17. Shaping a life around writing w/ Nancy McCabe

The process of writing can be joyful, freeing, and nourishing to the soul. But when you become a parent, everything changes. The love for writing does not waiver, but the time to dedicate to your writing does.

Joining today’s conversation is Nancy McCabe, a single mom and accomplished professor who has published several books. She grew up loving stories but didn't think she could make a career out of writing.

With an intrinsic desire to write, Nancy had to intentionally carve out time to write her numerous books. She found fun ways to integrate her love of writing into motherhood, thus enabling Nancy to find a balance that worked and inspired her writing.

Erin speaks to Nancy about her writing projects, the writing process, and important female authors. They also discuss how many films and television shows miss the mark on capturing the spirit of a novel’s story, and they touch on the lack of diversity in classic children’s books.

Topics discussed in this episode:

• Learning to love teaching
• Shaping a life around writing
• Deciding to be a single parent through adoption
• Folding our kids into our writing lives
• Rereading children’s books from an adult perspective
• Nancy’s book, Little Houses to Little Women: Revisiting a Literary Childhood
• Female authors and characters who love to write
• Joe’s new ending in the Little Women film
• Embracing the messy first draft as part of the writing process
• Erin details her current WIP fantasy book
• Advice on revision techniques and feedback
• Missing the mark from book to screen 

About Nancy: 

Nancy McCabe, an author and a Pushcart winner, directs the creative and professional writing program at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford and teaches in the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University. 

She became a single parent by choice when she adopted her daughter from China in 1999, writing two memoirs about China adoption and homeland travel while her daughter was growing up and dragging her along on research trips and book tours.

Get her books:

• Can This Marriage Be Saved? A Memoir
• Following Disasters: A Novel
• From Little Houses to Little Women: Revisiting a Literary Childhood
• Crossing the Blue Willow Bridge: A Journey to My Daughter’s Birthplace in China
• Meeting Sophie: A Memoir of Adoption
• After the Flashlight Man: A Memoir of Awakening
• Vaulting through Time (forthcoming)
• AMAZON PAGE: https://www.amazon.com/Nancy-McCabe/e/B001K8OBBA 

Connect with Nancy: 

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nancy.mccabe.92 
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/nancygmccabe 
• Website: https://www.nancymccabe.net/ 

Books discussed during the show:

• Betsy Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace
• Anne of Green Gables series by Lucy Maud Montgomery
• Rilla of Ingleside by Lucy Maud Montgomery
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
• When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
• Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
• Coretta Scott King Book Award Winners List
• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
• Author and Poet Gloria Whelan

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