Happy birthday to the bravest, funniest, kindest, most thoroughly amazing 92 year old I know. I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am to be your daughter. Thank you for all you have taught me and continue to teach me about language and life and love.
Lifting a bottle of (ginger) beer to celebrate the first day my firstborn can order a real beer. Thank you, Arin, for initiating me into motherhood with the sweetness, intelligence, humor and zest for life that's been with you from the very beginning. I am so proud of you, so filled with love for you, so lucky to be your mom.
I am the author of Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write (HarperSanFrancisco), Dictionary Poems (Pudding House Publications), and the novels The Book of Dead Birds (HarperCollins), which won Barbara Kingsolver's Bellwether Prize for Fiction in Support of a Literature of Social Change, Self Storage (Ballantine)and Delta Girls (Ballantine), along with my first novel for young readers, My Life with the Lincolns (Henry Holt). You can visit my website at www.gaylebrandeis.com or email me at gaylebrandeis at gmail.com. I am on the national staff of CODEPINK: Women for Peace and am a founding member of the Women Creating Peace Collective. I live in Riverside, CA, where I am currently serving a two year term as Inlandia Literary Laureate, and am mom to two adult kids and a toddler.