Drinking problem???

Not Mose... He's master of the cup!

It started...

As a sandwich...

Mose...

Is very helpful at dinnertime!

Mose...

Has been learning things from the dog.


One might ask, "Why were you taking a picture, Laurel... when you should have been running to stop your son for contracting a rare doggy disease?"


Ummmm...


It was too funny.

A Contest!!!

Today, at my new blog, a little contest I'm running. Please stop by and enter.


The contest?


I need to name an dastardly Wild West villain (for my next children's novel) and I'm drawing a blank. So if you can supply me with a good name, I'll send you a free signed copy of the ARC when the book is done, AND I'll name another character in the book ANYTHING YOU WANT!


That's right! This is your chance to name someone after your dear mother (a great birthday present, let me tell you).


Enter as many times as you want. Enter silly names, scary names, stolen names. Just enter!


(And do it at the other site, one entry per comment, or it won't count)

Antoine...

Why has it taken me so long to get around to posting this?


Maybe because I have a brain full of milk, waiting...


In any case... you need to go and buy Antoine Wilson's new book, The Interloper. And if you live in LA or NY (or Iowa City or Madison, WI), you need to go and hear the man read a chapter.


Antoine is not only one of the smartest writers I know, he's also a great reader, funny guy, brilliant humorist, and he has an infectious laugh. I'm not sure if he can still hold his whiskey, but once upon a time he totally could.


Truly, you want to know this man. Through his book, from a good seat in the audience, any way you can.


And hey! If you won't listen to me... listen to the LA Times for crying out loud:


OH, what thrilling dread, falling in with a character as twisted as the narrator of Antoine Wilson's terrific first novel, "The Interloper." It's like leaving a party with a designated driver, only to discover as you swerve down the driveway that your new friend is drunker than you are. Or worse, completely insane.


Now, tell me that doesn't make you want to run out and buy his book?

From the lovely Erin Erginbright...

I suggest all you fictioneers pay close attention:


Wordstock, Portland’s annual festival of writers, books, and storytelling, wants to see outstanding short stories from Oregon, the Pacific Northwest, and across the US. So we’re announcing the Wordstock Short Fiction Competition.


Anyone can enter. Stories can be from any genre. They can be as short as 1,500 words and as long as 4,000. The judges — writers, academics, publishers, bookstore owners, literary critics — will choose ten finalists, which will be published in The Wordstock Ten, an anthology that will be available at the festival, held this year November 9-11 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland.


The winning story will be published in the December 2007 issue of Portland Monthly. The winning writer will receive $1,000.


The deadline to enter is July 15, so get to work.


See the complete competition and submission guidelines at wordstockfestival.com/involved/fiction


All proceeds from Wordstock support Community of Writers, a program to improve writing in our schools.


Get going, y'all!

Slightly embarassed to admit...

How many times I've watched this Youtube... of Andrea Bocelli singing Elmo to sleep.


The fact that I love it is weird on several fronts.


First because I have to admit I've watched it on my own. (Some days I can pretend it's "for Mose", but not so much when he's in another room).


Second because I should be bothered that Andrea Bocelli looks like he wants to deep-kiss Elmo. But I'm not so much.


I just dig this song. I dig that Elmo is not "Snore-y". And I dig it because the night we got married, we wandered, drunk and full of too much steak, out to the Bellagio fountains to call our moms and tell them we'd gotten hitched.


And this (sans Elmo) was playing.


Awwwwwwwwww.....

Aaaaahhhh...

The combination of NOT blogging for pay anymore... and at the same time having a part-time sitter (so I can write) is sooooo relaxing. I'm actually writing. Writing words. Putting them into sentences.


Paragraphs even!


Of course, we'll see how relaxing things feel in five weeks, when I'm back to my hourly nursing sessions ALL NIGHT LONG.


In other news, I have some poems coming out in the next Iowa Review. About being a mom.


In still other news, does anyone know any wildly famous children's book authors? Or mildy famous? Please backchannel!

From the "Nu" blog...

To the new blog!


I'm now offically done being professionally Jewish over at Jewcy, and so...


(in addition to writing a book and delivering a baby) I'll be blogging at least once a week over at Kid Lit(erary)!


Brother, can you spare a link?


C'mon... who *doesn't* like slightly snooty children's book writers waxing nostalgic?

SALE!!!

Major changes at the amazing Soft Skull Press mean giant savings for you...


Pick up Half/Life: Jew-ish Tales from Interfaith Homes for pennies, if you buy now from the SSP website.


Or check out the SSP Religion and Politics Subscription, also on super-sale!

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

We're starting in on a new phase at our house. Hubby has a new job, I've quit all my regular freelance, a new baby is coming very soon, and Mose has begun to spend a few hours a few days a week with his friend Jasper (and her wonderful nanny, Olga). All of this in preparation for what we anticipate will be an INSANE year.


Two babies in diapers. Hubby working full time and in school full time. Me trying to manage house and hearth on a shoestring (while racing a book deadline).


But while I was feeling crazy a few weeks ago, I'm suddenly just feeling totally lucky. Because for the first time in my life I'm not trying to get to the "next thing". I'm not scrambling to make contacts that might pay off later. I'm not searching the web for interesting jobs. I'm not trying to dream up a book I might be able to sell. I'm not feeling left out. I'm not submitting work to journals and then biting my fingernails over them. I'm not envying other people their successes. I'm taking a break from all of that.


I'm exactly where I want to be.


At home. Writing what I want (poems and this new book... and nothing else) and MOST OF ALL-- taking care of my kids.


This is not to say that I won't be insane in other ways...


Of course I will, because I'm "like that". Insanity is, as my sis would say, "just how I roll".


But for the first time since I can remember, I'll be content to do just what I have to do. So long as I do it well.


And I'm feeling amazingly blessed to be in this situation.


Why am I thinking about all of this? Because last night, watching TV, I said something to my husband about how I don't think I really want to teach. I said, "I think I just want to write and be a mom."


And he said, "Well, it's a good thing that's exactly what you're doing."


And a lightbulb went off.


I felt like a fool for not realizing it sooner. It's true. I am doing JUST what I want to do.


How crazy is that? How many people can say that?


I'm doing just what I want, without having to sell my soul to the devil. Without a trust fund. Without going into massive debt. My dream has come true.


And I'm not saying this here to gloat or anything. I'm not trying to show off. I'm saying it here because it seems worth mention... that sometimes you HAVE just what you want, but you've gotten so used to scrambling that you've forgotten what you were scrambling towards in the first place.


Like you started driving across the country, meaning to visit your cousin in Kansas, and you got so used to staring at the map, watching the speedometer, and thinking about the road... you forgot to stop in Kansas.


Life is crazy.

The end of an era...

Today I quit my day job. And I have some mixed feelings about it. Because I tend to take on too much, and I have a hard time letting go. I ahve a hard time not wanting to stick my fingers into every pot on the stove.


But it's time. See, this isn't my real work.


How's that?


Well, a few years ago, I took an accidental job with Hillel, and became a professional Jew. Then I accidentally edited a book about being Half-Jewish. Then I accidentally began doing a lot of Jewish essay-ish stuff, and landed the gig at Jewcy. Along the way I accidentally wrote columns, interviewed Jewish writers for Nextbook podcasts, spoke to JCCs and synagogues, participated in Jewish literary festivals, and joined the boards of a few Jewish agencies.


And it was all amazing. I grew and learned and felt lucky. But I'm NOT really a professional Jew. I'm really a writer. And that has been hard, both because I've felt a little bit like a fraud... and because I've been split in half.


But I'm not even really a "Jewish Writer." I'm just a Jew who happens to write. I write poems, and little stories about all kinds of things, Jewish and not-so.


Now, a mother, and about to have another baby... and racing a book deadline for my next children's novel (NOT about Jews) I find myself at once overwhelemed by too-many-hats syndrome. But at the same time, I've been reluctant to let go of the Jewcy gig. Because it's been such an amazing ride, my professional Judaism. And because I like the Jewcy folks so much.


Still, I've done it. I've quit, and now I'll have at least 3 hours (of sitter-time) a day to finish the novel, which is a huge relief. And I won't have to keep the sticky toddler away from the laptop every morning (or bribe him with Sesame Street) as I race toward my daily deadline.


Instead, I'll be out in the hammock, munching on toast and blowing bubbles. Which is my real work. Blowing bubbles. Wiping noses. Each day...


Until it's time to sit down and work on the book. My other real work.


Congratulate me?

Yay for Shanna!!!

This girl takes the bully by the horns.


Welcome to the world, Bloof Books!

Contest!!!

The nice folks at the Burnside Review, who did such a lovely job with (my choose your own adventure book) Daphne & Jim, have announced their next chapbook contest!


2007 Burnside Review Chapbook Contest.
Judge: Dorianne Laux.
Manuscripts must be postmarked by June 30th.
20-28 pages of poetry.
Winner receives $200-, 25 copies and publication in the summer 08' issue.
Complete details are available on the "contests" page at our website.


Send them some poems, for goodness sake!


(Does it help if I mention that they're about to take Daphne & Jim into a third printing? Not every press does that, dontcha know!?)

Obscene...

Okay, this is where I turn into a boring mommy for a minute, Forgive me. But I must confess.


Nobody can rightly accuse me of being a fancy-yuppie-mom. I don't spend insane money of my son. I don't buy ridiculous baby products as a rule. I don't freak out when Mose sucks on my keys, or force him to be a gluten-free toddler. I let him eat dirt and I clothe him in things I find in the sale bin at the consignment store... because that's how I grew up. And keys taste good.


BUT!


I just bought an insane item, my first insane baby-item. I just bought a massively pricey double-stroller I cannot afford and I do not CARE! Because it is SO much better than all the other double strollers. It is smaller and lighter and it will mean I can get through doorways and wheel the kids through airports and so on.


So there.

Josh Kryah's "Glean"...

I'm reading a new book of poems, Glean. And I'm having a hard time pinning down my reactions. I think this is for personal reasons, maybe because I'm a Jew.


The book is lovely. Lovely is the right word. Also careful. Also humble in a way, but not the way I mean humble when I say it. Usually.


This book is involved with questions of faith. Not questions "about" faith but questions that spring forth from the interior (and, if speaker of these poems is ever answered, also exterior) process of attempting faith. They are enacting a process, conversing with faith.


This book is attempting faith. I don't think it gets there. It's too smart. Too unwilling to be fooled. But the process is lovely, and a little painful. A little doomed.


Oh, I don't know if I'm explaining well... these poems seek faith, but in their self-awareness and their hyper-intelligence they will never settle for what faith truly is. They will never answer their own questions. They will never pretend. Which is amazing on the page, but hard for me, as a reader who prays, to believe in. At least beyond the poems...


The first poems in the book all open with questions. Like so:


"What kind of name/ is a name asking..."


"What follows self?"


"What was intended?"


And these questions haunt the book. I can't forget that they've been asked as I read on. I can't miss seeing that they never get answered.


But also, (and this gets back to the Jew thing) I don't care the way I ought to. The way these poems really deserve. Leading me to wonder if it's me, if it's a Jew thing.


Because on some level, though Judaism is a very personal faith (by which I mean the god/person relationship is a one-on-one relationship) and a religion of questions, it is also SO very much a religion of routine, action, command. Jewish questions demand answers. Further questioning too, but beneath them a foundation of belief that we are all moving to the same answer. That there is "an" answer.


Where this book is above all things, personal. Dwelling far beyond an acceptace of call and response.


Jews don't ask questions and then wait or mull or ponder in a corner. They ask questions and then wash up for supper, where they talk over the questions loudly together.


Like:


"What follows self?"
"Eh? It's nearly dark out. Get in here and help the kids wash up for supper!"
"But what follows self?"
"Good question!"


That's Jewish prayer. No time for waiting. We all know the words. You can ask question all afternoon, but then you pray, dammit! No time to sit and think when there's something to be blessed and eaten.


Prayer for me, and faith for me, are so much about the daily routine of the body, the moving forward, the waking up, the living... that this kind of mulling is hard to see as real. It doesn't resonate personally. I find myself thinking that these poems would waste away in a closet somewhere. That they're a little too self-involved.


But...


But...


But... I need to continue rambling , because this is where one might read my little rant here as dismissive of Glean. Which I don't intend.


These poems are so strong, so carefully placed, so well wrought. And this book hangs together so well as a project ... that I can't argue with Glean as I might, on a personal level. It's too good. It opens up a new way of seeing, however dimly. However nervously. The poems aren't in the end, self-involved. They're saved from that by some connection to a tradition of such prayer.


They're hermit poems, but they're looking for a window, not down at the feet.


Like so:


I cannot say with certainty/ that I saw nothing," closes a poem further on, The Fever Chart.


And though I'm forced to think... "I can."


I'm still interested in what will proceed from such uncertainty. And I must recognize that the questions will continue. And that what this poem does NOT say is:


"I cannot say with certainty / that I saw something."


Which is the line between searching... and cynicism.

Goodbye to sweetlorelei...

I'm finally fed up with hotmail. I'm totally and absolutely sick of it. Spam. Bouncing. Weirdo junk filter. A little sad to say goodby to sweetlorelei. I've had it for 10 years now, but...

From now on. please email me at the below addy:

LaurelSnyder@gmail (dot) com

My sore throat...

Turned into a raging head cold.

But now I'm feeling better...

Hello...

I have a very sore throat.