on doctoring, mothering, and writing about both

Bookreporter.com asked me to write a brief piece as part of their lead-up to Mother's Day (yes, it's a long lead-up, I know) about doctoring, mothering, and my inspiration to write.  I would have preferred to use the term "parenting" in the article, since my belief is that after the kid is actually born and weaned, ideally the the effort and act of fathering and mothering a child should be roughly equivalent.  However, it was for Mother's Day, so I was somewhat limited in my word choice.  But anyway, go read it over here.  I wrote it post-call at 2:00am, which, as you know, is when all the magic creativity fairies come out.  Or at least that explains why I start hallucinating them around that point.

I am flying out to Iowa City tomorrow evening, so make sure you're following my Tumblr mini mobile blog either from this page (check sidebar to the left) or at michelleau.tumblr.com to get all the breathless and thrilling details of my travels, like How I Crammed That Luggage Into The Overhead All By Myself (file under "Tiny Triumphs") or How I Missed My Family So Much For The Two Days I Was Gone That I Cried In The Airport Bathroom.  Oh, and also join me in the cliffhanger excitement of my 50 minute layover at O'Hare.  Will I make my connection to Cedar Rapids Municipal?  Will there be Corn Nuts at the newsstand?  ONLY TIME WILL TELL.

See you in Iowa!  And don't forget, meetup Friday night at Sanctuary!  It's OK if you can't make it to the reading at Prairie Lights beforehand, just drop by afterwards, say hi, hang out.  Just don't trick me to getting into your murder van like Jame Gumb and we'll get along just fine.