Writer’s Digest: 5-Minute Memoir

My “5-Minute Memoir”  is out in the March/April issue of Writer’s Digest! Check out the issue at Horizon Books, Brilliant Books and BAM in Traverse City. Here’s a PDF online for my essay “The Last Page.” I love this Writer’s Digest. If you are a (real, imagined, wannabe, professional, pubbed or unpubbed) writer, you should […]

Hospital Visitors – When to go, when to stay

This is an excerpt from my book. It was one of the hardest pieces I’ve ever written. One of my friends told me this was hard to read – because it made her think of friends she’d lost and how much time she’d spent with them.  I said, “So, should I run it? Is it […]

Hauling wood with Dad

Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from my work-in-progress — a novel about losing my mom and finding her again, leaving home and going back and about childhood. The parts like this, about my lovable swearing father, made me laugh when I wrote them and repeat them to my friends as long as they would […]

Baby boy in NICU

Here’s an excerpt from my book, based on when our son Kendall was in NICU. (The first part of the story is here in a previous blog post.)  Such a hard time and I’m sure many moms can relate. The best part was this though… They admitted the baby for seven days. They released Lainey […]

Gulf Shores family trip

Editor’s note: Many of you are suspicious that I am “Lainey.” So, confession: While some parts are fiction (if my dad is reading this, this passage is complete fiction), most of it is me, the me that misses my mom, loves to bike and to cuddle my kiddos. It’s a book that I hope talks […]