"Just Moms" Reading at Frogs & Pollywogs

My very first book reading!  What joy!  I am so blessed and honored to be counted among such lovely ladies and fabulous authors.

The reading was hosted by Frogs & Pollywogs in Albany, Oregon.  Frogs and Pollywogs is a wondrous little specialty toy store that delights both parents and kiddos alike.

I promise you - you will love wandering down the aisles of this sweet store!

Our reading was in "The Lily Pad" which is a loft area upstairs stocked generously with the specialty toys found for sale downstairs, but opened and waiting for kiddos to come play!

And play they did.  

Several of us brought our kidlets with and I imagine they had as good a time as we did!

Two of Jen Rouse's girls, Beth & Lucy

My Sweetheart and one of Cassie's girls, Desiree

One of Melanie's sons perusing the books and Lucy and Siennalee working at the work bench.

Dorcas Smucker kicked things off by reading a her chapter "Wealth Isn't in the Crayons" and then I was next with a summary of mine: "Choose to Be."

 Rebekah was next with hers: "Superhero Jesus" and Jen finished up with a tidbit of her story "Precious in God's Sight" and then a summary of a couple of her favorite chapters.

It was priceless to dialog with these ladies, to hear their takes on their favorite chapters, and to hear - once again - how very important we (and all) mommies are to each other.

We even had groupies there.  :)  Carlie Davis and Cassie Wicks drove up from Junction City just for our reading.  I was quite giddy to have friends there from my home church Christ's Center.  Kristin and Hannah, friends from my Covallis MOPS group (who also hail from Jen and Rebekah's church Grace City - Hannah is the pastor's wife), came as well.
Kristin's the head groupie.  

Word is she even got a "Just Moms" tattoo.  (But you didn't read that on MY blog...)

Top to bottom, clockwise: Carlie, Cassie, Hannah, and Kristin

Our youngest fan - Evie, Jen's youngest

And here are the two ladies who made it all happen: Melanie Springer Mock and Rebekah Schneiter:

And the local writers who attended the reading:

Left to right: Jen Rouse, Melanie Springer Mock, Dorcas Smucker, Rebekah Schneiter, and Jessica Kantola

And just to prove Just Moms isn't just for moms:

My wonderful (and hot) husband Jason also attended the reading.  He drove us up to Albany from Klamath Falls, listened to all of us ladies read and chatter, entertained and wrangled kidlets at large, and then drove us home again.  You're my hero, Love.

What a great day.  Fabulous job, everyone!  Thank you for all being part of such a rich memory.

Published.

Well, I have to say this whole post has been a long time coming. 

And I don't just mean a long time from when I was a very little girl, still mastering how to hold a pencil (I still do this wrong) and scribbling away in notebooks, on papers, on napkins, and anything smooth and still enough to hold the words and ideas and pictures zinging around in my head (still do this).

No, I mean this post has been a long time coming because the actual event happened several months ago, 

and I've been keeping it quiet.  

But now, the time has come for me to - actually, the time has now passed and I'm a little late (thanks to an early summer family vacation, among other things) - 

but  

the time has now come for me to finally be able to say:

I've been published.

Sometime last year, my good friend Rebekah approached me about submitting an essay for an anthology she and her former professor Melanie Springer Mock were putting together.  (An anthology is a collection of selected literary pieces or passages or works of art or music - thank you Merriam-Webster.)  This idea had been some time in the making as Rebekah and Melanie chatted, mulled, and finally birthed the idea through countless conversations followed by countless hours of compilation, author recruiting, publisher/manuscript shopping, and editing.   

I liked the book idea, but I really didn't want to submit anything.  It was a dark time for me personally and Rebekah had asked me to submit an essay on "contentment."  I waited and waited until the very last minute, and then scribbled something out - something raw and bloody and utterly unsatisfying.  And then I sent that to my friend.  Oh well, I thought, at least I followed up on her request.  We went through the editing process - which in hindsight was great experience, albeit a bit painful in points - and then I discovered I'd made the cut.  

Incredibly (and against all odds, at least in my mind) - I was in the book.   

Just Moms: Conveying Justice in an Unjust World

Our book: Just Moms

Re-reading what I wrote, from a new place in life as well as from a renewed perspective, it's not nearly the awful piece I was afraid I'd put together.  I wrote about contentment, yes, but also the principles which I believe are laying quietly just beneath contentment, the main one being: choice.  My chapter "Choose to Be" honors my mother, who taught me that happiness is a choice, not just a feeling.  It also touches on my hopes and endeavors to teach this principle to my own daughter.  (I kept the news of the book as quiet as I could until I could give the book to my mother as a surprise Mother's Day gift.) 

The rest of the book is a compilation of writings from women, and not all moms either, who share their varied stories of teaching and learning, retooling ideas and scrapping ideals, and above all how being a mom isn't always what it had looked like on paper. 

I encourage you to pick up a copy, read it, and leave a review on Amazon.com.

And below, just for fun, is a shot of me and my two dear friends (and also two of the contributing authors in Just Moms), Jen and Rebekah.  This picture is from the story our local (Albany) paper did on us as local authors.

Jessica Kantola, Jen Rouse, and Rebekah Schneiter (co-editor), contributing authors in Just Moms (Photograph from the Democrat Herald)

Jen and Rebekah also happen to comprise my writing critique group.  We meet every month or two and share submissions of what we're up to in our literary lives.  These women have taught me so much.  I'm very blessed to have them in my life.

Thank you, Rebekah, for befriending me, encouraging me, and getting me to write that dang essay.  I love you for it!

Published!  My toes are wet.  Time for the rest of me to jump in.