Today is my 28th wedding anniversary. I like to joke that marrying my husband was the best thing I ever did for my writing career. He was the English major in love with big words, while I majored in Science with the goal to “train athletes.” Now we do both, but our roles somewhat reversed. He’s the Athletic Director and I’m writing books. Maybe we both taught each other something.

I’m also a mom. I’ve spent the majority of adulthood taking care of my “sweet bambinos” as my mother would say (queen of the nicknames). I suspect most women of the same. And then the sweet bambinos grow up and have more bambinos! The world is not just a little thrill when there are babies. I’m also a writer. This is a post to celebrate that intersection.

At eleven days old, Baby Hal got his library card, making him the youngest card-holding member in New Hampshire :) I’m so proud.

Doesn’t baby Hal look thrilled? And he picked a classic first story!

The Fantastic Ursula K. Le Guin was a mother. From The New Yorker: “An artist can go off into the private world they create, and maybe not be so good at finding the way out again,” she said. “This could be one reason I’ve always been grateful for having a family and doing housework, and the stupid ordinary stuff that has to be done that you cannot let go.”

Some favorite Kidlit ers who write AND illustrate books for kids (the mothers are grateful) include , , , with and …who else?

Watching my daughter become a mother has me remembering my younger mothering days and the amount of writing (and cleaning and shopping and bill paying and etc etc) I did with one hand while rocking and nursing and singing to the babies…multi-tasking might be a myth, but IDK, mothers know how to do it. I have such tenderness for them.

This Olga Masters quote on writing and motherhood has always resonated with me: “Many people have said to me, ‘What a pity you had such a big family to raise. Think of the novels and the short stories and the poems you never had time to write because of that.’

And I looked at my children and I said, “These are my poems, these are my stories.”

Children are a fountain of never ending inspiration. They’ve made me a much better writer. Pay attention to all of the funny, obnoxious, sweet things that children do and you’ll get golden stories. Write down their funny quotes. Each one of my books have relied heavily on real life with kids: Using Real Life to Write Fantastic Fiction, Part I and Part II.

I loved reading about the poet ’s balancing act of creativity and children.

Joan Didion wrote Blue Lights after her daughter Quintana Roo died at age 39 from complications of flu and pneumonia. Quintana, she said, "had no idea how much we needed her. I needed her in the sense that she was ... simply the center of my life." Same, girl.

“In A Room of One’s Own (1929), Virginia Woolf argued that, historically, successful women writers have not been mothers. Jane Austen, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, and George Eliot - ‘not one of them had a child.’ Do children stifle creativity? Statistically, it’s not true. I concur. While it is challenging logistically, we can get more creative with our time! Here’s baby Hal on a towel in the middle of the table. I’ll concede that this gave me exactly four minutes of uninterrupted writing time before he was once again demanding attention.

Hal and his adoring mummy

There will be interruptions and spit up, exhaustion and too little sleep.

There will be days when you wonder where you have gone,

If you’ve been swallowed by a great whale of doubt and washed up dreams.

Go with the current

Fight against it when you must

Paddle

Swim hard

The tide recedes.

Find the quill

Put pen to paper,

believe you have words we need to read.

That’s your lifeboat.

And mine, too.

Amy 💖

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If you’d like to support my work with a paid yearly subscription, I will gratefully send you a signed copy of any one of my books 🙏 and then I will do cartwheels because you have made MY YEAR of writing possible <3

The Last Part:

Watching: Chiefs of War on Appletv about Hawaii’s native chiefs uniting against colonialism. I was surprised by how invested I am! Is it Jason Mamoa?

Listening: Dr. Stacie Sims on the Mel Robbins podcast: The Body Reset: How Women Should Eat & Exercise for Health, Fat Loss, & Energy. I learned a lot!

Reading: The Trouble With Heroes by Kate Messner. Loving it.

Smelling: The face and head of a newborn baby. The absolute best. Baby Hal and parents are moving soon so tell me how to bottle this new baby smell?

Wrestling: With onesies. And cloth diapers. The new parents are much more virtuous and earth conscious than I was.

The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair is part-mystery, part understanding of the human heart 💖

Ten Thousand Tries is Golden’s quest to save his dad and the soccer team ⚽

The McNifficents is one summer with six rambunctious kids and their miniature-schnauzer nanny 🐕 New Hampshire’s 2024 Great Reads for Kids selection!