Kelly Corrigan | Glitter and Glue

It is with so much honor that I write to you about one of my favorite authors today.  I first was introduced to Kelly Corrigan when in early 2009, my friend Nancy sent me the link to Kelly’s now famous video “Transcending.”  The rest has become a part of my history.  I can remember almost every word I’ve ever read or heard by Kelly.  Her writing puts words to the deep thoughts of my heart and gives them weight and voice.  As a dear friend was moving away, dozens of us gathered to wish her well and read lines from that favorite speech.

Then came the debut of her first novel, The Middle Place.  As with each of Kelly’s novels, I laugh and cry profoundly moved by each word as the memoir unfolds about her meeting breast cancer face to face while her father’s bladder cancer resurfaces.  She describes family life honestly, in all its beauty and tedium.  I was equally thrilled when Lift was released, I can remember exactly where I was when I devoured her love letter to her girls reminding me that my life as a mother is as significant as our time here is limited.

And then, there is the pure pleasure of hearing Kelly Corrigan in person.  In the spring of 2012, The Circle of Friends hosted a lunch to benefit the Lucile Packard Hospital in Palo Alto.  Members of the Circle of Friends and community were fortunate enough to come together to support our neighborhood children’s hospital while being treated to a morning with Kelly Corrigan.  Since that day, I’ve been awaiting the release of her third memoir, Glitter and Glue. I pre-ordered it with the same anticipation of lunch with a dear friend.  Thrilled the day it landed on my front porch, I inhaled it.  The thing about Kelly’s novels, and any good novel for that matter, is that it consumes you.  Glitter and Glue was no different.  I’m sending it to my mom, it’s an “I get it now”  kind of book.  One that I hope my daughters someday understand when they are mothers themselves.

I can’t recommend highly enough, Kelly’s newest book.  Her writing style is truthful and honest with some potty mouth in all the right places.  She doesn’t pretend to have it all figured out.  She is self-deprecating and hilarious. But she is also opening her heart and leaving it there vulnerable for us.  It’s like listening to a friend tell you a story. They lay it all out there in hopes that you will see through to their core without judgement.  In fact you will likely see some of yourself there.  And that’s exactly what Kelly Corrigan does in this book.  She shows me, myself as a young daughter and a grown daughter, a first time new mother, an evolving mother and of course, my mother. Kelly says that “things happen when you leave the house,”  but what she finds out through this poignant tale of her early twenties, is that big beautiful hard things happen at home as well.  Mothers are at the heart of this. All mothers.

Enter to win a copy of her book by leaving a comment below.  Giveaway will end at midnight PST Tuesday March 4, 2014.  Winner will be notified by email.

Take a moment to listen to the trailer for Glitter and Glue: A Memoir, where Kelly describes this one true life as being IT!

Upcoming Events to hear Kelly Corrigan in person:

February 28 – DC, Bethesda Barnes and Noble 7:30pm

March 1 – Boston, Wellesley Public Library 3pm

March 3 – Houston, Blue Willow Books 7pm

March 4 – Dallas, Highland Park United Methodist Church 7pm

March 5 – Marin, Dominican University 7 pm

March 13 – Sacramento, Tsakopoulos Library Galleria 6pm

March 18 – Menlo Park, Keplers Bookstore 7:30pm

and many more on her tour.