MotherTalk Book Club and Salon MotherTalk, a place where readers and writers connect through blog tours and more, has just launched a book club. MotherTalk blog tours have been going strong for a little over a year, with anywhere from 10 to 100 bloggers reviewing and discussing new books, and now the newly launched book club offers a wider opportunity to join in the discussion. (Anyone can participate, whether or not you're a blogger -- and even the authors themselves weigh in and respond to reader comments and questions.) Up this month: Persian Girls by Nahid Rachlin, and The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan; and coming in February: The Reincarnationist, by M.J. Rose and Matrimony, by Josh Henkin.
posted to Projects by mothershock at 1:24 PM on January 14, 2008

It's a Girl! My latest book, It's a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters (companion book to last November's It's a Boy) is now in print. The book has a lovely endorsement from "Motherless Daughters" author Hope Edelman and features essays by writers including Amy Bloom, Joyce Maynard, Jacqueline Mitchard, Katharine Weber, and many more. (You can read the introduction [pdf] here.) All of the writers reflect on the idiosyncratic relationship of mothers and daughters, and the ways in which our preconceived notions of girlness and gender affect how we mother our girls. You can find more information about the book here, including info about upcoming events such as my appearances this weekend in NYC. One of the more exciting things about this project is its online component: in addition to the usual readings and other events (the book was on the Today Show today and will be in USA Today tomorrow), the book is the subject of a 60-blog Blog Book Tour. Each weekday during the month of May, two or three bloggers will be writing about the book -- either running interviews, posting reviews, or generally sharing their thoughts -- and each day I'll also be writing on my own blog about each of the essays and writers in the book, in the order they appear in the book -- sharing excerpts from the essays and telling a bit of the "behind the music" stories about how these pieces came to be.
posted to Projects by mothershock at 12:03 PM on May 9, 2006

When I Was Twelve What happens to girls in that pivotal year between girlhood and adolescence? Is being 12 a different experience today than it was 50 years ago? What exactly is so significant about the 12-year-old experience for girls and women? I'm working on research for a book called "When I Was Twelve" that's going to be a nonfiction look into the pivotal year in American girlhood. I'm hoping to interview hundreds of women of all different ages, geographical locations, economic backgrounds, and occupations, and have them tell me their stories. These stories don't have to be long, or even well-written -- they could be a few hundred words, or free-association; about a specific event or an overall summary of that year -- they just have to be real stories, from American women over the age of 13, and they all have to start with the phrase, "When I was twelve, . . ." Read other people's stories here or share your own.
posted to Projects by mothershock at 9:27 PM on March 6, 2006