Archive for the ‘Books’ Category:

I just came back from a quick trip to Pepper Pike, Ohio—a suburb of Cleveland where I grew up—to attend a book club/party of old friends of mine and my mom’s, including a bunch of mother/daughter duos.

Posters for the Dutch version of Mothers and Daughters around the Netherlands!

As I have talked about before, after my first daughter was born, it took me a year before I could write again, and during that year I felt anxious and guilty for not writing. With the birth of my second daughter, I gave myself a year off. It’s been six months, and I’m inching toward that scary moment of trying to eke out some sentences.

The baby and I hit the road again, this time to my old home city of Madison, Wisconsin, for a reading on Mother’s Day. Madison is losing its bookstores left and right, but A Room of One’s Own is still alive and kicking. I have read there twice, so it was really fun for me to go back. The store is right off State Street, which makes it a pretty festive place to be on a warm and sunny Sunday.

In the last couple weeks, my easy baby has become not so easy. She now cries the second someone else holds her, which means my plan of having her sit on a friendly lap while I read no longer works. So I wore her for half of the reading, before passing her off to my sister-in-law to walk her around. Luckily it was a very friendly crowd full of friends and family, including my husband’s 91-year-old grandmother. I don’t get nervous about reading anymore, thankfully, and I can actually enjoy myself.

Just in time for Mother’s Day, here is an interview my publisher did with me and my mom, the incomparable Jane Meadows. Read on for her thoughts about my novel, our evolving relationship, motherly advice, pie for breakfast, and a hockey player named Moose.

Sarah Jio’s debut novel, The Violets of March, was just released and it has garnered tremendous praise across the board. One of the things I love about Sarah is how nice she is to other writers—and I am so happy for her success! Below my Q & A with Sarah about what it’s like to have her first novel come out, how she did it, and how she manages it all with three young children.

When my now-husband and I left Brooklyn in 2005, we moved to Madison to write full time and remove ourselves from the New York life, and all the money, energy, and cramped space it required. I’m usually glad to return home after visiting, but this time, on a double-header stop on the book tour, I had a ball, and could have stayed for a month.

I had my first reading for Mothers and Daughters this past Wednesday at the excellent independent bookstore Magers & Quinn. My anxiety before readings is only a little about the public speaking part. It mostly swirls around whether people will show up. I never do readings where I don’t know people. Unless you’re famous, you’re not going to get many randoms at your readings. My friend Mark once gave a reading where no one came. He sat with the manager for about twenty minutes before hitting the bar in the mall.

Today I made my television debut, interviewed about Mothers and Daughters on a midday local news show. I had asked my sister’s advice on what to wear—as a writer for Newsweek she was often on TV—and she said no patterns and bright colors. I don’t own any bright colors so I opted for—surprise—black. I got to the studio very early. The greenroom was like the waiting room at the Subaru repair shop: big loud TV? Check. Coffee with powdered creamer? Check. Freezing air conditioner? Check.