I seriously love everything about your company, from its name to the idea behind it to the actual t-shirt designs. Tell me a little about how you got started, and why you decided to do this.

Thank you so much, Lois! I’m so glad you love them! I started making the collages about fifteen years ago when I was living in Montreal. I was writing full-time and house-sitting for my brother’s colleagues. He’s an Anthropology professor and all of the anthropologists in his department would go off at various times to do their fieldwork and needed someone to take care of their animals and plants. It was fantastic. I was able to live in different apartments and condos all over the city for free and write. I started out making collages of writers that I loved and giving them away as gifts. One day a friend said, “You should sell these.” We brought thirty collages out to Bennington, Vermont, and sold them all in the first boutique we went into. I was floored. I then got into making greeting cards, magnets, bookmarks and seven-day glass votive candles with the image wrapped around them. They sold quite well. Then I learned the t-shirt trade and started putting my images with quotes on to high quality soft cotton t-shirts that I would wear. That took a lot of research to find the right company, but once I did it was a hit.

How do you choose which people to feature?

I will only do a collage of someone I admire. These are magnanimous figures that I hold in high esteem. I love every one of them!

How do you select the quotes you use with each one? There would be so many I’d want to use for each one.

That’s always difficult. I agree with you. There are so many excellent quotes from all of these incredible innovators, but it usually comes down to what appeals to me most and it must fit around the image on the t-shirt, so both size of quote and something that engages me are essential!

Which ones are the most popular?

Meg's friend, writer Robert Vaughn

It depends on where they’re selling. Frida Kahlo is quite popular here in NM. In Vancouver, they love Joni Mitchell. She lives in the same town as this boutique I sell my t-shirts in. There are many requests for Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Bob Marley, Tesla, Gandhi, Jimi Hendrix, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, Nietzsche and Flannery O’Connor.

But then, there’s always someone who comes along, who wants that certain someone that might seem more obscure to most people. My Editor-in-Chief at Connotation Press, Ken Robidoux, loves Delmore Schwartz, the poet (as do I), and ordered a shirt of his. There’s someone for everyone, I hope!

Any funny – or touching – requests?

I had a woman come to my booth at a festival and she was adamant about getting a Johnny Cash t-shirt in her size. I found a Hank Williams Sr. and thought she’d like him, but no, it had to be Johnny. It turns out she was one of Johnny Cash’s daughters and we did find a Johnny t-shirt in her size. That was very cool!

Which is your own personal favorite? Why?

I love them all, but if I think about which one I wear the most, it would have to be Carson McCullers. I love her writing and I love the quote on the t-shirt: “While Time the Endless Idiot, Runs Screaming Round the World.” And I wear Kafka quite often, as well as Flannery and Samuel Beckett. It’s hard to pick a favorite. My husband’s favorite is Frank Zappa: “My Dandruff is Loose, My Breathe is Chartreuse.” And sometimes I pick out one depending on the color I feel like wearing that day. I have a huge collection in my closet. They make me very happy!

Who’s still on the to-do list?

Hemingway, David Foster Wallace, Raymond Carver. I have more on the list, but have been writing so much lately that I haven’t had time to add to the group in a while!

Let us know who you’d like to see on one of Meg’s t-shirts!

As someone who is obsessed with both 11:11 and Moleskine notebooks, I do believe you have the perfect company! Can you give us a little background on the significance of the name and why you started working with Moleskines?

11:11 is my favorite time and for years I thought it was just my little quirk. I would catch it all the time on the clock and it always gave me a good reassuring feeling like everything was alright in that moment, no matter what was going on. A few years later I was working with a company that was going to produce these crazy bags I was making out of old LP records, and was pondering what I wanted the name of my new brand to be. They moved into an office on the 11^th floor of a building on 11^th Street in Manhattan right as I was deliberating, and so I took that as another sign! We parted ways and I kept the name for my venture, which I began almost eight years ago now!

As for the Moleskines – I always wanted to work with that brand because of how well their products are made and their rich history with artists and writers of the past. It’s very inspiring company to keep. So I was thrilled when I finally figured out how to source them wholesale and have been making covers for the Moleskine Cahier series for about three years now.

What’s your most popular product? 

It’s a toss up between our cardholders and the passport covers. The cardholders are perfect to use as a mini “going out” wallet. They are slim and hold the essentials – credit card, business cards and a bill or two. The passport covers have been selling insanely well online, though, and I think it’s because it’s a super fun and inexpensive way to personalize and prepare for a trip, as well as protect your identity and keep the precious passport safe!

What’s your own personal favorite? 

I love our checkbooks the most because it seriously makes me feel special when I am paying bills – that little bit of brightness does it. They’re way better than the drab ones banks always give you! 

How do you find those gorgeous papers? 

Oh my goodness, the collage and imagery hunting is my absolute favorite part! I love taking pictures everywhere I go, collecting candy wrappers, old books and magazines, vintage stamps, fortunes from the Chinese take out … Inspiration is everywhere.

What’s the most rewarding part of your business for you? 

Having customers tell me that using my products makes them happy makes me feel like I am doing my job on earth. For me 11:11 enterprises is all about spreading love through the details and inspiration through imagery.  Sometimes it’s the small things in life that really make a difference in a day.

Any new items coming up? Dreams still to come true? 

Well, my first love is making handbags so 2012 is the year I will finally get back into that end of the accessory world. I am so excited. I have plans for bags that are very practical but with luxurious and whimsical touches. Making bags again will be full circle for me, as I started 11:11 as a bag line and switched to wallets when I realized I should start simple and work my way up. It’s been quite an education learning how to be a business woman, and I think I’m ready now to branch out and show my true colors!

Since 11:11 is so important to you, how do you feel today – 11/11/11? 

I feel amazing and grateful to be alive in these exhilirating times. Each day is what you make it. It’s all about staying on the positive current and riding that like a wave. There is tremendous energy for alignment and transformation today, and we are all so lucky to be on this planet together at this time. There is so much beauty everywhere. I just want to soak it up and celebrate it as much as I can!

With almost half of marriages ending in divorce, it’s no surprise that the kids are often the ones who stand to lose the most. But what we never really considered until reading An Accidental Mother is the devastating loss experienced by everyone involved when a divorced parent enters into a serious relationship which doesn’t result in re-marriage but ultimately ends.

Katherine Anne Kindred became deeply attached to her boyfriend’s young son, Michael, and when the couple broke up, she was forbidden to see the child. She wrote An Accidental Mother as a love letter to Michael but it raises so many huge issues and makes for powerful reading. We learned a lot from talking to her, and hope she’ll update us WHEN — not if — she hears from Michael.

As a mother, I was really moved by your book. It raises so many important issues in this age of divorce, and shows that it’s the children who tend to get caught in the middle. Your quote that parenthood is “something like a cult – easier to get into than out of” pretty much says it all. What is the main message you want readers to take from your story? 

That parenting has very little to do with blood ties.  You don’t have to be a birth mother (or father) to love a child with your whole heart – or to be loved in return.  And loving a child, or becoming their parent, isn’t something that can just be shut off.

The book is such a love letter to young Michael, and I’m so happy that he’ll be able to read it at some point and see how deep your feelings are for him, especially since his father has forbid all contact between you. Was that one of your reasons for writing the book – so that eventually Michael would be able to hear your side of the story?

Yes – more than anything I want Michael to know I did not intentionally abandon him, and that I love him as much as any mother could love a child.  After we were denied contact, I just had a deep feeling that Michael and I would someday find each other again.  I decided to put all of the stories together for him so he could have a record of our time together, our bond, and the love I had for him.  It was only after I put it all together that I thought maybe I had a publishable manuscript.  Then I realized if I could get it published, it would be out in the universe for Michael to find, even if he couldn’t find me.

Being an “accidental” mother is such an impossible job for so many reasons. What did you learn from the experience? In hindsight, is there anything you would have done differently to try to change the outcome?

I spent most of my adult life being a “Monday-morning-quarterback” when it came to other people’s children.  I had so many strong opinions on parenting – what to do, what not to do.  But I had no idea parenting would be so challenging and complicated.  I gained a whole new level of respect and admiration for all parents, real or accidental – and teachers and daycare providers and nannies and anyone else that cares for children on a regular basis.  I realized that parenting is much harder than it looks.  I also came to understand the purity and beauty of the love that comes from a child.  Children love wholeheartedly and unconditionally.  They forgive you your faults, and they are so willing to express love and affection.

As far as changing the outcome, I would have pushed much harder to adopt Michael when Jim told me I could.

Do you think things would have been different if Jim had allowed you to adopt Michael as he originally said he would? 

Had I adopted Michael, I could have petitioned the courts for visitation after being denied access.

What were Michael’s feelings about his biological mother? He didn’t seem to talk much about her. 

I do not think Michael had any strong memories of her, as he was sent to live with Jim when he was only two years old.  It was rare that he spoke about her or asked questions about her.  

I love when you say, “No one will ever see all the effort a woman puts into make sure a child is ‘balanced,’ but everyone will notice how adorable the child looks if dressed up in designer clothes. And the part no one notices is much harder work.” All moms will appreciate that recognition. What were some of the other surprises you discovered as “an accidental mother?”

First and foremost, I discovered that children are expert manipulators – you have to be on your best game at all times.  They are like stealth predators, constantly searching for any weakness in your resolve – and I was such an easy target when it came to Michael!

Second, I learned that parenting is a fluid proposition.  Children are constantly growing and changing, coming and going through different stages, and that often those stages differ based on gender.  I discovered that your methods of parenting must grow and develop right along with the children and whatever age or stage they might be in.

What was Jim’s reaction to the fact that you wrote this book? Have you heard from him at all?

I have not heard from him, and I do not know if he is aware of the book.

What advice would you give other women going through similar situations? How do you think children can be protected from being pulled away from the “accidental mothers” – or “fathers” – who love them? 

The fact is that with the current rates of divorce and remarriage, most children will be raised by multiple parents throughout their childhoods.  The only way to protect them throughout the process is with a high level of selflessness on the parts of both parties. But even in the best of circumstances, that’s a tall order; the family courts are filled with couples that can’t come to an agreement regarding their children.

My advice to other women would be to have hard conversations early on about what might happen if the relationship were to end, yet keep in mind that promises are not always kept.  Marriage or adoption should provide greater legal rights, as both step-parents and adoptive parents can petition the courts for access.

Whatever you do, don’t let the challenges in your relationship stop you from loving the child with your whole heart.  My only regrets are that I didn’t leave more lipstick marks on Michael’s cheeks, that I didn’t tell him I loved him 100 times a day instead of 10.  Whatever sadness and pain came after, it was worth all the love I had for Michael – and the love I received in return.  

Thanks so much for sharing your story. I hope you and Michael will get to be together again soon. 

Thank you for reading my story, and thank you for your well wishes.  I hope with all hope that I will see Michael again someday!

I love that you’ve made cooking so manly! Maybe this will start a whole new generation of men making dinner. Why did you decide to put together this book and how did you choose your writers?

I’m hoping that the book inspires men to cook more, and one of the things that I’ve realized about being a guy in the kitchen is that there’s no one right way to do it. Being a man who cooks is very varied experience. I wanted a multitude of voices, which is why I made an anthology. I picked the writers because I admired their work. I was very fortunate to get to work with so many great authors.

I put the book together because when I first started cooking for my family, about six years ago, I looked around for a book that would give me tips and stories about being the man in the kitchen, and I couldn’t find such a book. It didn’t exist, so I created it.

There are so many fascinating stories told here. It’s appropriate that Stephen King’s contribution starts out almost like a horror story – he took over the cooking duties after his wife lost her senses of taste and smell, possibly due to the toxicity of the mill town in which she was raised. And Mohammed Ali’s story is as much a tale of the evils of polygamy as an ode to food. Which stories resonate most strongly with you?

All the stories hit me in different ways. I think Mohammed Ali’s story was the most shocking, and fascinating. Manny Howard’s tale of roasting a pig for the woman he wanted to marry was very entertaining because it went so awry.

I sort of think men might be more experimental in their cooking and less likely to follow directions in a recipe, but that could be sexist! As you talked to men about cooking for their families, what differences did you find in their feelings or processes as compared to the way women cook?

Some men follow recipes, some don’t, just as I’m sure there are some women who do and some who can’t be bothered. One thing I have observed, though, is that women seem to like baking more than men do. It was hard to find a man who baked.

There are so many great recipes in this book. Which are your personal favorites?

My favorite recipe in the book is Peter Kaminsky’s one for a Whole Roast Cow. I think it’s important to have dreams in life.

Shankar Vedantam’s essay, “The Hidden Brain: Gender and Cooking,” is so enlightening – and disheartening, revealing that volunteers in an experiment imagine chefs at fine restaurants to be male and the person who makes lunch at home for a group of children is female. Hmmm. How do you think your book can help change those perceptions?

Vendatam’s essay is remarkable because it so clearly illuminates our biases. We may not always be aware of them, but they are there all the same. My ultimate goal for the book is to get more people to cook at home. Someday it will not be a big deal for a man to be a home cook. For now, though, it is. The very existence of this book, I hope, will change that.

What do you find to be the hardest part about cooking for your family?

There are many challenges to cooking for a family, but the biggest one, far and away, is having to do it night after night after night after night. This has driven women crazy for years, and it is difficult to do without falling into a rut. My repertoire of recipes is fairly vast, but it is finite. Eventually we start repeating ourselves. I put recipes in the book so people would have a chance to broaden their offerings, and hopefully get out of their rut.

I really enjoy reading your blog, Stay At Stove Dad, and learning about your family, Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria! So, Columbus, how do they feel about joining you on this culinary adventure to a brave new world? What’s been your most exciting discovery along the way?

Thanks! I’m so glad that you enjoy my blog. Santa Maria is delighted to be a part of this journey, and the kids are too. The kids might not be as aware as their mother of what’s happening, but that’s another goal of mine—to make it normal for the dad to be the cook. That’s what they’re growing up with.

What do you hope to teach your children about food?

That it can be a source of great pleasure, and that it’s important to pay attention to what we eat because it directly affects the quality of our lives.

Emma, Room is one of my favorite books ever. I found it so powerful and moving, and such a gorgeous testament to motherhood without being sappy or sentimental. I know the idea for the book was based on an actual event. Can you talk a little about that and how it inspired you to write Room?

It was hearing about the discovery of Elizabeth Fritzl and her children in their Austrian dungeon (in April 2008) that inspired Room — but all I took from that case was the basic notion of growing up in a locked room.  I think the real reason I wrote the novel was that my kids were four and one at the time, so my mind was already full of all the grandly existential questions of parenthood: Am I still an individual if I’m totally responsible for another human being now? How much could I bear? How much would I sacrifice for them?

I love the scene in which a reporter says to Ma, “You must feel an almost pathological need – understandably – to stand guard between your son and the world,” to which she replies, “’Yeah, it’s called being a mother.’ Ma nearly snarls it.” There are so many great lines that reveal the unbreakable bond between mother and child, as well as the overwhelming responsibility of being a mother. Another example is Jack saying, “Ma’s not meant to ask me things, she’s meant to know,” or admitting, “In Room I was safe and Outside is the scary.” Your book beautifully depicts the fact that a child’s world literally – and happily – revolves around his or her mother. As a mom yourself, how does that make you feel? What message would you like readers to take away from the book?

I don’t have a message; a novel would be a very long and unreliable way to deliver a message to the world, because, for one thing, everyone reads a story differently. But what I did do was emphasize the universal within Ma and Jack’s weird story. On almost every page, their interaction is based on stuff that has come up between me and my kids.  Room is really inspired by the paradox that no matter how close a mother and child are, they are very different, and what the child adores (for instance, having their mother on hand every minute of every day) could be a nightmare for the mother. The joy and the claustrophobia are impossible to unpick from each other.

Ma deserves the “Mother of the Year” Award for the creative ways she entertains and educates Jack! Most of us can barely figure out how to keep our kids busy for an hour or two, and she has to do that 24/7 for many years. How did you come up with ideas for her, and have you used any of them with your own children?

Ah, she’s my inner perfect-mother, my best self, and I don’t manage to be like her for more than five minutes at a go.  Doing art with my kids, in particular, puts me in a total rage; after three minutes they walk off, leaving me with a total mess! No, writing Ma left me very rueful, because it proved that I do know how to parent marvelously – I have all the necessary ideas and principles – I just can’t manage it in practice.  The main difference is that she dedicates herself to motherhood totally, because it saves her from thinking of herself as a sex slave, whereas I want to be mother and lover, friend and writer, loller-about-watching-HBO and many other roles…

Jack is such a perfect narrator. You completed nailed five-year-old speech! How did you manage to get it so realistic?

I studied my son (who was five by the time I was drafting the novel) like an anthropological linguist — then made Jack’s language rather more advanced as he’s been so intensively home-schooled, and added some quirks of his own, such as his personifying objects in Room (Table, Bed, etc).  There is no real child who speaks just like Jack: the narration of a novel is never exactly like real speech, even when your characters are adults, but if you get the characters’ mindset right, readers are generally willing to suspend their disbelief when it comes to the details of wording.

I was shocked to hear about all the flack you got from readers for having Ma continue to breastfeed Jack – what else could she do? It seemed like a perfect solution. Were you surprised by the reaction? How did you feel about the fact that it even became an issue?

I was startled at first and then almost amused: it seemed perfect proof of the notion that our society officially approves of motherlove but is actually nervous about its primal, passionate, physical side.  Yes, it made sense to me on every level that Ma would hold on to a mutually comforting ritual with Jack (quite apart from nutritional/contraceptive qualities) until they’re out in the world; their relationship at that point has to give up its mother-baby elements.

The second half of the book deals with the outside world, making the story even stronger by showing how a parent and child often have different needs. What was your intention in this? Did you ever consider having the whole book take place in Room?

No, I knew from day one that the book would be in two halves, and each half would reflect an interesting light on the other.  To me, stopping at the escape would have made the story much more simplistic and (emotionally) static; the second half is actually more probing in that it shows Ma having to let Jack grow up, as all mothers do.

You talked about having your own son try out the attempted escape plan Ma sets up for Jack. Can you share this story with our readers?

He knew the gist of the story already: Bad Guy locks Woman and Boy in Shed. So he was more than willing to let me roll him up in a rug for research. It was really hard for him to wriggle his way out, so when he finally managed it (and got rewarded, I believe with a pain au chocolat) I had to go back and completely rewrite the scene.

How did you design the actual room in which Room takes place? What were the biggest challenges?

I ‘virtually shopped’ on ikea.com and used a home design website to move all the pieces around. I spent days on obscure sites selling high-tech security mesh and insulation. The biggest challenge was my complete ignorance about construction; I’m still not quite sure what a two-by-four is.

In the acknowledgments, you thank your brother-in-law for his “unnervingly insightful advice on the practicalities of Room.” Can you give us some details on his contributions?

Yes, he not only answered my ignorant question about construction but offered ideas of his own; it was he who suggested that Ma should dig a hole in the floor with a spoon, only to discover that Old Nick has built chain-link fence into all the surfaces of Room.  Then he started going beyond his remit to offer other ideas about the kidnapper; for instance, he pointed out that Old Nick would have to make Ma use cloth diapers because the neighbors would be suspicious if a bachelor was putting out sacks of used Pampers. He was my consultant guy’s guy, basically, and he rather enjoyed tapping into his potential psychopath.

How has writing this book changed the way you personally look at motherhood and your own kids?

It’s just made me more aware of my failures, and more urgently aware that you only have a few years to get it right and give your kids all the love and confidence they need to tackle the world.

As a reader, I was absolutely enamored with your story, which is a beautiful love letter to books. What do you think was the most valuable lesson you learned from your year of reading?

That we live in cycles of joy and sorrow but that joy can prevail if we let it.  Joy can be found in so many places and in so many ways. I found joy in reading, and now I know that there is time, every day, for reading. It is a choice I can make, to walk away from the computer or the dirty dishes or the laundry to be folded, and sit down in a chair and read.  To take a book out of my bag when I am on the train, and leave my phone in my pocket, phone messages and tweets waiting for a little while longer, and read.  There are so many minutes in the day that can be stolen away and enjoyed with a book.  Fifteen minutes of escape, comfort, guidance, and pleasure.  After my fifteen or twenty or even thirty minutes (joy!), I close the book and return to everything else I have to do but I am in a better place to do all that.  We should all make space in our lives for doing the things we really love to do: chores and work can wait for just a little while, and family and friends will appreciate the happier and calmer person who returns to them from the sojourn of pleasure.  For me, that pleasure is found in books.  And I will always make time for my books.

You started your year with Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog and ended with Spooner by Pete Dexter. Were those chosen specifically as, well, bookends, and what significance do they hold for you as the first and last selections of a very special project?

The Elegance of the Hedgehog was a gift from my mother and after finishing it on the afternoon of my 46^th birthday, I was certain that my book-a day project would be a great one: the book contained so many insights into sorrow and joy, friendship and sisters, beauty and ugliness.  I carried one line from The Elegance of the Hedgehog with me throughout the year – finding “moments of always within never” – and found so much beauty, not only in my reading but in my life.  To then finish the year with Spooner was serendipitous, a chance choice that turned out to also be about coping with life through delineating truth and beauty in a world sometimes woefully caught up in outward appearances and cash and other false promises of happiness. The Elegance of the Hedgehog was both a wonderful introduction to the year, and a promise of all I would find if I just kept my eyes and mind and heart open; Spooner was a perfect conclusion to the year, containing so many themes I’d discovered in books, love and death and loss and sex and family and joy, and it served as a reminder to keep all I had learned through my year of reading present in my life as I moved forward.

I think your book proves the healing power of reading – in fact, it will probably become a resource for many other people who are hurting in some way because it shows that, no matter how you’re feeling, there are books about other people feeling the same way. Maybe doctors should start giving prescriptions for a year of reading! What kind of response have you gotten from readers so far?

I love your idea of prescribing books!  And so many people I know – and met during my year of reading and now in my weeks of book reading and talks – would agree with you.  I have heard from people from all over the world, all ages and backgrounds, who turned to books when faced with an overwhelming sorrow or depression or anxiety, and books helped them find their way again.  Not self-help books, per se, but novels and biographies and memoirs that allowed these readers to understand that we are not alone, that even though we are unique in our experiences, our emotions are universal.  And of course, we readers find escape in reading, but as I quote Cyril Connolly in my book, not escape from life, but into life.  I have also heard from people who had stopped reading but after hearing about my year and Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, decided to start making time in their lives to read again – and were discovering joy, all over again! One man wrote to me that he had rarely opened a book in the last ten years but after hearing about my reading year, went to the library and took out an armload of books. “I’ve read fifty books in the past year and I will never let books out of my life again,” he wrote to me.  Joy found in the pages of a book!

What were your sons’ reactions to your project? Have they become more avid readers?

My sons took it in stride – we are all readers, and so this reading project made absolute sense to them.  If I had announced I was going to train for a marathon or build a new wing onto the garage, they would have been shocked, but dropping down into a chair to read?  They understood that!  Reading was my idea of a perfect pastime and my kids admired me (a little bit) for making a passion into a commitment.  At the dinner table, they asked what I’d been reading and after dinner, they often joined me on the couch to read. For me, instilling a love of reading in my children has always been more important than pushing them to read certain books or try for more difficult genres or reading levels.  By reading a book a day for a year and finding so much joy and guidance and escape in all the different books that I read and then sharing all I found with my children, I not only involved my kids in the project but demonstrated to them the power of reading in their own lives.

I know this is an impossible question but, of all 365 books you read, which one really stood out as a favorite?

During my year of reading I kept a list on my website of “Great Books” that really moved me or inspired me or entertained me. After reading 365 books, my list of Great Books numbered over ninety.  I cannot pick out one book that stood out as a favorite, because so many books were different in how I loved them: I loved Colin Channer’s Waiting in Vain for its portrayal of Jamaica; I loved The Curriculum Vitae of Aurora Ortiz by Almudena Solana for its wise and wondering heroine; I loved Donna Leon’s Wilful Misbeviour because I love Venice; I loved Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn for its quiet truths about love and choices. I loved every single book I talk about in Tolstoy and the Purple Chair for what I found in each of them. But there are seventy more books I loved – and well over one hundred books I’ve loved since finishing my year of reading – and I cannot name them all here. They can be found, however, in the category of “Great Books” on my website. What defines a great book for me is one in which the writer presents freely, honestly, and bravely a story about a specific event or person or landscape and makes me care, so much, about that story; a great book is when I can feel the author’s desire to connect through words my life with the lives in the book; a great book is one I cannot stop thinking about after finishing the last page. A great book is one I want to share with everyone I know: “Read this!”

I have a sister who is as close to me as Anne-Marie was to you, and we share books constantly, too, so I cried along with you in many sections of your story. One chapter that did make me laugh, though, was when you talked about losing a friend after she lent you The Bridges of Madison County and you basically told her how silly it was! I would have done the same! I love your quote, “The giving of books between sisters offers much less risk of exposure or rejection than between friends.” There have been plenty of books my sister and I disagree on, but I’m still shocked every time we do! Of the books you read that year, which one do you wish you could have shared with Anne-Marie?

That is a good question and one that makes me sad.  Still today, when I finish a great book, I will think “Anne-Marie would love this” and for one second I even think of calling her but then I remember that I cannot.  Anne-Marie would have loved all the mysteries I read – she and I were both fans of those mysteries that are less about blood, gore, and chills, and more about places and characters and motivations – as well as the number of new authors I discovered through wonderful translations.  But the book I would most definitely have shared with her is The Laws of Evening by Mary Yukari Waters.  Anne-Marie read short stories as I do, voraciously but in fits and spurts, sometimes going months without reading a short story and then working her way through volumes of them.  Waters’ stories are exquisite, both as narratives of a compelling event – she tells a good tale — and in the writing itself, each sentence clear and lovely.

How much are you reading these days? And what are you reading right now?

I am reading every day, of course!  But now I read one or two books a week.  I just finished Phil Rickman’s The Bones of Avalon, a mystery set in Elizabethan England, and now I will start on Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks, set in a plague-ridden village in England in 1666, or The Weight of Heaven by Thrity Umrigar (a favorite author of mine), with Toby Wilkinson’s huge The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt waiting in the wings.

This may be a silly question but as a book lover since childhood, I still can’t imagine reading on a Kindle or an iPad. There is something about the texture, the smell, the turning of pages of real books that, to me, electronics can’t replicate. What are your feelings about e-readers and do you think your experience would have been different if you had spent your year on one?

I did not use an e-reader during my year of reading but I do have one now.  I find it most useful for reading on my exercise bike.  During my year of reading a book a day, I quickly realized that if I did not fit exercise into my reading schedule, I would start to waddle.  And so I began to read for a half hour every day on my old but functioning exercise bike.  At times it was hard to keep the pages in place while biking, but with an e-reader, I merely push a button and the next page appears. I know people who swear by their e-readers and I love the fact that so many people are rediscovering the joy of reading through them.  I prefer a book with pages and smells and substance – if I need to find a sentence I liked earlier, I can visualize where it is, towards the beginning of the book, half-way down the page, and I cannot do that with an e-reader.  With a book, I can scribble in the margin, turn the page down, mark the book for myself, and keep it with me, always.  Somehow having a fully-loaded e-reader on my bookshelf commemorating my year of reading just would not be the same as what I have now: jam-packed shelves of marked and loved books.  But my e-reader is packed also, with all sorts of books waiting for me to read them. I just have to jump on my bike and get started.

I think this is an important book for all parents to read because it takes such a warm and joyful approach to the subject. It’s not a primer on how to turn your daughters into the best athletes ever but, rather, how to be their biggest fan. Your story starts when your five-year-old asked, “Why is it that only boys play sports?” How did that change everything for you?

I suppose it’s because I had never thought about it.  I was a boy.  I played sports.  Suddenly, I had to think about it, and when I did I realized that it was absurd that the thought was even out there.

When I was young, girls played sports, but it must have been basically on their own until at least junior high.  There was Little League and midget football for boys and I never saw a girl play sandlot or pick-up anything. But these days, when the call goes out at age 4, 5 or 6 for T-ball or biddie soccer or basketball, every kid goes out, boy and girl.  They may weed their interests out later, but at the beginning, everyone plays.

Sports have always been a big part of your life. Did you always assume your children would get involved in sports?

Hard question to look back on.   Since the girls started so early, as all kids do now (see above), I didn’t have to reflect on it.  They played.  That was that.

What did you find to be the differences between girls’ and boys’ sports? What surprised you most about girls’ sports?

Because, as I have long noted, boys could possibly be on trading cards or play before 65,000 drunken alumni, the expectations for boys in sports is greater.  They get weeded out earlier into these A and B squads.  Girls have that A and B thing, but it is often a bit more fluid.  I would guess once the caste system sets in for boys, they can’t escape.  If a girl is on the B team in 5^th grade, there is still a reasonable expectation she could get better.

What do you think girls get out of sports that they wouldn’t get from some other activity?

It’s not that they can’t get it in any other activity.  There is teamwork and leadership and individual accomplishment in theater and music and all sorts of school clubs.  It is just that in sports, you get to prove it almost daily.  If my kids were in theater, for instance, maybe they would have 9-10 performances a year.  That is half a lacrosse season, a third of a tennis season.  There is always the chance for something spectacular, something funny, something memorable to happen every day in sports.

What’s the most valuable lesson your daughters learned through sports?

Here’s an example with Ella, my older one.  She was co-captain of the New Jersey state championship tennis team her senior year, a member of the basketball team through senior year and a coxswain in crew. But she was the 14^th best kid on the tennis team, which must have meant she showed leadership abilities.  She won the Coach’s Award in basketball, presumably because she was possibly the smallest varsity player in New Jersey at five-foot-oh, so she had moxie.  And though she was recruited to Division I schools as a coxswain, she begged off and went to Davidson College, a superior liberal arts school, so she showed perspective.  She has become a workout queen and never gained that proverbial “Freshman 15” in college.

Sylvia is no different (she is still in 10^th grade).  I am guessing she, too, will be a tennis co-captain senior year, without being one of the top kids.  And she has won those Coach’s awards for soccer and basketball, too, not because she was the best player, but because she was heady and cooperative and stick-to-it-ive.

What’s the most valuable lesson you learned through your daughters’ sports?

To laugh!  Our best remembrances are not the spectacular games, but the funny ones.  The time Sylvia was the high scorer for her basketball team in a 44-1 loss is much more important than if she had scored 25 in a 44-38 win, I believe.  Ella once was going up for a layup and her mouth guard dropped out as she went up.  She deftly grabbed it with her left hand and smoothly went up for the layup with her right.

I wanted to be omnipresent and unobtrusive at the same time – always be there, but always out of the way.  I never criticized them after a game.  I might have said something about a nuance I had observed, but generally, it was all positive.

The point is that we remember things in fun today.  We live a long time well after these games are over, so we had better at least have some good stories to tell.

What effect did your daughters’ involvement in sports have on your relationship with them?

Practically everything.  It has given us something to talk about that isn’t crucial – boys, grades, the future, that’s all scary.  To rehash a season or a game or look forward to the next one, that’s got to be fun.

As I say in the book, sports isn’t the only venue for dad/daughter relations, nor even necessarily the best one.  But it was ours and we found a way to communicate in that, which made it easier to talk about the more important things when that was necessary.

As someone whose daughter played softball, tennis and golf throughout school, I have dealt with a lot of crazy parents! I was so impressed by your ability to stay on the sidelines and simply be supportive! How difficult was that for you? What do you think a parent’s role should be in sports?

I was not a saint, but for the most part, I tried to keep my relationship with coaches to a minimum.  I would always thank them at the end of the season in a polite email, just as I do teachers after a marking period.  I have never said that my kids should play more or play somewhere else, even if I think that.  What would be the point?  No coach has been abusive physically, so I never had to worry about that.

A parent should be around as much as his or her kid wants – in our case, my daughters never minded me around.  In fact, I still get calls as I am leaving the house for forgotten socks or wanted water bottles, for them or for other kids.

I don’t think there is one way to do things.  Some kids want their parents far away; some want them coaching them.  I can only tell you that it has been a lot of fun for us.  I do know now, after writing the book, some things about how I might have done things better, but they were little things, not the overall.

Girls’ sports have changed so dramatically since the passage of Title IX in 1970. How do you think it will continue to change by the time you have granddaughters?!

Not much.  I think this is the way it will be for a long time.  The only thing that might change it is if more women get into coaching, but that is still mostly a male bastion.  Even then, I don’t know that that will change much, since I have found most male coaches of girls to be good role models.

How do your daughters feel about your book?

The best compliment I got was when I did a reading soon after Ella came home from college for the summer.  She had decided not to read the book until she came home.  One of the people at the reading turned to her and asked her what she had thought of the book.  She said that she cried at the end.  What better review did I need?

I love your line about children, “If you didn’t want to live through them, why did you have them?” What are you going to do once they’re finished with school and sports?

It’s a good question that I can’t yet answer.  I play sports constantly myself.  Even nearing 60, I play basketball and/or tennis nearly every day.  Sylvia is still playing a sport a season, so I still have that.  And I still go to the girls and boys basketball games in Haddonfield, even though I have no dog in the hunt.  It will be a tough transition when Sylvia goes away to college, but I managed to have a good life before they were born, so I think I will find something to do both with and without them.  But it is true, that saying you liked.  Everyone’s kids reflect their parents in some way.  It doesn’t mean you have to be overbearing, but you have to instill something, don’t you?

When I first read the title, The Monster Within, I assumed it referred to the “bad mother” – which may be more revealing about my own fears – and was surprised to learn it actually has a dual meaning. I had no idea that so many women worried that their children would be monsters. That never even dawned on me although I vividly remember The Bad Seed and Rosemary’s Baby. Can you talk a little about that issue, where it stems from and how to deal with it? 

Ambivalence is a word that applies to many issues and areas of human life. It is the combination of positive and negative feelings that all humans struggle with around the important people, goals and issues in their lives. It is a normal human phenomenon which stems from human consciousness and the awareness that we can lose important people, be disappointed by them, etc. In my book, I talk about some women who are afraid to have children because they think they will be monstrous. This is not a large number of women, but all women, no matter how good they are as mothers, sometimes get angry at their children, even to the point of hatred, when they are exhausted, disappointed and frustrated. Mothers and their children often have different needs – say, at about two a.m.  – when babies want to feed and mothers need their sleep, and this inevitably leads to some tension. Understanding that this is normal is a big step in alleviating the guilt women feel when they can’t always love their children.

As a psychiatrist, you’ve probably seen every kind of fear related to motherhood. What convinced you to write this book? 

As a psychiatrist I have seen many fears connected with motherhood. I have also been a mother, and suffered with my own ambivalent feelings and fears that such feelings would harm my children. It was that very combination of both personal and clinical experiences that lead me to write this book.

This is such an important book because it will make a lot of women feel better to learn that they’re not alone in their feelings. It’s very reassuring to learn that maternal ambivalence is normal. What is your definition of maternal ambivalence, and why can it actually be a positive and healthy reaction? 

I hope that my book will contribute to mothers not feeling alone in their feelings, because, believe me, they aren’t! These feelings are normal. In fact, negative feelings, which, as I have already pointed out, stem from the differing needs between mothers and their children, may lead mothers to think more about what their children need, how their children’s needs differ from their adult needs, how their children are different from them, and this can lead to better and more creative mothering. Mothering is not only about doing it right, but doing it manageably.

Motherhood is such a hot topic, and women are talking about their ambivalence on blogs and in books now rather than hiding it. What kind of effect do you think that will have? 

I think motherhood has always been a hot topic, but it is hotter than ever these days, at least in this country and in the middle and upper classes, and the bubble of perfection was bound to burst.  It is helpful to talk about these issues, whether in blogs or in person, and to learn that we are not monsters for having mixed feelings and that we are not alone.

Ayelet Waldman really brought that issue to a boil with her “Modern Love” column in the New York Times, where she stated that she would grieve more if her husband died than any of her four children. That article resulted in her book, Bad Mother, filled with stories of maternal ambivalence. Many women applauded her honesty but even more were ready to call Social Services. How can women be more supportive of each other? 

Women can only be more supportive to each other if they are honest with themselves.  Ayelet Waldman is somewhat dramatic and exhibitionistic, but I understand what she is saying. It is not that she doesn’t love her children, but that her husband meets a need of hers that her children can’t.

The idea of “good enough” mothering seems to be the new trend. Is it really a new idea or is just coming to the forefront now? What does it mean and how do you feel about it?  

Good enough mothering, as a concept, has been around a long time, at least in psychiatric circles. Donald Winnicott, a British psychoanalyst, coined the term to describe mothers who were loving and deeply attached to their infants, but couldn’t read their minds. In fact, he felt that if mothers could read their children’s minds perfectly, children would never learn to think and become autonomous. Mainly, he wanted to establish the idea that good enough was enough!

I would think there’s a huge difference between a woman experiencing maternal ambivalence and someone like Andrea Yates who actually killed her children. How does a woman know when their feelings are becoming dangerous?  

Women like Andrea Yates, that is, women who kill their children, are in a state of psychosis or dissociation, often related to post-partum depression or other conditions of desperation. They would have to recognize that things are getting seriously out of control, and seek help, but unfortunately, it is because they do not recognize how troubled they are, that things do get out of hand. It is as much a social problem as an individual one. Any mother who is seriously depressed should get professional help, but others may have to help her to do this. It is a problem for the family as a whole and for society.

The prevailing philosophy seems to focus on “the centrality of the early mother-child relationship as the foundation for all future development.” No wonder moms feel such pressure! Mothers are blamed for everything! I know your book is really about the women but how do fathers fit into this equation? Can a great father compensate for a not-so-great mother? Or, for that matter, can another loving adult — like a grandmother? 

Fathers and others, e.g. grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, friends, can alleviate the tensions that mothers struggle with, and all of these people can certainly help and sometimes substitute for mothers who are either exhausted, or perhaps temperamentally not that patient or thoughtful. It does take a village.

What message would you like mothers to come away with after reading your book? 

I would like mothers to come away with the message that they are not monsters for having mixed feelings. That there are many kinds of mothers, that losing one’s temper doesn’t disqualify you from the “good mother” category, that children are all different, that many problems between mothers and their children stem from differences in temperament and are not always the mother’s fault. I could go on a long time but I feel that most mothers really do try hard to be good to their children and that it is a difficult job — with lousy pay!!

I was blown away by everything about this book: the subject matter – both Mrs. Delany and her incredible art – your writing, the illustrations, your own story which is intertwined with hers. It seems like an absolute labor of love and I can’t imagine what it took to put this together. Your beautiful collage of a book is the perfect representation of Mrs. Delany’s work. Did you set out to mirror her intricate layering or was that a natural progression once you started writing? 

Thank you for loving The Paper Garden and for asking such a perceptive question, Lois. No, I didn’t set out to mirror her collage! I set out to use a group of her amazing images as thresholds into chapters of her life. And I knew I didn’t want to write a traditional biography. I’m always interested in the stories of why and how biographers choose their subjects, so I knew I wanted a little bit of my own life in there. But how to combine it all was a mystery to me. I had all these bits and pieces, and I started layering them together. It wouldn’t work! I tried again. Then again. (Mrs. Delany taught me persistence.) It was only as the book was coming together that I realized I was making a collage in response to a collage.

You originally discovered Mrs. Delany’s flowers in the Morgan Library in 1986 but it wasn’t until 25 years later that you decided to write about her. If you had been able to afford her book in the gift shop originally, do you think you would have started writing then or did you need to get to a certain period in your own life first?

Absolutely not! I was strictly a lyric poet then, and it was only later, after I’d written a memoir, Paradise, Piece by Piece, that narrative came into my life. I had to have a life story before I could write someone else’s.

You use specific mosaicks to “ground” specific times, events or feelings in Mrs. Delany’s life. Was that an example of your feeling that “a metaphor can feel truer than a fact?” How challenging was it to make those connections?

The poet in me made these connections instantly. I looked at each mosaick again and again, using that trusty poet’s tool: comparison. Simile, or what something is like, gets a writer very far in this world. To compare one experience or idea or feeling or thing or concept to another, even it the comparison is really wild, lets you live in two worlds at once, the anchored world of fact, and the world of imagination.

You are all about poetry, so what was it that resonated so strongly with you about Mrs. Delany that you decided to write more than 300 pages of prose about her?! Have you been inspired to write a poem about any of her mosaicks?

Ugh, no. I hate poems with lots of facts piled up in them. And I’ve loved visual art since I was a tiny child. I drew and painted as a child. But when I got to school, the writing part of me took over. However, I adore museums and looking at art. It is thrilling to me to discern detail. The idea of the book came from an essay I wrote, “Passion Flowers in Winter,” trying to get at what in Mrs. Delany’s life inspired me. Essay means “attempt,” and I was attempting to understand why I needed a role model for late life creativity. But, also, I was able to write a big book because I’ve watched another role model of mine, my scholar husband, write researched books and articles. (We’re the same age, and grew up blocks from each other. He taught me how to do my first big research paper in high school!)

You say in the book, “I sat down and started an essay on Mrs. Delany, whose flowering at the age of seventy-two I contrasted with my mother’s death at almost the exact age.” You also wrote a very special Mother’s Day piece for us, “My Real Mom – and My 311-Year-Old Mother.” Obviously there is a very personal connection for you between your mother and Mrs. Delany. What was it about Mrs. Delany that made you think of her as almost a second mother?

Mary Delany, used by permission of the National Portrait Gallery as reproduced in The Paper Garden: An Artist Begins Her Life's Work at 72

Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity to write “My Real Mom – and My 311-Year-Old Mother.” My own mother gave me keys to much of my life, but she couldn’t give me a key to age. She died at the very moment in her life when Mrs. Delany began her great work. Also, my parents were miserable together and finally divorced. As a result, I had to keep inventing how to make a relationship work, and thanks to my husband (and a terrific therapist) my second marriage is a nineteen-year work of art. Mrs. Delany herself had a marvelous second marriage. She then survived the death of her sister (my sister also died) and the death of her husband by using her imagination to create her collages, something my mother couldn’t do. I really needed a second mother to show me a future. And a role model from the deep past is delicious – a hand reaches out from the clouds to greet you.

Your descriptions of her work are breathtaking, and I get the idea that the images of them in the book – which are stunning in themselves – can only capture so much of the detail. What is it in the actual work that you just have to see to believe? And where can we see it – is it on exhibit anywhere currently?

A reproduction, however brilliant (and the reproductions of her work in The Paper Garden – all 34 illustrations – are fabulous,) can’t give you the feel of the original.  The paper flowers have travelled across the Atlantic from London twice for exhibitions, but right now the place to see them is in London, at the British Museum. There are always a couple of them on display in the Enlightenment Room on the first floor. But if you really want to see them, and hold them in your hands, go up to the fourth floor to the Print Study Room and request to see a few. Then you will see them as Mrs. Delany meant them, almost as pressed flowers in a scrapbook — a scrapbook of the imagination.

Do you have a personal favorite among the mosaicks?

Yes, the Everlasting Pea with its secret set of scissors hidden in the tendrils of the vine.

This is such an empowering story that proves you can do anything at any age. Wow, that is so transformative, especially now that we’re living longer lives. How did Mrs. Delany’s experience change the way you look at age?

I’m not afraid any more. I don’t think I’ll dry up and blow away. She showed me that life hurtles obstacles in your path minute to minute, and that the key to responding is flexibility. If you’re flexible, you can re-balance. And she did her art for herself and her friends. She never attempted to show it or gain fame by it. It was a resource for her, not an anguish. She reminds me that making art makes a life.

What was the most important part of Mrs. Delany’s story for you? What message did you really want to get across to readers?

My message is that a life’s work is always unfinished, and we need our creativity till the day we die. Mrs. Delany couldn’t have done her great work at any earlier point in her life than her eighth decade. Some things just take living long enough to do.

Don’t you feel young at 64 now?! What’s next for you?

I do feel young at 64! What’s next for me is two-fold:  First I want to finish AlphabeTique:  the Lives of the Letters as Told by T, a new book of poems where the letter T tells the stories of the letters of the alphabet (and a few punctuation marks, too).  Then I want to dive into a researched book about flowers and 19^th century women and the power of the imagination to change personal tragedy.  That’s just a seed of an idea. I hope it has Style and Substance and Soul! Thank you so much for giving me a chance to participate in this fantastic site. It’s been an honor.

To win a copy of Molly’s book, simply leave a comment below. For another chance to win (and to watch Molly’s video), click here. You may enter once a day until the contest ends on May 15 at midnight Pacific time. Winner will be notified by return email.

Tomorrow, after spending Mother’s Day with your own mom, spend the evening with Mrs. C via the first annual Mom-a-Thon, featuring six classic Happy Days episodes on the Hub Television Network. The episodes will run back-to-back on Sunday, May 8 from 9 p.m. to midnight Eastern time.

Oh, happy day(s)!

How exciting to be interviewing Mrs. C! I — and an entire generation — grew up with you and felt that you were like a second mother to us! How does it feel to be considered the epitome of TV Mom?

It warms my heart when adults come up to me with tears in their eyes and tell me how happy they are to see me. Then their children come up and don’t know who I am, so I tell them, “Don’t you know that I’m SpongeBob’s grandma?!” That’s the nice thing about Happy Days being on The Hub now — a whole new generation will get to know the show and The Fonz and Richie and all of us.

Why do you think your character resonated so strongly with viewers?

I think that Mrs. C is everybody’s fantasy mother. We all wanted a mom who stayed at home, always looked pretty, only cared about family. She was there to protect Howard from the children — you know, saying, “Be nice to your father.” Meanwhile, she ran everything – but you could never tell. I liked the fact that Howard was the head of the family, so much. Every script taught a lesson and I think it was very valuable to families who were watching with their children. We miss that now.

What would Mrs. C have said was the most challenging part of raising her family?

Simple things – “Oh, you’re not eating your breakfast,” “Your room isn’t clean,” “What time will you be coming home?” Simple problems – “Oh, you’re wearing that to school?” These were simple but universal challenges.

You were raising children of your own while you were filming “Happy Days.” How did you juggle switching between playing “Mom” on the set to being Mom at home?

Being a mom on “Happy Days” was perfect for me because at home I had a daughter and son who were two or three years younger than the children I had on set. I could practice on the show and rehearse small crises that I would have at home a few years later. When they became adults and I’d already been through that on the set, aha! I knew what to do!

Sometimes I would bring my kids to set but they didn’t like it. They would say, “You’re all different. You show us off, introduce us to everybody and then run off and play with your friends.”

My children were both in the show. My son had a part where The Fonz is jumping the shark – he was the boy who ran down the beach saying, “It’s a shark, it’s a shark.” My daughter played a candy striper in a hospital scene.

As a mom in real life, too, were there times that you changed – or wanted to change — anything in the script because it didn’t ring true to what a mother would do?

I had very little input because the guys were running the show and, actually, it fit me very well. There was never a time when I thought it wasn’t true to life. I did tell Garry Marshall once, “You know, women’s lib is going on so can’t Marion get out of the house?” So they wrote a piece where Marion got a job at Arnolds and it was just terrible! Gary Marshall would then say, “It’s not about you, Marion. It’s about the boys.”

You’ve played a lot of mothers in your career, including the matriarch on the amazing Brooklyn Bridge and, most recently, Sally Field’s not-so-loving mom on one of my favorite shows, Brothers and Sisters. Which one do you relate to most? Which one was the most fun to become?

I loved Brooklyn Bridge, I loved being Sophie Purger — a Polish Jew. It was a real challenge. It was very well written, and a great opportunity!

Tell us a little about your own mom. Was she the model for any of the mothers you’ve portrayed?

My mother was so optimistic, creative, encouraging. She was a teacher so she was always inspiring. She could meet a challenge and say, “How will we solve this?” She was this positive role model who would never let anything defeat you. I’m sure, in my work, I referred to her or at least to all the ‘50s women that we grew up with — that culture of moms who stayed at home. In those days, families only had one car because women didn’t work. So much of their life took place in the home and I used that as my reference.

But for me, it wasn’t so sweet. While doing Happy Days, I was divorced, a single mom. At work, I would play house and let the guys run it. At home, I had to run everything.

How do you think being a mother has changed from Mrs. C’s era to now?

The world is so complex now. When I see little children with headphones watching a TV cartoon all by themselves and not talking to their family, I wonder where this is leading us. I don’t know how to do any of that. At least these young people can do all those computer things for me!