tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-157312142024-03-13T18:13:31.301-05:00m. molly backesM. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.comBlogger296125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-27819481335435616972018-02-14T19:44:00.000-06:002018-02-14T19:44:04.630-06:00Natural Disasters
I wrote this poem last fall. It's been ringing in my ears all day.
Natural Disasters
In
how to handle tornadoes, we have been well trained: we kneel
against
lockers, foreheads touching cool metal, thin arms
awkwardly
crossed above our heads and exposed necks,
teachers
strolling inspection, scolding our stifled giggles. It’s just
a drill. Repeat anything enough and it M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-38867515306573628272017-10-21T15:08:00.002-05:002017-10-21T15:17:53.062-05:00What Women Mean When We Say #MeTooSome men on my Facebook timeline have complained that #metoo is unfair to men because it implies that they're all catcalling losers, but they themselves have never catcalled a lady once. Unfair!
But here's the thing, pals. It's not just catcalling.
It's when nine out of ten cab drivers ask you if you're single, and you have them drop you a block from your house because you don't want them to M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-71510345766917861022017-07-01T16:02:00.004-05:002017-07-01T16:06:57.334-05:00Covered in Bees! When I was six years old, I stepped on a nest of yellow jackets. We had stopped on the side of the road to pee off the side of the car, par for the course on family roadtrips, and then my dad, little sister, and I wandered a little ways into the woods where we found an abandoned train track and decided to explore it. I was first. I remember the before and the after: first the woods, hazy and M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-957278998515002942017-03-16T15:39:00.000-05:002017-03-16T15:41:46.107-05:00Ferdinand the Bull and the Power of Stories
In the picture book class I'm teaching, I asked my students to bring in books to share so that we could get a broader range of texts to discuss. One woman brought in The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, illustrated by Robert Lawson. My students are all much older than me (you have to be at least 50 to take the class, and a few of them are in their 80s), but we all had good memories of readingM. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-37806550020755351912015-11-04T22:38:00.000-06:002015-11-04T22:39:31.404-06:00Tips for Teens from Christopher Pike
If you keep breaking the handles on your hairbrushes, you’re probably the girl next door.
If you're the new girl, wait a semester before you join drama club, because you might unknowingly be cast in a murder revenge play.
If you get murdered at a party it will suck, but on the upside you might fall in ghost love with the cute motorcycle ghost from homeroom.
If you find yourself on trialM. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-24517120837120110062014-08-14T15:59:00.000-05:002014-08-14T15:59:09.201-05:00And The Winner Is...
...Danielle Duerr! Congrats!
You guys, thank you so much for your huge and overwhelming response to this giveaway! I am honored and grateful. Double thanks to everyone who left comments -- I loved hearing from you!
If you happen to be in or around the Twin Cities, you should come hang out with me next month, when I'll be reading with Julie Schumacher as part of the Second Story series M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-77420801155982579112014-08-05T09:44:00.000-05:002014-08-13T10:28:23.684-05:00Happy Paperback Launch Day, Princesses of Iowa!
Trumpets! Fireworks! A whole mountain made of cookies! The Princesses of Iowa is out in paperback today! YAYYY!
Isn't it pretty?
To celebrate this momentous occasion, I am giving away an ANNOTATED COPY of The Princesses of Iowa to one lucky winner. Or maybe two. Depending on how saucy I'm feeling.
You have until 11:59 pm on Tuesday, August 12, to enter! Entry form is at the bottom of this M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-51428914735043309752014-06-18T23:25:00.002-05:002014-06-18T23:39:15.335-05:00Just Hit the RabbitIt’s late, and everyone is having fun except me. There are five of us: my housemates Ali, Jamie, and Nancy, our friend Mary, and me. They’re all giggling and trading insults and doing all kinds of obnoxious rumpus as if they haven’t even noticed how thick the fog has gotten, how invisible the road is before us. Meanwhile, I’m hunched over the steering wheel, fingers clenched, eyes straining to M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-9458495666581088612014-05-06T22:37:00.002-05:002014-05-06T22:42:23.329-05:00Please Stop Complaining About Harry Potter"The novel is dead," announces a Great Man of Literature.
"Well, the Serious Literary Novel is," he amends. "The 'kidult boywizardsroman' is doing just fine." He mentions this as if it supports his original contention, as if the massive popularity of a series of books written for children is proof of the downfall of global literary culture.
YAWNNNNN.
I am so dreadfully bored of hearing SeriousM. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-75889744302052734832014-04-07T13:02:00.000-05:002014-04-07T21:26:33.913-05:00I Said a Blog Hop, the Bloggy to the Bloggy to the Blog Blog Hop (& etc)My good friend (& owner of Zia's brother-from-another-mother twin greyhound Briscoe) Claire Zulkey has passed me the Blog Hop Baton, which means I'm answering the same questions Claire answered last Monday and her friend Annie Logue answered two weeks ago & so forth back into the darkest days of last month or whatever.
Claire pitched it as "a great way to generate content for M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-68348754599501167742013-12-06T16:25:00.001-06:002013-12-06T16:29:04.343-06:00Christmas Music That Doesn't Suck (Part II) Hey friends! Thanks for the great music suggestions you gave me in comments & on Twitter. As always, you are the best.
Here's the other Christmas music mix I made last year. This one is more low-tempo, perfect for curling up in front of the fire (or the "fire") with a Tom & Jerry and your favorite two- and four-legged critters.
Note: you may want to avoid this mix if you're having a M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-71742040019550720492013-12-02T21:09:00.001-06:002013-12-06T16:40:57.769-06:00Christmas Music That Doesn't Suck (Part I)Look, it's not that I hate Christmas music.
It's just that I've worked in retail.
In the fifteen years between 1995 and 2010, I spent eleven working in retail, restaurants, cafes, and other Christmas-music-mandatory jobs. And of course that Christmas-music-mandatory playlist comprises about thirty songs. Thirty songs on constant repeat. Eight hours a day. Five days a week. FOR A MONTH. It's M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-57254670988842955312013-05-29T16:46:00.001-05:002013-05-30T13:17:43.943-05:00What I Read and How I Lied
Dear Cute Boys From My Teens and Early Twenties,
Thank you for all the books, movies, and music you introduced me to. I appreciate your hard work to shape me into the perfect girlfriend share your passions with me. Sometimes I even adopted them as my own (see also: Common, X-Men Movies, Bob Dylan). A few of the books you made me read suggested have become M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-90887120811146447572013-05-19T12:02:00.001-05:002013-05-19T12:06:41.433-05:00Thoughts on Parenting a Writer(From a talk I gave to parents of young writers at the Illinois Young Authors' Conference this weekend.)
Good morning. I
am honored to be here with you, and thrilled to be a part of this wonderful
celebration of your children.
I’ve been asked
to speak to you today about how to be a parent to a writer. To be honest, I’m
not sure I’m the right person for the job. The only parenting I do is M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-56288429592712653112013-05-15T17:08:00.003-05:002013-05-15T17:10:47.007-05:00Should I Worry About The "Rules" of Fiction?The other night in my YA Novel class, we were talking about the usual things: structure, pacing, scene vs. summary, what makes a good first chapter, how to weave thematic and emotional hints into your story early so later events feel organic, how a story makes promises to the reader, etc, and my students kept coming back to different "rules" of fiction they'd learned over the years. These "rules"M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-23187866963254987122013-05-08T09:00:00.000-05:002013-05-29T01:04:37.356-05:00Happy One Year Publiversary, Princesses of Iowa!In honor of the one year anniversary of the publication of The Princesses of Iowa, here's a beautiful movie my good pals at Very Clever made.
Note: this gorgeous little film is just one person's take on the book's prologue. Yours might look totally different, and that's okay.
Note also: That one person is a man in his thirties, who heard me read the prologue at a party about a M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-212907305035102602013-04-15T12:00:00.000-05:002013-05-27T23:06:53.877-05:00Behind the Book InterviewHad a great time chatting with the ladies at Behind the Book this weekend (and got an excuse to head down to one of my favorite bookstores in Chicago, Open Books. Bonus!). They threw some great questions at me, including one that no one has ever asked me before.
Check it out over on Chicago 3 Media: Behind the Book with M. Molly Backes
M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-9798075539546085172012-10-11T00:31:00.002-05:002012-10-11T00:43:44.856-05:00What We (Should) Talk About When We Talk About Big BirdIt’s been a week since Mitt Romney made his now-infamous
remarks about Public Television during the first presidential debate:
“I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m going
to stop other things. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you too. But
I’m not going to — I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow
money from China to pay for it.”
Within M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-90889251692152634002012-10-01T06:00:00.000-05:002012-10-01T06:00:09.489-05:00An Open Letter to Book Banners
Dear Book Banners,
First of all, let me thank you for all the hard work you do. Without you, we wouldn’t be celebrating Banned Books Week in the first place! Just plain “Books Week” is much less exciting. By trying to get books banned from schools and libraries, you confer a degree of sexiness and danger on us that we might not otherwise have. Wait, do I sound sarcastic? I’m trying not to M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-50121267107044967102012-08-27T23:29:00.003-05:002012-08-27T23:57:20.683-05:00Child Transportation Safety TipsToday on the internets, some of my parent friends started talking about front-facing versus rear-facing child seats. Apparently it's a big subject! The subsequent discussion quickly turned tense; it seemed everyone had an opinion about how best to keep their child -- and everyone else's child -- safe while traveling.
In light of this discussion, and while child safety is on everyone's minds, I M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-60148044572060456932012-08-02T21:09:00.000-05:002012-09-28T22:06:05.779-05:00Pop Song Lyrics That Make Me Argue With the RadioIt's summer! Still! Which means it's time to listen to the pop station when I'm cruising sitting in horrible rush hour traffic on Lake Shore Drive and/or driving to Iowa every other weekend, which is how I've spend most of my summer. Pop music is great for making long drives seem shorter. It's also great for having insane lyrics. And, well, you know me: when I see or hear something too often, I M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-81960968710619445872012-05-08T22:49:00.000-05:002012-05-08T22:49:00.137-05:00Princesses of Iowa Launch Day!
Happy Birthday, Princesses of Iowa!
M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-59183119332402352982012-05-07T11:01:00.003-05:002012-05-07T11:01:48.823-05:00Princesses of Iowa Media Round-Up
The Princesses of Iowa comes out TOMORROW! Happy almost-birthday, little book.
For your bored-at-work amusement, here are some articles & interviews about the book and me. Let's just say I'm glad the Wisconsin State Journal reporter didn't mention the part of our interview where I had to stop & retrieve a half-decomposed rat carcass from my dog's mouth.
Wisconsin State Journal: Q &M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-19245720372954521242012-02-25T20:59:00.002-06:002012-02-25T21:02:49.565-06:00Princesses of Iowa Sneak Peek!You guys! I keep forgetting to mention this! You can now read the first two chapters of The Princesses of Iowa online -- for free! Isn't the internet magic?
I should warn you that there's a PROLOGUE (which obviously comes before the first chapters) that is, of course, completely amazing (I'm practicing being better at self-promotion -- how's it going so far?) which is NOT online, for some reasonM. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731214.post-67290479768962619972012-02-01T20:51:00.000-06:002012-02-01T20:51:11.384-06:00Writing RoundupI know I've been terrible about posting here, but that's because I've been doing lots of writing elsewhere. (And also watching Downton Abbey, because come on.) A sampling of some recent work:
Writing for Tillie OlsenI was sixteen years old when I realized that women could be writers. Obviously, I knew that women could write — and did write — books; I’d grown up with Beverly Cleary and Judy M. Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01340364298155651414noreply@blogger.com2