Category Archives: parenting

June 27, 2012   Stacey   art, culture, health, opinion, parenting, Stacey  
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A dip into the waters of our culture

I’ve been having an interesting run lately with narrative nonfiction ideas that speak to a larger cultural conversation. I recently sold a book about breastfeeding by Kimberly Seals Allers that began as an idea after my first daughter was born seven years ago called The Big Letdown: The True Story of How Politics, Feminism, and Big Business Changed Breastfeeding, and I’ve just begun working on another parenting book that will explore the topic of angry parenting that appears to be pervasive in our society.

Then I saw this piece in The New Yorker that talks about several new parenting books and looks at why American kids are so spoiled, and how other cultures parent arguably more successfully than we do. The projects I’ve been working on also speak to a dysfunctional parenting culture in America, and open up the conversation to talk about how we got here, and more importantly how we can improve our lives. A couple of years ago there was a stir caused by a New York Magazine piece by Jennifer Senior (which will be coming out as a book at some point) called “I Love My Kids, I Hate My Life” which delves deeper into this topic. The success of the Tiger Mom tapped into this issue as well, and proved there is a large audience for books that approach parenting from the right angle.

All of this got me to thinking about whether there are other areas of our culture outside of parenting that have not yet been dissected in book form – science, food, politics, pop culture, education, and the arts to name a few. I’m curious to hear from our readers if you have any ideas or topics that would warrant further discussion. Anything you’d like to see on the market that isn’t already out there that you would find interesting, or useful? Let us know. There are so many subjects, issues and ideas to ponder!

April 24, 2012   John   children's books, classics, John, lists, opinion, parenting, reading  
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Raising geeks

Back in the stone ages (okay, the 1980s) when I was a kid, “geek” was a pretty harsh name to call someone—maybe not as soul-crushing as “nerd,” but certainly up there with “dweeb” or “spaz.” But thanks to Bill Gates and other titans of the information age, the geek stigma has been turned on its head—today we’re proud to call ourselves computer geeks, book geeks, music geeks, etc.

And now that the geeks (I would include myself, but really, I was always more of a nerd) are of parenting age, they’re raising a new generation of geeks, no doubt with the belief that their spawn will rule the world in 20 years. Hence, we have blogs like Wired’s GeekDad, which posted a list of 67 Books Every Geek Should Read to Their Kids Before Age 10 in an attempt to identify “what books are essential to the Geek experience.”

It’s a great list of books, and certainly just about every title is essential—but essential for geekiness? True, there might be a few more fantasy and sci-fi titles than you might see on a regular “best books for kids” list, and the lack of any sports titles does seem to favor geekdom. But Curious George? Frog and Toad? Charlotte’s Web? In the Night Kitchen?

I have to say, I’m a little hard pressed to see how these classics would help geek parents create a specifically geeky kid–as opposed to a generally intelligent well-rounded member of society. Maybe I’m being overly sensitive here (admittedly, a geeky move on my part), but it does bother me when the great books for kids are used to promote an outside agenda—would these parents approve if their kids asked for Matt Christopher’s or Dan Gutman’s classic sports stories?

Far be it for me to defend the jocks, but maybe a better title for the list would be “67 Books Every PARENT Should Read to Their Kids Before Age 10”, and let the kids figure out on their own whether The Lord of the Rings leads down the road to geekdom or not. After all, isn’t self-discovery the point of reading in the first place?

March 28, 2012   John   controversy, John, opinion, parenting  
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An agent’s responsibility

When I was first contemplating making the switch from editing to agenting, one of my concerns was the morality of the profession. Now, I’d worked with agents for years, and not once did I ever encounter the classic agent stereotype—you know, the fast-talking, cigar-chomping, ready-to-sell-his-mother-down-the-river-for-a-quick-buck shyster. And indeed, I’ve found that, at least here at DGLM, we make it a point of conducting our business as honestly and responsibly as possible.

Still, it’s with a bit of unease that I want to talk about yesterday’s kerfuffle over Dara Lynn-Reiss and her book deal for her Vogue article. If you haven’t read it, it’s basically about how she shamed her 7-year-old daughter into losing weight. As a parent, I found it to be a terrible story, and one that I frankly don’t want to read more about in book form. But as an agent I did find myself wondering about the sale, and whether I would have taken this project on myself.

Certainly, the article is controversial, and controversy sells. And I don’t necessarily have a problem with that—when I help a writer put together a proposal, say, for a narrative or a memoir, a key question is what “newsworthy” content (i.e. controversy) might be included. Moreover, if an agent’s primary role is to sell books, how much do I have to like or approve of the material?

But ultimately, I’d like to think I’d pass for the reason Mary Elizabeth Williams lays out so convincingly in Salon—it’s just a depressing way to sell books. It’s cynical and potentially exploitative—and even if it isn’t, I just don’t see how I would be proud of myself for repping this book. I’d like to think Lynn-Reiss’s agent had a different take on the material, and he’s certainly entitled to his opinion. But if his calculations lined up with Williams’ reading of the sale—well, color me depressed…

Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this—both on Lynn-Reiss’ situation and where an agent should draw the line on what material to rep.

 

March 21, 2012   Stacey   cookbooks and food writing, memoir, nonfiction, parenting, Stacey, what we're looking for  
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What I’m looking for now

It’s been a long time since I talked about what I’m looking for so I thought I’d share a few words about projects I’m working on, projects I recently sold, and projects I wish I’d sold.

If you check me out on Publisher’s Marketplace, sales categories over the last year include cookbooks, memoir, narrative nonfiction, commercial fiction, children’s fiction, and a business book (full disclosure: the author is one of my oldest friends who came to me to help him after being approached by a publisher). The last few weeks have brought several nice sales and new projects in categories that include narrative nonfiction, cookbooks, commercial fiction, and young adult fiction.

My list has always been eclectic and continues to be comprised of a mix of projects that excite and inspire me. I’ll admit the formula is unpredictable and timing and instinct have a lot to do with it. I think most of my colleagues would agree that they know a Stacey project when they see it (public thanks to Jim for the recent referral), even if that might seem hard to define.

Given the market, the size of my list, and raising 4 kids, I’ll admit I am very selective about signing up new authors, but I am doing it and I’m eager to see new submissions.

In particular I’d love to see more science-based or medical nonfiction, like the upcoming book by pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Robert H. Lustig about his groundbreaking research about sugar’s effect on our health. Or Dr. Dale Archer’s Better Than Normal, which talks about how key traits of human behavior can be seen as strengths rather than weaknesses.

I’d like to see more smart, original parenting – I just sold a soon-to-be announced book about a particular component of our dysfunctional parenting culture, and my most recent staff recommendation is Mind in the Making, a research-based parenting title that was widely praises as one of the best recent books in the category.

I’d also like to see more food and nutrition narrative. The latest book by Marion Nestle just out, Why Calories Count, is a great example of that, and I’d love to find a book to rival Gabrielle Hamilton’s Blood, Bones and Butter.

For cookbooks, I’m always interested in smart, savvy food bloggers who bring a new twist to an existing topic, and can open up conversations about family and food that draw readers in. And I’m open to hearing from chefs and food writers who are doing something original and different.

As for memoir, I continue to be drawn to deep, dark psychological stories (and as previously mentioned, I seem to have found a successful niche of powerful mother/daughter stories that began long before I had my 4 daughters!) that showcase real people overcoming crushing adversity. Jennie Perillo’s in-the-works memoir about the sudden loss of her husband is an example. Soon-to-be published titles include Perfect Chaos, a mother/daughter bipolar memoir; I Am Intelligent, a mother/daughter memoir about a nonverbal autistic girl who learns to communicate; and Have Mother Will Travel, Claire and Mia Fontaine’s second memoir following the remarkable Come Back.

And for children’s, as well as adult fiction, I am drawn to strong, believable protagonists who find themselves in difficult situations that require an emotional epiphany to survive and thrive.

Thanks for listening and hope this gives you some more insight into my interests and that I’ll hear from you with new projects soon.

June 09, 2011   Jessica   Jessica, memoir, nonfiction, parenting  
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Difficult Reading

 

The New Yorker summer fiction issue arrived this week, and since it’s been a busy few days, my husband got to it before I did.  He then warned me not to read Aleksander Hemon’s essay “The Aquarium: A Tale of two Daughters.” I should have listened. And ultimately I did.  I found Hemon’s account (which, fiction issue aside, is nonfiction) of losing his nine-month-old baby to a fast-growing malignant brain tumor impossible to finish. I started skimming rather than reading, then just allowing my eyes to take a kind of snapshot of the page, and finally had to put the magazine aside.  Since becoming a parent a little more than five years ago I have zero ability to handle stories like this. Having baby number two last fall in no way helped. This reaction is a little embarrassing, but it’s so primal, so non-negotiable, that I suspect this is some Darwinian adaptation at work here. That in the interests of remaining sane, and for the furtherance of our species, parents (mothers?) simply cannot dwell too long in thoughts of tragedy, calamity and terrifying loss. This way madness lies.  Or maybe it’s just me. In the on-line magazine The Millions, a pregnant Edan Lepucki describes reading any number of books that she’d been warned to avoid. www.themillions.com/2011/05/the-perils-of-reading-pregnant.html.

Before I was a mother, I represented a pediatric emergency room doctor whose stories of the ER were as powerful as they were beautifully written.  I could not, however, sell his collection. I’ve since come to understand why. I doubt I could read them myself now.  It doesn’t help (and maybe even makes me something of a hypocrite) that I’m the sort of person who believes we ought not shy away from subjects that are “just too hard,” on the grounds that the compassion or awareness we awaken when we read about the awful stuff that happens in this world can sometimes motivate us to ameliorate it, but here’s a place where my logic is overruled by my gut. Am I alone in this? I’ve heard wonderful things about Elizabeth McCracken’s  An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination: A Memoir, but I don’t know if I can hack it.

April 13, 2011   Stacey   opinion, parenting, Stacey, trends  
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Are Tidying and Squabbling the New Sex?

A client of mine sent me this article from The Guardian recently which talks about a splashy new commercial novel, Christina Hopkinson’s THE PILE OF STUFF AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS, about parenthood and all its joys and woes (focusing on the husband woes in this case) that sold for a lot of money across the pond. In the US, Grand Central will be publishing the book later this month with a different cover.

The article goes into some discussion of books like this and their effect on feminism, and how that discussion has changed with time. I like the comment, “I think ultimately the answer is that men should do more and women should care less.” I can’t completely agree that as a blanket statement,” men should do more” as everyone’s situation is unique, and my husband does a lot, but I do see the point in the suggestion that women should care less. And it’s a good reminder to focus on the things that really matter (I don’t think a spouse leaving an empty milk container in the fridge or a full one on the counter applies). I also think there are a lot of women out there, however, myself included, who can relate to, and find humor in, the petty complaints about their spouses and family lives. Sometimes it is better to laugh than to cry.

I wonder if we might see a resurgence in this category if the book works well here in the US. I also wonder what our readers think about this category. Boring, overdone, trivial? Or are you open to seeing more stories of harried moms trying to balance work, life and family?