Books, Blogs, and Clutter

 
The Best Single Mom in the World: How I Was Adopted
 
Although I am single, I knew I couldn’t go through life without being a mom. When I adopted my daughter from Russia, there were no adoption picture books featuring a single parent (unless you count Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss). For years I wanted to write and illustrate a book to fill the single-parent-adoption void. But single motherhood was a demanding job. It wasn’t until my daughter was 9, and I fatefully lost my job, that I finally had the time to create my book. Even though my daughter was too old for picture books, I knew single parents and their children would benefit from the story of forming a forever family through adoption.

Around the blogosphere, I’ve written about:

Nerdy Chicks Rule!

• Something About Mary—Talented kidlit authors Kami Kinard and Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen gave me the opportunity to exercise my blogging muscles at their Nerdy Chicks Rule blog. I've always been thankful.
  
• Carpe Diem, Oprah, and Motherhood—the path that lead me to motherhood.
• My Mother’s 99 Years of Life through Photos—The year after this blog post, my mother reached 100 years before departing for Heaven.
• The (His)tory of Art and the National Museum of Women in the Arts
• Mother Nature: The Ultimate Nerdy Chick
• The Quotable Nerdy Chick: Mary Cassatt
• A Winter Dream Tree Grows in Jersey—I started 2014 with writing and illustrating dreams that are only now coming true.

Single Parent and International Adoption

• "Our Dog Helped My Daughter Realize Family Is Forever"—a personal story on adoption about adopting my daughter, then our first dog, from Adoptive Families magazine.
  
• Interview with me about The Best Single Mom in the World and older child adoption at Comeunity.com.

All images, copyright Mary Zisk, 2024