg Imig

…Zachary Zugg took out the rug,

Jennifer Joy helped shake it.

And Jennifer Joy She made a toy,

And Zachary Zugg helped break it.

from “Helping” by Shel Silverstein

I’m a dedicated unhelper. I unhelp–for free–in my kids’ school, and with the local Jewish community. I sign up, and I show up, with smiling eyes, ready hands, and ample enthusiasm. With that smile and enthusiasm comes a super-sized social tendency, and a venti distractedness with room for spaciness. My volunteerism shows heart, if not as reliably…head.

Every Friday I administer spelling tests in my fifth-grader’s classroom. The fabulous teacher pretends that I’m doing her a service, when in reality she can give these tests, grade them, record the grades, and distribute the tests to the kids’ mailboxes in a fraction of the time it takes me, and with complete efficiency. My results vary.

Once, after grading and filing the tests, Kaya’s test disappeared. I definitely gave her the test, graded the test, and filed the test, but apparently I filed the test into The Great Void that exists between the desk and the mailboxes directly to the right of the desk.  We never found the test. Thankfully, I had recorded Kaya’s grade, unlike the week when I recorded every single child’s grade with the exception of my own child’s grade. I have no explanation for this–especially given that our name falls in the middle of the list. Perhaps I began recording, then what—stopped to admire his mastery of “judgment” and “prejudice” because everyone knows those words are unspellable? Yet I managed to contain my drooling sufficiently to continue recording grades with the next child on the list. My unhelpfulness knows no bounds, and has found a place on my son’s academic record.

Let’s not forget the day when the kids asked me to define a spelling word, which I did by spelling out the word. “Teeth, Miss Ann?” “Yes, teeth as in t-e-e-t-h.” Thankfully, this was just a spelling test and not a spelling bee so that gaffe remained quarantined among three eleven-year-olds.

More recently, however, my unhelpfulness has extended to an entire populace. The Jews of Dane County will celebrate Purim with some seriously unhelpful pastry.

For years I’ve assisted in Hamantaschen baking— helping ready the pastry dough for families to pinch into 2000-some triangles that resemble the evil Haman’s hat, to which they add fruit filling and bake. One year I rolled and cut the dough. That year we had elephantine Hamantaschen and considerably fewer pastries than expected. This year, I helped measure the dry ingredients into bags for the next day’s dough-mixer volunteers.

Listen, after a bag has two cups of regular flour and gets passed along the Purim Chain gang to your station, unless you have xray measuring cup vision, it’s not blatantly obvious if you’ve already added just one cup of cake flour or two. Especially if you’re feeling hyper-conscious about your unhelpful flour leveling-skills and unhelpful kosher kitchen aptitude. Especially especially if you’re discussing what it takes to get into college these days or the going rate for Bar Mitzvah gifting or summer camp tuition. It’s hard to talk and measure and cry at the same time. You might double-down on some bags. You might not learn from your mistakes, even as you give yourself a pep-talk:

You can do this, Ann—daughter of the ancient Israelites Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob, Rachel, Leah, Edward and Nancy! You can focus and measure and not ruin Purim! Concentrate. The Jews Defeated Haman And Survived And Deserve Flaky Prune Filled Dough Hats!!

The good news? I have a new weakness to add to my arsenal for those interview questions in which you reveal your honesty but don’t say anything that could negatively impact the hiring process.

“Cannot measure cake flour and socialize at the same time.”

The bad news? I need to change my Hebrew name to Zachary Zugg.

…And some kind of help

Is the kind of help

That helping’s all about.

And some kind of help

Is the kind of help

We all can do without.

from “Helping” by Shel Silverstein

It’s Awards Season! For Parenting!!

And the winners are…

Best Tooth Fairy goes to the parent who actually caries cash.

Best Supporting Tooth Fairy goes to the parent who remembers to run to the ATM at 10:30 pm, or writes the most convincing IOU with his or her non-dominant “fairy” hand.

Best Timer goes to the parent who has his or her children trained to time their own screens.

Best Supporting Timer goes to the parent who remembers to set the timer at all.

Best Nail Clipper goes to the parent with kids who trim their own nails.

Best Supporting Nail Clipper goes to the parent of kids with the least amount of scratches and gouges on their own or their sibling’s forehead.

Best Meal Planner goes to the parent who serves economical and nutritious meals at home, including whole grains and veggies with every serving.

Best Supporting Meal Planner goes to the parent with kids who know when to duck/cover/and quietly help themselves to cereal or PB&J when no one eats those whole grains and veggies.

Best HairDo Parent goes to the parent who can perfect a ballet bun, follow a hair tutorial, or keep their kids looking sharp.

Best Supporting HairDo Parent goes to parents of kids with faces you can still see.

Best Mature Grown Up Parent goes to the parent who manages not to whine or yell when telling their kids not to whine or yell.

Best Supporting Mature Grown Up Parent goes to…the rest of us.

Best Parent goes to YOU for your own kid. Yes, you. It wasn’t even a contest.

Today my fellow humorists Kelcey at Mama Bird Diaries and Robin at Robin’s Chicks are sharing parenting awards along with me, as part of a sponsored post for Luvs diapers. The three of us will also host a Twitter party next Monday night, Feb 23rd, 8pm CST/9 pm EST where we are giving away up to $500 in gift cards and diapers. 500 dollars PLUS diapers?? Thanks Luvs! So put it on your calendar and you can tell us what parenting award you deserve!

Meanwhile check out this cute new video from Luvs in honor of awards season:

Real Valentines for Exhausted Parent Partners*

You’re so freaking hot, I made the coffee, Super Model.

I won’t press snooze 875 times when you don’t have to get up, Valentine.

I’ll put the kids to bed, Cupid. You just lie there like you do every night, but tonight I’ll heat your neck-warmer thing in the microwave and cool your eye mask and even turn off ¾ of the white noises to make it sound 3/4 less like an airport hangar in here.

The bigger the holes in your t-shirt armpits–the more it shrinks to resemble a midriff–the more I want to steal you away and the less I want to steal it for the rag bin, Daddy-O.

Set the thermostat, She-Ra, and handcuff me far away from it.

Purrrrr. Let’s make whoopee, wherein whoopee refers to a streaming series of your choosing, He-Man. War documentaries included, purr purrr.

I’m taking the kids for three days and leaving you the good car, Xena. I washed it for you, oh yes I did. Undercarriage flush included.

Vinnie Barbarino, go down in your workshop and make me some extra loud beautiful noises. Preferably at the children’s bedtime.

Edna Garrett, You are foxier with every passing day. I will comment with five specifics on your beauty per single green thing in your teeth mention.

Time for some role play, Mr. Roper: You run around the house turning on as many lights as possible and leaving them on when you go run errands. I’ll play meter-reader and turn that energy loss into a high-wattage welcome upon your return.

Welcome home, Lady Elaine Fairchild. The kids played outside for the last hour, helped me clean the house, and still haven’t done their screen time.

Sit a spell, Hamburglar. I just received my Master’s in 100% calm-total-life-organization and tele-pathed it to you and now you can parent from the couch forever.

You know what’s sexier than fleece socks with huge holes in them? New fleece socks with no holes in them. Hubba hubba, Mother Hubbard.

Never change, Wookiee Woman. I promise, Monchichi Man.

*For a limited time only, only valid today on this most romantic of all days until 8:45 pm, Mr. Green Jeans.

Life is hard in man-bag land!

Excuse me, but could I trouble you to swath me generously in indigenous textiles?

photo

 

As you can see, I’m only partially swathed.

I need your help, Sister, as I tend to my nest of artisanal kilims. Surely you’d feel more sourced, and ready to purchase my man-bag if I didn’t have this asymmetrical swath problem, wouldn’t you, Girl.

See how vulnerable my pedicure looks, as it caresses these tender fringelings? My skinny jeans, while rich in hue, hardly suffice for such holisticness. Of course, because this fool stylist left me swath-imbalanced.

But, my hand-made accessories shopping brethren and sistren,

If you care to unlock my $225 crotch satchel, you will find a treasure trove of native wovens inside its buttery hide that is actually $220 of waxed canvas and $5 of tanned leather goodness.  Wovens sold separately, Goddess.

You can swaddle my shivering rose-linen left shoulder, and nestle in my chia-chin while you’re there, beard-lover.

Do you see my ears, Boy? I’m ready for your oral history. Bring me some burlap, and I’ll anthropologize your purchase.

5 Reasons to Read Your Stories On Stage

Last week I gave you 5 reasons to write down your stories. As Listen To Your Mother auditions approach, I present 5 reasons to read your stories on stage:

1. Get if off your chest. Literally. You’ve heard of the mind-body connection? Your story might be weighing you down, intervening between your best self, your past and your future. Your creativity–your humor, your light– might be vibrating inside you, begging to be unleashed. Let it out. Let it fly.

2. Someone else needs to hear it. We are not alone. No matter what we endure, no matter how unique our experience, some thread connects you to another person in that audience who might receive your words as a balm, or as the laugh they needed precisely in that moment.

…One woman came to me and shared her own very personal story.  She told me that after hearing me share what I was going through, she has changed the way she felt about events going on in her family.  This all has left me speechless. – Meggan Sommerville, LTYM: Chicago 2014 cast

3. Experience a unique energy. The intensity and intoxication of a live audience is unparalleled for me. You can actually see this body of bodies move and respond to you and the energy you put forth. Silence, laughter, gasps, nods, applause–all inspired by you and your words. The transaction, however, bends both ways. Your story’s life changes with each telling, and the audience can directly affect your experience if you remain open and present in the moment. Yes, you will likely feel nervous–and that nervous energy is your life force in action–the atoms that comprise your very being. The stage allows for a keen, unparalleled awareness of your atoms in action. As actor and founder of committedimpulse.com Josh Pais says– You are a vibrator.

4. Your voice holds power. Chances are, if you have a microphone and hundreds of people in a captive audience (and if you remove any screen within a 20 foot radius), your children might actually listen to you. This moment may prove one snapshot of you outside your every day realm–a pivotal and mighty moment that colors-in the outline of you beyond your role of mom or dad. Your voice might also open minds and mend hearts. Power your story; give the words their voice. Experience the levity of a story released and watch it soar. You never know how and where it might land. Your stepping up to the microphone might inspire someone else to summon their courage to take a leap in their own life.

LTYM: Madison 2014 alum Andrea Noeske by 2nd Street Photography

 

5. It might change your life. Your story can serve as a powerful introduction, beyond anything you might imagine for yourself. This introduction might come from someone in the audience in the form of a new connection or opportunity. Telling your story might lead you to a new or dormant part of yourself that catalyzes you to change in your life. LTYM, for example, has helped repair relationships, formed friendships and professional partnerships among its participants, inspired career changes, created peer networking and writing groups, and nudged people to keep pushing their own notions of what they can and cannot do for themselves and others in ways large and small.

Whether you pitch your local coffee shop to read your own words, write a toast and read it at a family reunion, or dream of taking the LTYM stage, I urge you to add telling your stories on stage to your bucket list. Check your nearest city for LTYM audition info, happening now/soon. For full Madison audition info, go here.

 

 

5 Reasons to write down your stories

1. Write to remember your alibi. If you listened to the Serial podcast you can imagine the difficulty of trying to remember an ordinary Thursday 10 years ago. If you can’t remember where exactly you saw a dead body in the trunk of your buddy’s car, how are you supposed to remember the day your 8 year old yelled I. DON’T. LIKE. BEING. SOOTHED unless you document it somewhere. Also, it helps when your children grow up and want to hear about their childhoods, if you have some sweet details to share other than One of you used a pacifier and it was hell, and the other refused a pacifier and it was hell. When you write your memories, not only do you preserve them but you often remember details you’d entirely forgotten. Think of it as securing your alibi, plus.

2. Write to pay tribute. Think of the love letters you’ve written or received, the birthday cards with meaningful missives you keep in a special place, the hate mail your kids leave you in time-out. Words can make the best gift of all–the gift of a time machine transporting you back to relive characters and examine plot points of a life story, often gleaning new appreciation and perspectives in the process.

3. Write to release. Before I started blogging and LTYM, I walked around with a knot of unexpressed potential eating away at my insides. I thought maybe I needed to have another kid, but it turned out I needed to birth a whole mess of words and shows. Through this process of release I now feel calmer, much happier, and wholer (is painful carrying around the weight of words never said, or words said to you that still linger and need purging. As Maya Angelou famously said “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

4. Write to entertain yourself and others. Life is hard, even if/when we have what we need and are living the life we want. Our world teems with injustice and tragedy. If you can give us a reprieve, transporting us through telling stories of your past, wake us up into action with the reality of your experience, or spin laughter from the sludge of daily life, please please do so.

5. Write to learn. Writing makes an effective tool for figuring out your head and heart and the world. Writing can show you your weaknesses and illuminate the path toward answers all at the same time. Writing is magic.

Coming next week… 5 Reasons to read your writing out loud in front of an audience.

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LTYM:Madison announced auditions for our 6th annual 2015 Mother’s Day Sunday 5/10/15 show! Full details here.