Love all of your books. Listened to your interview on Parentingpowers.com
Keep up the great writing. I have been a Mom for the last 33 yrs and as my 18 yr old gets ready to fly the nest it seems like writing time will finally be mine......

Hello Jacquelyn, I can't believe I came across you by accident on SheWrites. I loved Deep End of the Ocean but didn't know anything about you. I'm shocked about your status on motherhood. I am a single mom with two children and am in awe of anyone who has more than two because I know what it takes and know my limitations. You really must be a super woman with a huge capacity for love. Thank God for women like you.

I look forward to checking out your retreat. Is it in Ohio. I have been to the Woodhull retreat in Ancramdale, NY four times in two years. Currently working on my proposal for a memoir and trying to break into magazines.

I was just rejected by Glamour, not due to my writing, but my age. At 41, I was too old to write a personal essay for them since they laser target their personal essays to women in their 20s and 30s.

After an evening of depression, someone emailed me about More. I felt better after checking them out and buying their issue.

Congratulations on all of your success. Madeline

I'm thrilled to see you are part of this community. Your family oriented themes have always spoken to me, maybe because you present different viewpoints, and show that sometimes things don't fit in the category of right or wrong . . . they are just true.

Ginger B.
http://coppertopcollins.blogspot.com
www.gingerbcollins.com

Jacquelyn, I'm not surprised you got turned down for a job writing press releases. Brilliance is not a plus in a job like that. Employers primarily want to know if you can be a loyal team member, the kind who will see the job as a delicious challenge and stay with it forever. So one of the prices one pays for wild success as an author is that no one sees you as cog-in-the-wheel material. That's tough when, for financial reasons, you need to become a cog in the wheel, fast. So sorry to hear about your theft. Did you read the article in the current New Yorker about Alloy Entertainment? I'm not envious of the writers. I'm envious of the key players who outline ideas with their compadres. Living in Vermont, one writes alone, always.

My daughter's Gotcha Day [adoption hearing date] is November 14, same day as my father's birthday. Small world.

re: family-free novel Q. Moby Dick?

Dear Jacquelyn,
I LOVE the challenge you threw out and am in almost complete agreement that ALL novels are novels about families (though some Dostoyevsky comes to mind, like Notes From The Underground?) and wonder if you would mind if we shared the challenge with our membership in our first-ever SheWrites newsletter! We are putting it together now in the hopes of sending it out tomorrow and it would be great fun to throw down the gauntlet and see what kind of response we get. Let me know what you think...

Jacquelyn,

Thank you so much for the friend addition. I am very excited to see you here. I remember an interview you did on WPR a few years ago (?) was it with Ben Merens? Either way, it was great to hear you speaking about your family and your writing. It gave me a little hope, considering how much I let slide over the last...forever. Thanks for that.

Congratulations on adopting two little girls! Both my kids are adopted, my daughter from Russia when she was 13, my son from Kazakhstan when he was 10.

I guess I have pretty low standards as a mother! LOL! No.... every one of my kids is an "only" child and I have had the luck to have my husband stay home for ten years. Now, he will stay home with the kids one more year, as we are adopting two young girls from Ethiopia. Actually, big families raise kids who are pretty creative and self-sufficient. They don't need my time and Chris' as much as two-kid families. But they also aren't so smart and wonderful as my friends' kids -- who come from smaller families and have had the benefit of more parent time. As for me, when I'm alone, I can sprint in a project and really use my time to good use. I've learned to pour it on .. as in, if I had a month, I could write an entire first draft ... That's partly because I probably am not so really gifted as some and partly because it's my job as well as my passion ... but it definitely comes AFTER my family.

Welcome, Jacquelyn!
If you have a moment, please leave us a note on the Mother Writer page sharing how you've managed to be such a successful mother/writer. We're all trying to muddle through and are always looking for inspiration...thanks!
Jen

Good afternoon Jacquelyn,

Welcome to Mother Writer! We're thrilled to have you with us and on She Writes. I hope you find it to be a welcoming community. I am also very glad to see the Wisconsin writing community growing in its representation.

--Victoria