The past belongs to everyone who was there. What do you remember? ADD YOUR STORY
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While our sister is incommunicado, celebrating her birthday in Mexico with her husband, I thought it prudent to publish a slightly embarrassing photographic journey of a life filled with a whole lotta love, intelligence, kindness, generosity, beauty, and grace. (To ensure that she won’t be TOO mad at me, I included a pretty picture of her in which I have a double chin.)
2009 was a good year for the Welches: Dan met Lindsay, his fiance, I married Gideon, the love of my life, and Diana had Harvey–the first Welch of that generation–making Amanda the coolest grandmother/aunt in the universe. And that was all BEFORE our book was published on September 29th, 2009.
our mom died. Christmas 1985 was the worst ever, and 1986 to 1990 were pretty sad too as my siblings and I were separated. Our memoir ends with the four of us reunited, after five long painful years apart. That Christmas 1991 was a happy occasion–Diana’s stocking hung stuffed to the cuff next to Amanda’s, Dan’s and mine. We played Santa for each other then, and continued to do so for many years afterward. In fact, many people who have read our book have asked, what happened next?? Read more →
We just had an amazing Thanksgiving together at Diana’s. They have a big pot luck with all of their friends; it was a ton of fun.
The title of this series, “Dead Babies,” refers both to the term writers often use to describe the often painful act of editing scenes we love — “killing our babies” – and the Alice Cooper song.
(For those of you who feel frightened or disgusted by the linked video, perhaps you’ll be comforted by what Alice is up to now.)
When we handed The Kids are All Right over to our editor, we knew that the monstrous manuscript we were giving her was way longer than it was supposed to be. But it’s hard to fit four childhoods into one book, and we just couldn’t bear to up and trash those memories that are so strong or scrap those incidences that still hold such importance for each of us.
This is a letter we received from Kristin, who eloquently wrote about the importance of orphaned siblings staying together…
“When I heard about your book on Good Morning America, I couldn’t wait to pick up a copy and start reading.
Although our family story is slightly different, we too recently lost both of our parents. Cancer never ran in our family but, suddenly, our father was diagnosed with colon cancer and after a short, painful battle, he passed away less than 4 months after his diagnosis. Our mom struggled with the loss – she had just lost her mom (our grandmom) only 9 months before her husband (our dad) passed away. Needless to say, we were all shocked to learn — just 7 months later — that our mom had stage IV breast cancer.” Read more →
We are so glad to get everyone’s stories and comments. It’s great reconnecting with old friends, family, and fans of Mom’s — not to mention hearing from people we’ve never even met but who have been inspired to contact us after reading or hearing about The Kids are All Right.
We want to keep the conversation going….So, we are on Facebook and Twitter. Friend us, become a fan, follow us, send us a tweet!
As witnessed in the Page 99 test: “Mom had other things to think about. June, her character on Loving, was about to murder her husband Garth Slater, who kept her drunk so he could sneak into their daughter Lily’s room at night to molest her. In the script, she kills Garth to protect Lily. While that may have been good for Lily, it was not good for us. June was being sent to an insane asylum which meant Mom was out of a job as of that spring.”
Click through to watch the clip from Loving, and decide for yourself if you think June did the right thing!
At the Texas Book Festival this past Saturday, I had the incredible honor of sitting on a panel with Nadine Eckhardt and Diane Wilson. These women are extraordinary, and the standing-room only crowd was proof.
I had never met Nadine, a beauty queen and a self-described “fifties girl,” who served on LBJs staff and managed to marry – and divorce – two of Texas’ most legendary scoundrels, but I had already had the pleasure of meeting Diane, a fourth generation shrimper and a gorgeous, incomparable force of nature, who single-handedly took down some legendary scoundrels of her own: Formosa Plastics, a corporate giant with a habit of dumping toxic waste in the waters of her hometown of Seadtrift, Texas, making her county the most polluted in the state. Read more →
I used to LOVE to make mixed tapes. I had a pretty regular formula for what I thought were pretty awesome mixes. There was always a classical piece; something I had heard in a movie, usually. Read more →
