Bluebird Books

I am a writer...I write. Most days, it's a tug of war between my neverending to-do list and my need to sit at my desk for an hour or two and get some words down on the page. This tension is not new, though I do think mother-writers feel it more acutely. Over the last year or so I've developed some routines to help me be as intentional about writing as I am about reading .  For me, writing in public is almost impossible. I start to graft the people and conversations around me into whatever I'm working on. I get easily distracted. I drink waaaay too much coffee and buy waaaay too many books (Barnes and Noble is wonderful but also terrible). So home is where the writing is.  I have a space of my own in the sitting room part of our bedroom. It has a desk and bookshelves that I kind of hate but they get the job done. The walls are great and I cover them in sticky-note reminders and inspirational quotes. The best part of this space is that there is a door (to the bedroom part...b

 The saying goes that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. This March was pretty lion-y all the way through. 🦁🦁🦁  Here's what I read while I tried to stay warm and navigated my way through a month marked by college auditions for my oldest and our family's reckoning with COVID. 1. The Sentence by Louise Erdrich ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This was our March book club book but I had bought it the second it came out because I was just coming off a high from The Night Watchman . The Sentence tells the story of Tookie, a Native American woman who works at Louise Erdrich's bookstore . Louise Erdrich herself was a character (one of my favorites). Anyway, Tookie is haunted by a ghost in the bookstore and ghosts from her past. This happens at a time marked by riots and racism and the pandemic. It's a lot. Erdrich's writing hits me hard. I love the graceful way she illuminates things I had no idea about. I love the characters she creates and captures. I love the worlds sh