Read more
List of contents
Introduction
A Season of Advent . . . and Authentic Beginnings by Manish Mishra-Marzetti
Fertile Dreams by Vanessa Rush Southern
Two Pink Lines by Kate Landis
A Helicopter Pilot by Cheryl M. Walker
Letter to Lyla by Marlin Lavanhar
A Friendly’s Ice Cream Baby by David O. Rankin
To Life Ordained by Jane Rzepka
Setting a Course for Love by Peggy Clarke
View from the Dining Room Table by Sarah Lenzi
You Have No Idea by Lindasusan V. Ulrich
Naming and Claiming by Heather Concannon
Andre by Richard Davis-Lowell
Eyes Like Mine by Marcia Stanard
When It’s Quiet by Rebekah A. Savage
Witnessing Grace by Peggy Clarke
Diaper Wisdom by Christian Schmidt
Bad Parenting Award by Jane Rzepka
Our Funny Valentine by Parisa Parsa
Harbors by Marta I. Valentín
Jesus Christ Superstar by Aisha Hauser
We Bring Food by Emily Gage
Love’s Pronoun Is Plural by Elea Kemler
Life So Sacred by Sarah Gibb Millspaugh
Feminist, Newly Born by Manish Mishra-Marzetti
Pandemic Journal Entry 201 by Robin Tanner
Imani’s Question by Cheryl M. Walker
The Bed by Marlin Lavanhar
Veil by Kim Wildszewski
Another, Truer Song by Elea Kemler
Bit by Bit by Kim Wildszewski
Carried Up to Bed by Elizabeth Lerner Maclay
Almost Goodbye by Vanessa Rush Southern
We Will Tell Them by Robin Tanner
About the author
Vanessa Rush Southern is the senior minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco and has served congregations in Boston; Washington, D.C.; and Summit, New Jersey. She is the author of two books, This Piece of Eden and Miles of Dream, and has been published in the Dallas Morning News, Scroll India, and Woman’s Day Magazine. She is married to Rohit Menezes and mother to Leila Menezes.
Summary
An inclusive anthology of reflections on the spiritual gifts and challenges of raising young people.
Inspired by the pandemic and her own teenage daughter’s upcoming departure from home, editor Vanessa Rush Southern set out to collect an anthology of reflections on the spiritual gifts and challenges of raising young people. In reflecting with others, she found an array of life experiences, choices, struggles, and insights. She found joy and deep meaning pressed up against all the hard parts, tumbling out between diapers and carpool runs, breaking in like fireworks in the midst of casual conversations, in an email from a birth mother that turns the world on its end. She found that the young lives that intersect or get invited into relationship with our own, however we make or made our way to each other, have the power to change us, all of us, in ways both startling and universal.
This inclusive and diverse anthology includes all kinds of families: chosen and biological, extended families, single parents, divorced parents, and more—a beautiful spectrum of people reflecting on the role children and young people have played in their lives and in their larger search for meaning. Little Did I Know goes well beyond the sentimental to an honest reckoning with the vulnerability and beauty of parenting and caregiving.
Foreword
- Online campaign featuring social media images with blurbs and reviews of the book as well as designed graphics of selected excerpts.
- Early reviewer promotion through advance copies to encourage reader reviews and generate buzz.
- National review outreach to trade and print publications (PW, Kirkus, Booklist, Library Journal, Foreword, New York Times) and online (NPR, Spirituality & Practice, Book Riot)
- Advertising in print publications (Sojourners) and online (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Sojo mail)
- Promotion on the publisher’s website (skinnerhouse.org), Twitter feed (@skinnerhouse), Instagram page (@skinnerhouse), Facebook page (/skinnerhouse), Tumblr page (@skinnerhousebooks), Pinterest (@skinnerhousebks) and publisher’s e-newsletter.
- Promotion during relevant times of the year like back to school.
