Celebrating Ten Years as a Published Writer

Posted on March 19, 2022 ·

Photo by Audrey Fretz on Unsplash

This month marks the ten-year anniversary of my first published piece, “Flight.” I will never, ever forget when Literary Mama accepted that story—I was over the moon. It was the writerly breakthrough I needed and kicked off a ten-year streak of publishing my fiction and essays in some truly wonderful magazines.

A decade is a long time, and although many of the magazines I’ve appeared in are still going strong (including Literary Mama!), several have folded. In the last year alone I’ve taken down seven links that led to defunct websites.

The good news is my stories belong to me, and there’s more than one way to make them available to you. One of my goals for 2022 was to add audio of me reading these orphaned pieces on my website. And then I thought, well, why not video too? So here they are!

I started with the four prose poems I lost when Mothers Always Write shut down a few months ago. Next, I hope to tackle the short stories that disappeared with YA Review Net, including the award-winning “The Lost Girls” and the Pushcart Prize nominated “We Never Get to Talk Anymore.”

If you’re looking for something new, the final video features an unpublished essay called “Enchanted.”

Thanks for reading/listening/watching!

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The Story Behind You

Posted on August 31, 2018 ·

Sometime in May I was browsing for journals at my indie bookstore (in recent years I’ve learned to overcome my reluctance of writing in journals) and discovered a gem called 50 Things About My Mother.

I purchased two copies, smiling as I imagined how my children, ages 11 and 16, would answer prompts like “My favorite childhood memory of us together” and “The best gift you ever gave me.” These time-stamped treasures were all I wanted for Mother’s Day.

Their responses were as illuminating, sweet, and funny as they are. Gabriel’s answer to “My favorite fun fact about you” was “you are not like most mothers” (“In a good way, right?” I asked in amusement, to which he hastily agreed). Abigail’s responses to “Things I know you can’t live without” included breakfast, Barnes & Noble, and us. (She’s right).

And then, toward the end of Gabe’s book, I read aloud his answer to “Things I’ve learned from you along the way.” Momentarily speechless, I glanced at my daughter, who looked back with matching surprise. Here is what he wrote:

“Wow, Gabe,” I said. “That’s beautiful.”

“It’s poetic,” Abbey agreed.

And it’s true. You have a story behind you, something I’ve taught my kids—who both like to write—but have never worded quite so eloquently.

You have a story behind you, and that doesn’t mean you’re bound to its narrative and can’t create something new; it simply means you have everything you need to get started. In an interview with YA Review Net, Jacqueline Woodson, who writes both fiction and memoir, states it another way: “My writing always starts from a place of memory.”

Mine too. My latest novel is about a woman who revisits her childhood home and becomes lost in her memories. It’s a ghost story, a story of a haunted house and the trappings of nostalgia. I believe in ghosts, and haunted houses, but I’ve never really encountered them; the writing is fiction. Yet it starts from memory—memories of a beloved brother, of a childhood home, of early motherhood and its suffocating fears.

It’s a collection of moments I’ve left behind. Together, they fused with my imagination and created their own story, something entirely new and exciting but rooted in memory, my memories, something only I could create.

You have those moments too—moments scattered throughout your past that burned bright enough to make a lasting impression and are waiting to be rediscovered, and maybe reimagined. You have a story behind you, one I’d love to hear. So, write.

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New Season, New Stories

Posted on September 22, 2017 ·

Yesterday was officially the last day of summer, although for me summer ended six weeks ago when my kids returned to school. I miss having them home, and I miss long sleepy mornings and indulgent late nights filled with movie marathons, sprints to the 24-hour donut shop, and endless reading.

Now mornings begin with an alarm clock and evenings end with math homework and ten-minutes-till-lights-out warnings. But there are definite advantages to the school year: it’s easier to meet my writing goals, stick with a healthy diet, and schedule time to work out. I love walking my son to school every morning. And, of course, the weather eventually turns, like it did earlier this week.

Fall is here—jeans and sweaters, autumn-spiced candles, fresh-baked pies. Halloween displays in the grocery store and the return of cool evenings that melted away in June. Soon they will turn cold, and that’s fine too. There will be more movie marathons—first scary ones, and then Christmas ones. There will be more books. And there will be more writing.

Although I’ve been quiet on here, I have kept busy this year, drafting new short stories and essays and making pretty good progress on a maybe-novel (I’m calling it that until it reaches the 50,000-word mark—too often my novel ideas end up long short stories).

One of my new pieces, called “From Autumn to June,” was accepted at YARN magazine for publication next year. And one of my short essays, or maybe it’s more of a poem, was published this week in Mothers Always Write.

That piece, called “Sometime After Thirteen,” is a tribute to my now 15-year-old daughter; I read it aloud at a Mother’s Day reading in May with my daughter in attendance, and I was honored to have it appear in such a lovely magazine so that I could share it with you, too. I hope you read it, and I hope you all had a wonderful summer and are looking forward to fall as much as I am!

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The Other Side of the Magic

Posted on December 20, 2016 ·

Image from Flickr by Brian Adams

Every December we travel north to Williams, Arizona, and ride the Polar Express. Grand Canyon Railway’s mystic “midnight” train ride is based on the classic children’s book made even more popular by the 2004 animated film starring Tom Hanks. Both of my children grew up watching the film; for more than ten years the whistle of that magic steam train beckoned from the television screen throughout winter break.

Until last year, when neither Abbey, 14, nor Gabriel, 9, wanted to watch it.

In the movie, a young boy who’s beginning to doubt whether Santa is real catches a ride to the North Pole, where he meets Father Christmas in person and learns once more to believe. And for those of us who still believe, the enchanted train in Williams speeds through a time-warp and arrives within an hour at that very same North Pole, where elves dance in the snow and wave from Santa’s sleigh.

On that night in December we wait at the icy depot, stamping our feet, cheeks stinging and breath clouding the air. We climb aboard and sing carols, sip hot cocoa and wait for Santa to arrive. When he boards, he’ll walk slowly down the aisle, presenting each wide-eyed child with the gift of a silver bell.

I have a collection of these silver bells, each strung with a loop of crimson ribbon, each ringing chime a ghost from Christmas past. I have a snow globe from the Polar Express gift shop that sits unshaken on a closet shelf, its wintry Christmas scene preserved within the glass bubble, like a memory.

The year she turned eleven, my daughter said, “I know about Santa, Mom. I’ve known for a while.”

But that was okay, because Gabriel was then only six. Abbey was simply on the other side of the magic now, watching with affection as her little brother pressed his nose against the glass, peering silently out the window as the moonlit trees rushed by, waiting to see the amber glow of a frosted Christmas village.

There are family traditions that for us will never fade. Timeless things, like stringing lights on the Christmas tree, stirring fudge on Christmas Eve, and opening presents on Christmas morning in pajamas and robes, wrapped in the warm candied scent of gingerbread drifting from candles.

Then there are traditions bound to fade. Childhood things, like tracking Santa’s sleigh in the flash of stars, throwing glittery oats like confetti across the lawn to light a path for the reindeer, and setting out a plate of milk and cookies on the cold brick hearth.

It’s nearly winter, and tomorrow we’ll drive to Williams and ride the Polar Express. When night falls we’ll hand our tickets to a conductor who will solemnly punch holes in the shape of a letter and hand them back. We’ll open our songbooks and sing carols on the way to the North Pole and drink hot chocolate delivered by sprightly chefs. One of us will still peer out the window, nose pressed against the glass. Waiting, but perhaps also wondering.

When Santa comes we’ll ring our silver bells and cheer at the tinny echoes. Then the children will tuck their bells into the pockets of their winter robes, knowing there will always be another.

I will hold onto mine a little longer.

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Interview with Amy Silverman, Author of My Heart Can’t Even Believe It

Posted on April 8, 2016 ·
Amy Silverman with her daughter Sophie

Author Amy Silverman with her daughter Sophie

Last summer I had the privilege of reading an early draft of Amy Silverman’s new book, which launches May 1 at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe. My Heart Can’t Even Believe It is a strikingly honest memoir that blends investigative journalism and personal narrative to explore what it means to raise a child with special needs—Amy’s 12-year-old daughter, Sophie, has Down syndrome.

With a journalist’s heart (she is managing editor of Phoenix New Times and has twice been named journalist of the year by the Arizona Press Club), Amy asks hard questions about biology, about history, about motherhood, about discrimination, about the future, about Sophie, and about herself. Most of the time she finds the answers, but her daughter—who is a remarkable and charming girl—continuously surprises her mother by defying all expectations and refusing to be solved.

Like Sophie, My Heart Can’t Even Believe It is fearless, honest, and beautiful.

Click here to pre-order the book through Changing Hands Bookstore, which comes with two tickets to the launch party!

My Heart Can’t Even Believe It is also available for pre-order from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

About the Book:

amy's book cover

In MY HEART CAN’T EVEN BELIEVE IT, journalist, blogger, and NPR contributor Amy Silverman tells the story of the birth and growth of her daughter, Sophie, and the Down syndrome diagnosis that changed everything. Amy wrote the book she desperately wanted to read but couldn’t find, meant not just for parents of kids with Down syndrome, but rather a story for anyone touched by disability, a story about science, and a story about being different: something that all of us can certainly identify with. It’s part memoir, part investigative reporting, part parenting manual — a crash course in genetics, history, politics, pop culture, education, medicine, health care policy, marriage, motherhood and family.

About the Author:

Amy Silverman is managing editor at Phoenix New Times and a commentator for KJZZ, the National Public Radio affiliate in Phoenix. Her work also has appeared on NPR’s This American Life and in The New York Times. Amy holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. She lives in Arizona with her husband Ray and daughters Annabelle and Sophie.

Find Amy online at her website, myheartcantevenbelieveit.com.

Elizabeth: You’ve been blogging about your daughter Sophie for nearly eight years. What inspired you to begin sharing your stories, and when did you decide to turn those stories into a book?

Amy: I actually shared my stories about Sophie long before the blog came along. Around the time my first daughter, Annabelle, was born, I began to write memoir – inspired mainly by the now-defunct section on salon.com called “Mothers Who Think” as well as Anne Lamott’s work and what I was hearing on “This American Life,” the public radio show.

I did a few stories for the local NPR affiliate here in Phoenix and managed to get a couple published on Salon. Around that time I also began to teach Mothers Who Write, a local writing workshop I co-teach with Deborah Sussman (and where I met you – yay!). All the memoir stuff started to fall together; I was hooked.

Deciding to start a blog was not easy – I’m old and was not an early adapter of the Internet and all it has to offer. (To say the least.) A co-worker at New Times convinced me to start a blog with the goal of getting me to understand what the company was trying to do online. As a journalist I’d been taught to never give my work away, but I was intrigued by the idea of telling the story of Sophie’s kindergarten year. I started and haven’t stopped, although I’ve slowed down.

And as for the book, to my dismay Sophie did not come with an instruction manual. Not one I was prepared to read. Everything was either too sciency or too touchy-feely – not real.  Not my reality, anyway. (Which is not to say that there aren’t great books out there about DS – there are.) As Sophie grew, and as my shock (and awe but mostly shock, I have to admit) wore off, I began to explore what it meant to have a kid with Down syndrome in the 21st century. It felt like a book. So I pursued that.

My Heart Can’t Even Believe It combines personal narrative with investigative journalism. Can you describe your writing process? How did you approach blending these two different writing styles?

First, I had some amazing role models. If you are at all interested in the genre, I recommend The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman and Crazy by Pete Earley.

Fadiman’s book goes back and forth between a very specific narrative and some wonderfully vast political and historical perspective about the Mong people. Earley, a longtime newspaper reporter, writes about his son, who is seriously mentally ill, and then reports on what it’s like to be SMI in the Miami jail system. Different approaches, both super powerful, both moving from a specific storyline to a broader one.

I read Fadiman’s book when Sophie was in the hospital for open-heart surgery and the book really opened my (sleep-deprived) eyes to the possibility of a different kind of story telling. I’d been trained to never, ever use “I” in my writing as a journalist. Totally forbidden. On the flip side, in my other life as a memoir writer and teacher, there was no reporting.

I began to wonder what would happen if I mixed the two – and then I did, in a story for New Times when Sophie was very young. It worked for me. I was hooked, and began looking for different ways to do it more.

Along with raising two daughters, you are managing editor of Phoenix New Times, run several writing workshops a year, and blog regularly at girlinapartyhat.com. How do you balance work, family, and creative writing time?

It’s not pretty. My husband would tell you I am not very good at it. I am lucky to have a day job that has turned into a 24/7 job as journalism has changed and while that sounds like a negative, it’s been my saving grace because it means that I can slip away during the day for a kid’s school event and make the time up super early the next morning before my family wakes up.

I don’t sleep as much as I should and my closet’s a wreck but if I don’t get that creative time I’m just a miserable person to be around. And family time is not negotiable. I’m not sure that answers the question. There’s an element of smoke and mirrors as well. A lot of time in the car and on the iPhone.

When did you tell Sophie you’d written a book about her and what was her reaction?

People think this is weird and I have to agree, but I didn’t really tell ANYONE about the book until I actually signed a deal with a publisher. I am terribly superstitious (and maybe a little insecure) and at so many points I was unsure it would ever happen. So a few of my writer friends knew and that was it. I told Sophie a few months ago. She was (and continues to be) thrilled. I should hire her to be my publicist.

The first complete draft was due to my editor last fall and on the day it was due Sophie shook me awake, saying, “Your book is due today! Your book is due today!” When I dropped her off that day she instructed me to go print out a copy and leave it at the school office so she could read it. And she was disappointed when it was not available for her winter non-fiction book report project. She is very excited.

Writing memoir means asking hard questions about ourselves and answering those questions with unflinching honesty. You did that here, and the result is an extraordinarily brave and powerful memoir. What did you discover about yourself while writing this book?

I discovered how painfully naïve and uneducated I was before I had Sophie – both emotionally and intellectually. As a child of the 70s and 80s I was sheltered from people who were different from me. I didn’t meet an African American person until college. Growing up, I didn’t know any of my friends were gay.

Sophie was the first person with a developmental disability who I really got to know as a human being. I guess I knew those things before I wrote the book but putting all the pieces together and telling our story really brought it to the surface. I’m not proud of that; I have a lot of lost time to make up for.

On the book cover is a lovely photograph of Sophie. Is there a story behind the photo?

This is embarrassing. I only vaguely recall that photo. We tried several and I was going back and forth with my dear and incredibly talented friend Claire Lawton, who suggested design elements for the cover, and one day she sent a batch that included this image and I said, “Where’d you get that?” And she said, “I found it on the Internet.”

It must have been posted with something I wrote, a blog post maybe, I believe Sophie is 5 or so in the image and I recall the outfit – but not the moment. So yeah, so much for controlling your kid’s image online. Go me.

You have a launch party at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe on May 1. After that, where can readers find you on your book tour?

Details for upcoming events are at myheartcantevenbelieveit.com in the “events” section. I’ll be at Changing Hands in Phoenix on May 7 for the Mothers Who Write Mother’s Day Weekend reunion and again May 12 for a workshop called “Writing The Memoir in Real Time.” More info about pre-ordering and ticketing is at changinghands.com.

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