A Long and Rambling Newsletter About Princesses and Moms and Writing

. Or: I'm Not Sleeping Much and I'm Drowning in Tulle and Spit-up and Still I Write and Write and Write

When you have a baby, there is an idea that you will finally get to “meet” your kid. And that’s true, sort of. You meet the color of their hair and the anchoring information of their birth weight and whether or not they are good at latching onto breasts or sleeping. And if you are in a little bit of a woo-woo postpartum place, or naturally live with a secret foot in the woo-woo world as I do, you might feel yourself also meeting their energy, you may have a sense of who some core part of them is, what vibe they will bring to the world.

The word my parents always used for me was wired. I don’t know that I have ever heard anyone described with that word except for baby-me, who is exclusively described that way. Happy!— but wired. It is said with an exhalation of breath like they are still getting over the exhaustion of parenting that little kid.

I have felt certain energies about my own children as young babies. I knew Fia was going to be spirited and smart and chatty. I think Thisbe has a deeply sweet, more mellow but not exactly actually mellow energy. I think she will be grounded and gentle, in the strong way.

But in reality, of course, the meeting of your baby happens over time, and over and over again. There are surprises embedded in these young beings, things that you get to discover, little secrets of who they are that are honestly, as far as I can tell so far, the biggest joys of parenting.

I don’t know what those things will be with Thisbe. I won’t know for a while. But with Fia, the thing that has surprised me most has been her fascination with— or really her deep and meaningful love of princess life.

(This will be about writing eventually, I swear! Stick with me.)

By princess life I mean an unwillingness to wear anything but dresses, an insistence that her hair stay as long as possible. I mean her going happily to ballet, insisting on certain songs to do elaborate dance and singing performances to at home, taking off her school dress at the end of the day to put on a dress-up bin dress— a fancier, bigger, more rhinestoned gown— for her last hour of awake time. These choices are not light and fun. They are deeply felt, personal, and important. They are who she is. When she is not allowed to carry around our Sonos speaker playing an audiobook of a fairytale, she is despondent. When someone interrupts We Don’t Talk About Bruno at the part that she considers HER part, she melts down. I have to spend a week prepping her for any activity (day camp, soccer, swim class) that might involve wearing something other than a dress. Her discovery of night gowns was truly life changing— a way to wear dresses at night! I have stopped buying her non-sparkly shoes because the way she looks when she gets to wear the sparkly ones is everything.

There is a lot to say about all of this— I think often about the JOY of her telling me who she is and me getting to embrace that. It is FUN, like I’ve met this new person who has really strong convictions and huge truckloads of confidence and I get to just… support them. Then I think immediately of the many, many kids who have just as much clarity and passion for who they are who are not given that same support— either at home or out in the world or both. Fia has the gigantic privilege of society celebrating girls that want to be princesses. She is complimented constantly. She is treated in a way that aligns with her view of herself. She is affirmed regularly for who she tells people she is by her clothing, her interests, her personality, her emotional life. This is not extended to other kids— ones for whom their gender doesn’t perfectly align with the expectations society unfairly places on them, ones whose expression of identity is wrongly perceived as a challenge to… something? It’s enraging actually. And sad, too. For the kids most of all, and for the adults in their lives refusing to affirm them, since there is such joy in getting to simply be a support and spectator and not en engine or driver in someone else’s discovery of themselves. A question you get to ask as a parent all the time is: what is this interest of yours and how can i find a way to support it? And then you get to offer that support! And sometimes even SUCCEED. It is so much simpler than it is made out to be. It is actually the simplest thing.

I meant this to be a newsletter about writing too, and it is, but the bigger thing, the thing giving me energy right now if I’m fully honest is the waking up every day and getting to think creatively about what it is my kids might need based on what they are telling and showing me, and how I might open up space for them to receive it.

I mean, my god, writing is never that simple.

Or maybe it is exactly that simple. Simple doesn’t mean easy. Not with parenting or with creativity. We can know what our kids need but have to work incredibly hard (on ourselves, on the world, in the world) to provide it. Simple means clear. It means, to me, aligned with a heart, aligned with a truth. Just because something is simple, doesn’t mean it is easy to do. It probably mostly means the opposite.

When I was first writing books, I wasn’t as concerned with the way they did or did not align with my truth, my heart. Or maybe, more accurately, I didn’t know quite what the truth or heart even was. It didn’t feel like it was the point of the whole writing thing. The point was to get an agent, to get published, to get received well, to get approval. And the point was to Be A Writer, which was supposed to look a very particular way that had to do with coffee shops and long hair and the way I layered skirts over jeans, the way that one long, grey, fringed cardigan sweater fit me just right.

It’s been over ten years since I sold my first book. I know myself better now. Or maybe I know myself just as well, but I judge that person less. And in judging that person less, I am more freed up to write books that I enjoy writing, books that feel aligned with something other than the market or who I am expected to be. I write them, now, with spit-up stains on my ribbed long sleeve t-shirts. I am hazy from lack of sleep and the way I have to stop every few minutes to look up a kindergarten tour or pump or schedule someone’s flu shot or research passports for infants. It is not the way it looked in my head, but I embrace it anyway, because it is who I am now. So I have to support that person. Not the idea of a writer, but the real one here, at the kitchen table in a postpartum body, figuring out a babysitter so that I can get dinner with friends, writing books that feel a long, long way from OCD LOVE STORY and the writing of that book, which was so much about learning how to write a book.

Now the writing of a book is more about learning how to be myself. How to not apologize for the particular things that I care about right now— parenting and curiosity and the bigness of feelings and the smallness of the spaces in which we are allowed to have them.

Lately, I have been focused on writing an adult novel about motherhood and friendship, the two things I am most interested in right now. There are moments in which that feels embarrassing. I’m supposed to be better than that. I am supposed to be all cool, in my dimly lit coffee shop, with my fabulous weekend brunch plans and my never-before-been-spit-up-on cardigan, and my dreamy writing time.

But actually, this is kind of cool too. Fia is a princess-girl. I am an optimistic and overtired mother of two. In some ways, this is what was expected of us both, so maybe it feels boring or pathetic or sad, that we ended up here. She’s a princess. I’m a mom. Blah blah blah, I’m supposed to want more than that for us both. But actually, we’re both still learning what those labels mean, and how we can make them our own. And also, it is exciting, to get to meet these two people— almost five year old Fia, almost forty year old me, both of us actually sort of different than what I thought we had to be. Who told us that princesses and moms were so awful anyway? Who decided those things meant boring and buttoned up and silly and un-feminist and limited?

I write books about things people are afraid to talk about. Fia skips down the street in the fanciest dresses she can find, singing the songs that make her feel alive, telling anyone who will listen about her day. Aren’t we actually brave and bold, too?

I learn a lot about self-acceptance, watching Fia melt down when I suggest she wear a green t-shirt, when she flips out on the playground because someone interrupts her performance of Isabella in Encanto, when she shows everyone from our favorite barista to the neighborhood car mechanic to her teachers to her parents’ friends her nail polish, when she insists on one more Taylor Swift song to dance to, one more fairy-tale read aloud to her.

I sign her up for more ballet classes, I use ThredUp to find older kids’ used dresses from Easter and Halloween and holiday parties and fifth grade graduations to add to her dress-up bin, I let her choose the sparkly boots, I play her requested songs on my phone at the playground and watch— bemused, bashful, proud, confused, inspired— as she performs and insists and demands and tells me, over and over and over again exactly who she is.

She is not boring. There are a hundred ways to be a princess, and she’s finding the one that suits her best. There are at least a hundred ways to be a mom, too, to be a parent— it’s just that no one wants us to feel that way about it.

I think I thought parenting had something to do with teaching a kid how to be a good kid, but actually I think it might be more about showing a kid how to be themselves, which is actually the best kind of kid anyone could hope they would be.

It’s the same as my writing— at first it was about learning how to write a book. Now it is about learning how to be myself, how to believe that that is enough.

I can’t pretend I’m not sitting here, calculating when I have to feed my kid next, checking the monitor to see when they will wake up from their nap. And I still have more to say about mothers and mothering, about friendships that consume us and then slip away, about perfection and feelings and magic and hope. I am not the jaded writer in the coffee shop, I am not part of that grand, moody tradition.

I am enjoying Taylor Swift’s Lover album on repeat, and velvet leotards with white cloud tutus for ballet recitals and looking for a bike that is purple and has training wheels, because my kid wasn’t interested in balance bikes even though they’re how you’re “supposed” to learn. I am even (sort of) enjoying that my baby wants to wake up at 5am, eat, and then fall asleep on me on these too dark winter mornings. I am enjoying the mystery of who she is trying to become, I am listening for who she is going to tell me she is. I know she smiles at everyone and wakes up early and doesn’t get cold easily and hates being tired. She likes to stay home. She likes to suck her thumb. She likes to watch Fia be Fia. She glows from Fia’s attention.

As a baby, Fia went hard and then slept long. Thisbe slides through a vague, dreamy routine that allows for less of my writing and less thinking about writing, but more appreciation for each solitary beat of the day.

I was wired. Fia is spirited. Thisbe is dreamy.

And I am a writer-mom in leggings and cozy socks, drinking lattes at the kitchen table, writing about being a mom and being a daughter and being imperfect because I don’t have it in me to be anyone else, anymore.

News

End of the year lists can be a fraught thing for writers, but I am happy to report that LAWLESS SPACES made Chicago Public Library’s Best of 2022 list, and I am extra-thrilled to be represented on a library list such as this one— a total honor.

I’m working on some not-yet-contracted books at the moment, although stay tuned for more information on my next middle grade novel, THE WIDELY UNKNOWN MYTH OF APPLE AND DOROTHY (coming in 2023) and it’s STUPENDOUS cover. And more about my picture book (coming in 2024), A PLACE FOR FEELINGS, and the beautiful illustrations by Geeta Ladi coming in for that.

And it is the holiday season, so if you have a young reader in your life, or love stories about young people, here’s the Corey Ann Haydu Collection Gift Guide:

HAND ME DOWN MAGIC series— a maybe-magical, bicultural family in maybe-Brooklyn or somewhere a lot like Brooklyn owns a second hand shop which is also maybe-magical. The best-friend-cousins at the center of the series, Alma and Del, discover magic, make mistakes, have tough feelings, and laugh at the precocious antics of their littlest cousin and my favorite character, Evie. This one works as a readaloud for your not-yet-independent readers or as a read-on-your-own for new readers. My four year old likes the series, but I think the sweet spot is probably 5-8 years old.

ONE JAR OF MAGIC is now out in paperback and is my latest middle grade novel. It is about trying to be someone you’re not, and about a community where you collect jars of magic on New Year’s Day every year, and what happens if that task doesn’t go as planned. It is also about the things families try to hide, and how impossible it is, really, to keep anything at all locked in a jar. I’d put this one as best for ages 8-13, depending on the reader.

As mentioned above, LAWLESS SPACES is my latest YA novel. Told in verse, it is the story of 6 generations of mothers and daughters, their generational trauma, their family secrets, their relationships with their physical bodies, and their relationships with each other. I wrote this one during early Covid days, and it was one of the most rewarding and connected writing processes of my career thus far. If you don’t think you like poetry or you’ve never read a novel in verse, I challenge you to check this one out! I suggest this one for teen and adult readers, ages 14 and up.

And hey, feel free to check out my back list! My most popular book for ages 8-12 is EVENTOWN, which has been compared to THE GIVER and STEPFORD WIVES.

And for YA, one of my favorite YAs that I’ve written is THE CAREFUL UNDRESSING OF LOVE, which I think has crossover potential for adults and is a sort of alternate history of NYC which some fantastical magical elements— a love curse on a neighborhood of girls that may or may not be real. This one is a little hard to find, but is available in audiobook format, and I recommend that listen, the narration is by Julia Whelan, a huge voice actor talent!

Recommendations:

— I’m loving Sara Zarr’s series on comebacks, pivots and reinventions on her This Creative Life podcast. I’m finding it inspiring and I feel like it’s a conversation I don’t hear too often.

— When Fia was one, I got her a Buddha board for making mess free art. She’s recently rediscovered it as an almost five year old, and I highly recommend this for basically any age kid? or adult? It’s a cool way to paint with just water, and I think would be helpful for plane rides as well. Or really anytime your art loving kid HAS to make art but you are in a time crunch and can’t set up A Whole Messy Thing.

—For a picture book on the topic of embracing who you truly are, I recommend BUTTERFLY CHILD, written and illustrated by Marc Majewski. The illustrations are, truly, some of the most beautiful I have ever, ever seen. I find myself getting lost in the pure beauty of this book.

— Lastly, if you’re in the mood for some retro children’s lit, Fia and I have been reading a few pages of SOCKS by Beverly Cleary every night before bed. She chose it, neither of us realizing its about a cat who feels like he’s being replaced by a new baby entering the picture. So it’s an especially fun read for a kid with a new baby in the home. There are of course some Retro Moments, but as usual Beverly Cleary’s writing is just STUPENDOUS, and I love the way she absolutely refuses to talk down to kids. The writing is downright sophisticated, the vocabulary extensive, and still a young kid can connect.

This one was a lot of rambling and a lot of trying to find a point, but we got there, right? My brain isn’t its clearest these days, but I wanted to get a newsletter out and wish you all a happy holiday season and a happy new year.

xo

C