By Nancy LaTurner, author of “Motherless Child” in Wisdom Has a Voice: Every Daughter’s Memories of Mother

Katrina Norfleet’s earlier blog post “Uncovering what’s Universal,” (November 7, 2011) struck a harmonious chord in me. The mother-daughter-mother triangle rings true in my life too. My mother always encouraged me to pursue my dreams and I’ve carried that legacy on with my own children.

In fact, when I signed up for my first writing class I did it for my daughter’s sake. I intended to learn enough to help my daughter achieve her writing goals, not mine. I had no writing goals — I was not a writer.

The listing in the university course catalog said it all, “How to write and publish a children’s picture book.” I imagined that I would go to class, take extensive notes, and relay the information to my daughter, who liked the idea of writing children’s books but didn’t want to leave her newborn son to attend lectures. We agreed that she, always the writer in our family, would do the homework assignments.

Fired up with enthusiasm, I marched into the classroom, claimed a seat in the front row, and poised my pen over the first page of a fresh new notebook. The instructor, Elsie Karr Kreischer, an older woman with an impressive list of published children’s books to her credit, introduced herself and immediately turned my world upside down.

I stared like a robot at the blank paper in front of me as I heard the words, “writing prompt,” “thirty minutes to write,” and “read your work aloud.” My feet shifted forward, ready to carry me out of the classroom in disgrace.

Perhaps I felt too exposed in the spotlight of that front row seat to get up and leave. Or maybe dread had actually paralyzed me. Whatever the reason, I remained in my place and courageously scribbled along with the other fourteen students for a very long thirty minutes.

That life-changing moment altered my reality. Over the next several weeks I learned that I was a writer too. With Elsie Karr Kreischer’s encouragement I submitted stories and essays to contests and responded to calls for submissions, winning awards in both the SouthWest Writers and the Writer’s Digest annual contests as well as publication in the Albuquerque Almanac and the SouthWest Sage.

Over the next several months, I took classes from Eileen Stanton, popular newspaper humorist and radio talk show host; and from Robert Gish, prolific author of fiction, memoir, and literary biographies. As I flexed my new writing muscles, I realized that I wanted to write a book — not a children’s book, but a memoir book.

Using National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) as a springboard, I launched myself into a daily writing habit and finished the first draft of my book in the following two months. Several revisions later, I emerged from my spare bedroom writing space with a final manuscript.

The call for submissions for the Wisdom Has a Voice anthology came with perfect timing. What a marvelous home that anthology would be, I thought, for the chapter I wrote about losing my mother.

And what a wonderful honor to have my piece selected! With the sensitive and gentle guidance of editor Kate Farrell, I moved beyond mere excerpt and combined two chapters of my memoir into an adaptation that afforded even more opportunity to explore and reflect upon my mother’s influence in my life.

When I read the contributions of the other authors, I felt another surge of pride to be among this particular group of women, each with a different story to tell but all united in our belief in the timeless power of the relationship between mothers and daughters.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

I’m glad to say that shortly after Wisdom Has a Voice: Every Daughter’s Memories of Mother came out, I published my memoir, Voluntary Nomads: A Mother’s Memories of Foreign Service Family Life, and soon after that my daughter finished her first novel, Stars in Sticks.

Our experience feels like living proof of a universal truth: as our mothers pass away and we grow into the mother role, we must strive to continue our maternal legacy and, at the same time, provide even more powerful examples of womanhood that will enrich our children’s lives. Like mother, like daughter, again and stronger.

By Nancy LaTurner, author of “Motherless Child” in Wisdom Has a Voice: Every Daughter’s Memories of Mother