please take this dance

Excuse me, I think I burst a few buttons when I saw this fantastic anthology hit the press today.

Do you recognize the cute girl on the cover? (and no, those aren’t my legs– I wish!)

My editor, Kathy, had been working on this for 18 months– pretty much since the first motherhood anthology The Mother in Me hit the shelves. And dare I say this book is even better?

Here’s the back cover blurb:

When it comes to mothering school-age children—biological kids, step kids, or even the kids next door, with or without a partnering spouse—one of the biggest challenges is maintaining connection and balance during nearly constant flux. Each day we negotiate matters of independence, control, tolerance, closeness, expectations, safety, trust, acceptance, boundaries, conflict, and, perhaps most of all, the difficult reality that both mothers and children must learn through experience. Our mothering relationships are like intricate dances through time and space, forming patterns as unique as our individual children. And just as we’re getting our footing, the rhythm is sure to shift.

Enjoyable as a sequel to The Mother in Me as well as a stand-alone volume, this anthology of personal essays and poetry begins on the first notes of middle childhood and concludes with the finale of high school graduation. Its pages explore a wide variety of turning points that come in the outward motion of family life and the inward dynamics of personal growth. To be sure, the dance of motherhood is often more of a stumble. But with candor, insight, and the bittersweet inspiration Segullah writers are known for, these thirty contributing authors convincingly show that even the clumsiest of dancers have moments of grace.

Have I tempted you? Want to see more?

~Read the editor’s introduction
~See the table of contents
~Meet the contributors

Segullah Books, 2010

230 pages