Rom-Coms with Real Mess, Real Magic, Real Heart.
Please check out a new mini-review (with photos) for The Groovy Granny over at poet Jamie Dede’s wonderful (and popular) blog, Musings by Moonlight. Thanks Jamie for an excellent review!
THE GROOVY GRANNY, A Collection of Poems for Young and Young at Heart.
Some of you wonderful regular readers have also been reading my children’s poetry blog, A Children’s Poetry Place. A few months ago, I told you I’ve been working on a new children’s book this year.
In actual fact, I’ve been working on this collection of poems for a decade. Two of them were in my first ebook, Bubble Mud and Other Poems (Electric Ebook Publishing, 2001) and the rights have since reverted to me, so I’m republishing them. The others -including a few limericks, haiku and cinquain – are my absolute favorites among the many children’s poems I’ve written and polished since the birth of our daughter, Kayla.
What I didn’t see coming was that one day, our daughter would ask to illustrate the poems, and that her illustrations would be really, really good —and funny. What I didn’t see coming was that she’d be the illustrator I’ve been searching and searching for all these years for The Groovy Granny —and that I’d be the publisher! (through my registered business, Graceful Publications).
We’ve created our first children’s poetry book together. It’s perfect for reading to preschoolers and beginner readers, and middle graders will love reading it aloud. You can preview the entire book and have the option of buying it in softcover, image wrap hardcover, or hardcover with dust jacket (the hardcovers are totally worth the extra dollars, they are gorgeous, bookstore quality) HERE:
Thanks so much for taking a look at our ‘baby.’
Best wishes,
Heather and Kayla
I like to dust;
I like to clean.
I love to make things
shimmer and glean.
My sister Nat is different;
she likes a good mess.
So sometimes I clean for her,
I confess.
Once I took her to the cleaners,
not her old coin Laundromat,
but they made a mistake,
and laundered Nat!
I came back the next day.
There she hung, with the clothes:
Spotless and pressed,
from her head to her toes.
Now we share the housework,
But Nat gets the clothes cleaned.
For we’ll never forget
that day she was steamed.
from the manuscript The Party In Your Lunchbox copyright Heather Grace Stewart, Art by Kayla Stewart, age 5. I’m trying to get a bit of traffic and knowledge about my new blog, “A Children’s Poetry Place,” could you please visit there, and tell others about it too? Thanks so much. Here’s the link:
Messy Nat and Neat Nina, with Art by Kayla Stewart, 5.
American writer and poet Jamie Dedes, a former columnist and features writer, reviewed ‘Leap’ today in her Saturday Review series. I’m thrilled with her well-written, informative review (and tickled she’d put Anne Murray, k.d. lang, and Mark Vonnegut in the same sentence as my name) and wanted to share parts of it with my readers here.
“When I think of Canada, the first thing I think of is snow and Mark Vonnegut (The Eden Express, Memoir of Insanity), and voices clear and cool as mountain spring-water, k.d. lang and Anne Murray … and now I think of Heather Grace Stewart, a new-to-me poet, writer/journalist, children’s writer, and photographer,” writes Jamie.
She continues, “In this one collection, Leap, Heather deftly combines lightness and depth. It’s an honest, unpretentious look at life with all its risks and joys. We recommend that you take the Leap. The book is oversized with a paperback cover and illustrated with Heather’s photographs of family – especially her young daughter – and nature scenes. It can be purchased HERE for $9.99 with half the proceeds going to UNICEF’s Gift of Education project.
You can read the whole review and many other great posts over at Jamie Dedes’ site.
Thanks, as always, for reading and taking the leap with me.
365 Days of Living Deliberately
How insignificant we seem; how trivial our troubles become, when our world is seen from high above the clouds. We are but a small speck in the palm of this great galaxy, yet each of us leaves our mark on every living creature we touch, talk to, type to— even Tweet. Every new day holds promise—it’s up to us what we do with that promise.
Sometimes, I feel so much pressure, so many To-Do’s, so overwhelmed. I squeeze every minute out of the day, until I’m running on empty. There are times I don’t even remember how I lived it—or if I lived it.
I’ve come to realize that the moments that matter the most to me—the ones I hold closest to my heart—were not full days or full weeks. They were mere moments. Minutes with tiny wings, fluttering by like fragile butterflies. If I’d blinked, I’d have missed them.
I don’t want to blink. I want to take each new day and hold it in my hand. Not like the tight fist I make when I’m frightened, or cold, or just being stubborn–but a wide open palm, welcoming a butterfly to rest its wings there for a while.
I want to experience each day fully—good and bad. To live in the moment, then let it go.
The first time our young daughter caught a snowflake on her tongue. The look on my father’s face as we danced on my wedding day. My mother singing along to Bon Jovi, inciting our feisty toddler to reply back, “No, it’s MY life!” My husband giving up his airplane window seat (and holding my Starbucks coffee for me) so I could capture images of the sun rising over the Rockies on the first morning of a new year.
This is a promise to myself to stop and take more careful notice of something or someone in my life, every single day.
Don’t blink, or you’ll miss it. I hope you’ll join me on my small adventure.
Heather Grace Stewart 