Thinkers Who Mother: January 2025

THINKERS WHO MOTHER

Venetia Dale, “Piecing Together: Here’s for Delight and Use”

Welcome to the first edition of Thinkers Who Mother of 2025. I’m so glad you’re here.

In the Jewish tradition, there is a blessing called the shehecheyanu, recited to honor firsts: the first time we light the year’s Hanukkah candles, or the first time we eat matzah at the Passover seder; the first day of a new school year, or the first time one becomes a grandparent. The shehecheyanu is a way of pausing to express wonder at having arrived—at this moment, in this place, at this one and only crossroads in time.

On a Tuesday morning a few weeks ago, a heard the sound of a box landing on my front porch. It was the same thud as every other box-delivery thud that forms the daily soundscape of my working days—but it was also an entirely new sort of thud, because it came from an entirely new sort of box: the one that contained finished copies of Mothers and Other Fictional Characters.

Let me tell you, opening that box and holding my book for the first time was one of my life’s most powerful shehecheyanu moments. Six years of imagining, hoping, writing, revising, doubting, giving up, getting sidetracked, and returning to the work again all culminated in this metaphoric—and absolutely literal—arrival of the new in my hands. My husband took this video of me opening the box to try to capture the the joy and gleam of the moment, and I do believe he succeeded!

What this video doesn’t capture, however, is the residue and noise and clutter of what was otherwise a completely unremarkable day: the jam-streaked breakfast dishes in the sink; the hurriedly scrawled to-do list on my desk; our dog Lyle, whining by the back door to go outside. The truth is that our lives’ milestones happen right alongside all the other moments of our days. I wrote every page of my book in the quiet pockets between ordinary moments, trying to capture the surprising profoundness many of these contain.

If you would like a box containing Mothers and Other Fictional Characters to land on your doorstep, there’s still time to preorder the book here, or here, or through your favorite neighborhood bookstore before March 4th! I’m so grateful for your readership and your support.

—Nicole

THINKER SPOTLIGHT

Venetia Dale

This issue’s featured thinker—sculptor, fiber artist, and mother of three Venetia Dale—feels like a true kindred spirit in her interest in the hidden richness of the everyday.

I first learned of Dale’s work in 2022, when a friend texted me about her exhibit at Boston’s Institute for Contemporary Art. “You will LOVE this,” she wrote, and attached this video of Dale giving a tour of her home studio, where she creates fiber sculptures out of other people’s unfinished embroidery projects and casts the detritus of her daily life—leftover food from her children’s meals, for example—in pewter.

My friend was right. I love how Dale’s work blurs the line between the artistic and the lived, the momentous and the daily. And I love her sculptures themselves, which capture the unfinishedness and disruption inherent in any caregiver’s life and make these part of her creations’ beauty. “In all of my work, I really value an honesty and transparency to being human,” Dale says in her video—words that resonate with me so deeply: It’s this very same desire that calls me to write true stories.

After fangirling Dale’s work for the past few years, I was so happy for the chance to chat with her about her work and inspirations:

———————

NGL: I’m curious, when did you know that visual art was your calling?

VD: I didn’t feel a calling to be an artist when I was young but enjoyed taking art classes in high school and then in college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I spent my first few undergrad years changing majors (sociology, international studies, women's studies) until my love for making art became the obvious path for me.

Becoming an artist has proved to be a great fit! I get to research and question social and cultural narratives and then translate these into material and form. The challenge of making tangible the emotional landscape of mothering, interpersonal relationships, and community into a sculpture is what keeps me curious and connected to my making practice.

N: In what ways have motherhood and caregiving shaped your trajectory as an artist?

VD: In the many months (and years) after giving birth to my first child in 2015, the care for my baby was constant and unpredictable, inhibiting what I felt was my productive work. Productivity as a value was put into deep question at that time. This led me to look inward to my caretaking as the source of rebuilding my value system. That was transformational for me in my life and completely changed how I approached my making and thinking in this past decade.

A series that began during this searching, and work I am still making, is titled “Piecing Together.” I collected other people’s pause or interruption, in the form of their partially completed embroidery projects I found on E-Bay. Cutting all the fabric and stitching the parts into new arrangements placed these once-isolated works within a larger collective visual field and in community with one another.

NGL: What has inspired you lately?

I’m inspired by the ways people show care in their individual lives and then finding ways to show the collective impact. I’m currently working on an outdoor sculpture for DeCordova Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA, opening in May. I collected house plant clippings from people that bring care to the DeCordova Museum as well as stories from the owners about their houseplants: how the plants came into their homes and what meaning their care of the plant holds. (I have many nicknames shared for these plant clippings!)

I hold these plant donors’ stories close with me—from tender reflections to practical home decor ideas—as each clipping is molded, pewter cast and built into its final form.

Venetia Dale, (B)reach Consensus: flower bows

VIEW MORE OF VENETIA DALE’S WORK HERE

UPCOMING EVENTS

A book tour preview

What I’m looking forward to most about the release of Mothers and Other Fictional Characters are the in-person events lined up. I’m so excited to speak with readers directly, and to be in conversation with Gina Frangello, Courtney Maum, Emily Raboteau, Cindy House, Elizabeth L. Silver, and so many other writers whose work I’ve treasured for years (see above book pile for a fuller preview!).

On March 5, there will be a hometown launch celebration at the Coolidge Corner Theater, hosted by the Brookline Booksmith. My novelist friend and writing spouse Karen Winn will be MC-ing the event, and I’ll be in conversation with the one-and-only Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year and A Fortunate Age, and one of my all-time favorite writers and human beings. It’s impossible to calculate how many hours I’ve spent with family and friends in these storied community spaces over the years, and it means so much to me to be partnering with them for this celebration.

Local friends, you can get your tickets here!

If you don’t live in the Boston area, I hope I’ll get to see you at one of my upcoming stops in Providence, New York City, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Connecticut, Portland (ME), New Orleans, and elsewhere! Below is an overview, and you can check out the full tour schedule for more specifics.

OTHER UPDATES!

These weeks leading up to the book release have contained some wonderful highlights. I was so honored to learn that the book received a starred review from the notoriously cranky industry magazine Kirkus Reviews, and that it was included on the The Millions Most Anticipated Winter 2025 book list, as well as Zibby Owens’ Most Anticipated Reads list.

There are also two exciting, time-sensitive opportunities I need you to know about!

Goodreads Giveaway
For the next 4 days only (ending January 28), you can visit Goodreads and enter this giveaway for the chance to win one of forty copies of Mothers and Other Fictional Characters. It’ll take just a second, and forty copies is a lot, actually—I think your chances are good! If you’ve already pre-ordered the book (bless you), don’t let this stop you—you can gift this one to a friend and make them happy.
Limited Edition Print by Shana Frase
The talented LA artist Shana Frase created this stunning watercolor painting, “Maiden, Mother, Crone,” inspired by the cover of Mothers and Other Fictional Characters. Preorder the book now and fill out this form for a chance to win one of three fine art prints of this piece. (Won’t it look so good on your office wall, or in the hands of your dearest friend on her birthday!) I’ll also personally send all entrants a beautiful signed bookplate to place in your book when it arrives.

The most meaningful highlight of the past few weeks has been, hands down, narrating and recording the audio version of Mothers and Other Fictional Characters. It turns out that authors actually have to audition to narrate their books, which took me way out of my hermit comfort zone, but…I got the part!

I’ve learned so much through this process about the art of narration, which is very different than simply reading aloud—and about the mechanics of audio production, which has always intrigued me. I’m really grateful for this chance to bring my book alive in my own voice. If you prefer your books in audio form, I can’t wait to get my recording into your…ears???

READING RECOMMENDATIONS

One huge pleasure of preparing for upcoming events has been getting a sneak preview of Spring 2025 titles by some of the authors I’ll be encountering on my travels. There are so many truly special books coming out in the next few months. But for now, here are three I’m particularly excited about:

We Would Never by Tova Mirvis
Mirvis’s latest masterpiece is a gripping literary suspense novel based on a true crime story—involving a murdered husband and his ex-wife—that captivated her for years. I am midway through the book and putting it down only to send this newsletter!
After Lives by Megan Marshall
In this thought-provoking collection of essays, Marshall—a Pulitzer Prize winning biographer who also happens to be my former teacher!—illuminates how the personal and political, the intimate and the historic, are more deeply entwined than we might think.
The Good Mother Myth by Nancy Reddy
This riveting and deeply important book came out three days ago, which is good news for the world because Reddy’s deep-dive into the flawed social science that has shaped cultural expectations around motherhood is a long overdue must-read.

That’s all for now!

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NICOLE GRAEV LIPSON

I’m the author of the memoir-in-essays Mothers and Other Fictional Characters, forthcoming from Chronicle Books in March 2025. My essays have appeared in The Sun, Virginia Quarterly Review, Gettysburg Review, Creative Nonfiction, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe, among other places. My writing has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, nominated for a National Magazine Award, and selected for The Best American Essays.

VISIT MY WEBSITE