We've been exploring positive literary families, covering Fathers and Sons and Fathers and Daughters, and today, I wanted to start looking at the Mothering side of the equation. We've all read lots and lots of bad mothers, step-mothers, and dead mothers; most fairy tales have at least of these as the villain or story device … Continue reading Fictional Families: Mothers and Daughters
Tag: Family
We've been examining family dynamics in fiction, looking at strong and healthy relationships rather than the dysfunctional ones that tend to create drama and difficulties. While the latter are more common and more interesting at times for an author to write, the former give us imaginative role models for our own lives and can give … Continue reading Fictional Families: Fathers and Sons
I've been thinking about examples of good parenting in novels and movies, and, not entirely to my surprise, I haven't found that many. I can think of lots of bad parents and lots of stories where a parent (or both) are absent--all the Cinderella and Oliver Twist stories, the Pride and Prejudice -type mothers and Persuasion -type fathers--but … Continue reading Fictional Families: Fathers and Daughters
Out in the stone courtyard Waiting You're right there on the other side Your world beyond you Hidden in sun and shade and the whisper of a thousand plants. What would I find If I were there Closer Accepted Even invited? Have weeds overrun your garden? Or is all beautiful Tranquil As alive as ever? … Continue reading The Courtyard
I give my end-of-week post to other authors and bloggers whose work is worth noting. There are so many excellent articles out there, so many good poems and stories and artwork that I want to use my online space, once a week, to send all of you to see something you might otherwise miss. To … Continue reading Spotlight Saturday #10
Known perhaps best for Narnia, a world of talking animals, C. S. Lewis wrote rather frequently about pets. They crop up in The Problem of Pain, where he discusses animal pain and the human-and-animal relationship, but I was also delighted to find that he refers to them (and especially to cats) in his correspondence, Letters … Continue reading C. S. Lewis Quotes on Pets
I recently came across an ad that showed a picture of a young woman, a celebrity, I suppose, though I’d never heard of her, and the caption read that so-and-so was half black. And I wondered, why was this was supposed to be so interesting? If race really doesn’t matter—if skin color is supposed to … Continue reading Off to the Races
Death strikes On butterfly wings. A brush so quick That it's hard to tell it happened, Leaving us to hope for recovery. Death waits In shadowy silence Stretching minutes into ages Until any resolution becomes welcome And fear is lost in agony. Death lingers In forsaken ground Written in the rocks. And we … Continue reading Our Sorrow
I feel like pregnant women get one of the worst roles in literature. Their experience is used as a means to complicate the plot, to firmly entrench the woman’s role in the family, or sometimes, as a way of removing the woman altogether (as in stories where the woman dies in childbirth, like Downton Abbey, … Continue reading Birth and Pregnancy in Literature, Part One
This time of the year, when most families in America gather to express how grateful they are for the many blessings in their lives, (even if such gratitude only displays itself in exuberant application to the manifold foods at hand) I wanted to take the time to post about how grateful I am for such … Continue reading A Write Full Year
Andrea Lundgren 