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Going to AWP, Seattle!!!!

Whoopie! I will be attending AWP conference in Seattle, March 9-11 as the AWP Sue Silverman Award-winner in Creative Nonfiction ’21. I consider this an honor for which I am incredibly grateful, but also great fun and wildly entertaining as I negotiate the hoopla and just hope I can remember people's names--being that when I get nervous that's the first thing to go. Here's what's

Anne-Marie gets to Interview Anna Quindlen???

Excuse all the exclamation points but OMG!!! I just learned that I will have the honor of interviewing a writer on whom I've had a literary crush for years! I can't quite believe it yet, but I will be on stage of the Opera House with Anna Quindlen. Yes, the Anna Quindlen who wrote "One True Thing" and a couple dozen other great reads, who

Chat with the Authors: Anne-Marie and Jacob Wheeler

On Thursday, December 15, at 6 pm at the Oliver Art Center in Frankfort, award-winning local authors Anne-Marie Oomen and Jacob Wheeler will host a lively literary conversation and read from our new nonfiction books — As Long as I Know You (Oomen) and Angel of the Garbage Dump (Wheeler). These wide-ranging nonfiction books promise an absorbing read, and make fabulous holiday gifts. Join us

November is Packed!! Join me for the fun.

November 3, 2022, 7:30 pm. Anne-Marie Oomen with be reading at Ludington Public Library, Ludington, MI. Visit Ludington Public Library for, “…[t]he story of one daughter’s journey to her mother’s heart.” Ludington Writers will host a talk with Anne-Marie Oomen, author of As Long as I Know You: The Mom Book, in Ludington Library’s West Shore Bank Room. As Long as I Know You is

Eavesdropping: Literary License to Listen

Cherry Republic in Glen Arbor, and I’m eavesdropping on two kids, maybe just under and just over ten, the girl older by a bit. They stare at the chocolate covered cherry samples which Cherry Republic sets out in daring generosity. Because free samples of chocolate covered cherries draw children like flies, these are offered at the back of the store, in sight of the folks

Novel Garden: Swiss Chard

Hello Friends, I've been following the direction of a favorite poet, Jack Ridl, doing this thing where I try to sit in my novel garden (so called for the novel I will never write) and simply notice things, simply "see" the small world of my raised beds with their baby vegetables. Then I just say the "poem" that rises. These are not great poems,

Watching Plovers Stand on One Leg

Years ago a writer friend asked how I kept my balance in a life with so many demands. She was worried and upset because her life felt off balance, and she felt overburdened, and torn in multiple directions and like so many of us, she had less time left to write than she liked—which was, like so many of us, her great love. She

Mind Work-Brain Rest

The press was waiting and my book was not done. A few years ago, I needed to finish An American Map, a collection of essays I had been putting together for what seemed like years. It was to be my first essay collection, and it was about travel and place, a break from my obsession with the rural memoir. I was thrilled. I