Still get a rush when my work gets published. Here is page one of my story Die Ordnung in Intercourse just published by Rhubarb, The Gender Issue, Winter 2015, Number 38. This was the story I read to a Winnipeg audience via Skype during the issue launch on February 11th, 2016.
I wrote this story in 2014. It was influenced, in part, by my work with young children of Mennonite background at Linwood Public School during the 1990’s. I recall one mother who sat across from me during her daughter’s parent-teacher conference. After I reviewed her daughter’s progress and suggested next steps, the mother broke down in front of me. She’d just given birth to twins, making her the mother of eight children. She was barely thirty, if that. I could identify strongly with her exhaustion and rolling emotions because I was a mother of three, too, at that point. I felt overwhelmed balancing my part-time career with the role of motherhood. After sharing some suggestions including a full check-up with her doctor, I offered her my hand. I could not erase her pain but she knew I cared.
Thanks to then fiction editor Bernice Friesen for her input and suggestions to strengthen this story. Bernice is now sitting at Rhubarb Magazine’s Editor’s Desk and the contributors to Rhubarb are the stronger for it.