babyfruit: the (mis)adventures of mommyhood

Nominate Best Non-fiction Blogger

I know the woman seeking the submissions & she is legit so please  send her your nominations for best non-fiction blog POST today!

Creative Nonfiction (national literary journal) is currently putting together the second volume of a new anthology, The Best Creative Nonfiction, to be published by W.W. Norton in summer 2008.

Volume I was released this summer and has received a starred review from Publishers Weekly--please visit www.creativenonfiction.org for a complete table of contents and contributors. It's available at bookstores---find it in the Essay section.

They are currently accepting nominations for Volume II.

This can be from on-line publications and blogs that contain good nonfiction writing---that is to say,  well-rendered, interesting nonfiction (nothing that's purely  self-serving, i.e., how much you love your pet, or empty political rants, how-to fashion pieces, what you did on your summer travel, etc.).

They are looking for new voices, ideas, forms and approaches in creative nonfiction (literary nonfiction) on the Web.

They'll consider immersion pieces, personal essay on any topic, food writing, general features, cultural commentary, science/nature---basically anything with a strong narrative and something interesting to say--which was first web-published within the past year. In other words, something more literary in nature, not information-only.

The deadline for nominating someone else's work, or for submitting your own on-line writing, for The Best Creative Nonfiction, Volume II is September 15, 2007.

To submit nominations for consideration, please send the following to the email address below or hard copy to the mailing address below:

1. the name of the writer,   
2. title of piece/post,
3. name of the on-line publication/blog
4. date the piece appeared
5. the URL

CONTACT:
Kathleen Tarr
Coordinating Editor
Best of CNF, Vol. 2
3100 Legacy Drive
Anchorage, Alaska  99516
email:  [email protected]

Please feel free to forward or link to this for anyone who might be interested in submitting high-quality on-line,   creative nonfiction work.

Blog Day

Link: Blog Day.

It is BlogDay so here are 5 blogs I highly recommend...

1. Babies or Not - Once in a while you come across a blog that is not only interesting and about an important topic, but also really well-written. This is one of those blogs. She's in the throes of full-on miscarriage again. Stop by and give your support.

2. Postpartum Progress - Promoting progress in treatment & comfort among sufferers of postpartum mood disorders, including postpartum depression (PPD), postpartum obsessive-compulsive disorder & postpartum psychosis. This woman rocks.

3. Foodmomiac - I met her at BlogHer. It's all about life, mommyhood, food, kids, food, and more food.

4. Babygadget - Mommies (and Daddies) everywhere can ogle the cool baby stuff reviewed on this site. From the founders of PopGadget. I know we don't need these things - but boy is it fun to look at them!

5. Antropologa - So many excellent women's blogs talking about life, love, miscarriages, pregnancy, baby. Here's another that caught my attention.

Tag: BlogDay2007

Babies or Not

Link: Babies or Not.

And here is another one I came across yesterday through a Friendster connection. And I thought Friendster was all but defunct, yet it leads me to this incredibly well-written blog.

Missed Conceptions

Link: Missed Conceptions.

I've been coming across really well-written miscarriage and mommy blogs lately. Thought I'd start sharing them here before adding them to my list of blogs, just to point you to them. Worth sharing.

Chez Miscarriage: Open Letter to Getupgrrl

Link: Open Letter to Getupgrrl.

Sadly, there has been a bit of a negativity ruckus on Babyfruit and Getupgrrl has felt insulted. I think emotions are high right now, but I've posted below my comments to the comments on one of my earlier posts about the Chez Miscarriage archives. I hope everyone who reads this does so in the spirit it was intended. But then again, this is the Internet, with all its glorious imperfections as a "global communications tool."

my comments...
(to understand the context of this comment, you can read the previous ones)

Getupgrrl - why are you getting so angry? I certainly did not call Julie a newbie - I only hypothesized that she might be one of your loyal followers and she was seeing my comments about the act of removing archives as a personal attack against you.

My comments about being online since 1987 were my way of explaining my personal perspective - I wasn't diminishing or even presuming to know how long she had been online. I was just trying to give some context to the nature of my own comments and how my perspective developed over nearly 2 decades. (Yikes, has it been that long!?)

I think we all may be suffering from the very common "Internet-itis" where we read something someone else is saying then project our own emotions onto their words, obliterating their true meaning and prescribing new meaning based on what we "think" they are saying at the moment.

As I read over all of these posts - those that comment on the actions of archival removal and those that attack those comments (and in some places attacking the people who made those comments), I realize that we're all thinking and wanting the same things here, but, alas, are awash in "Internet-itis."

We all are sad to see you go, Getupgrrl. We are all, to varying degrees, feeling something about the fact that you have removed your archives. All of us agree that you have the right to do anything you damn well please, some of us just feel a little cheated, like we missed the magic.

Some of us felt an emotional tie to your posts, your experiences, to you. And we also feel cheated like anyone who loves someone and they leave might feel. Is that wrong or right? I don't think that really warrants a judgement call.

Some of us - like me - feel strongly that positive, helpful and inspirational resources that are put online and become part of the larger fabric of the Internet and that become an intimate part of each one of us deserve to be online in perpetuity. That is one of the most magnificent things about the Internet - that things can remain online forever and help people - women - for years to come.

To get angry that any of us feel the way we feel is just silliness. Besides the fact that we are all entitled to our opinions and our emotions, we all acknowledge that you are entitled to do whatever the heck you want. It doesn't make us happy but it doesn't have to. The other beautiful thing about the Internet is that we can go through our unhappiness, our mixed emotions, even our anger and disappointment online - here - until we can make sense of what we are feeling.

But to attack the people - the women - who have strong feelings one way or another about your actions isn't fair. What kind of safe place is established when women are attacked for expressing themselves?

None of us attacked - or meant to attack - you as a person, Getupgrrl. But like I said, we are all - you included - clearly suffering from Internet-itis. We see and hear what we want to see and hear because we are human.