Pamela Jane’s New Memoir: An Incredible Talent for Existing
It is 1965, the era of love, light—and revolution. While the romantic narrator imagines a bucolic future in an old country house with children running through the dappled sunlight, her husband plots to organize a revolution and fight a guerrilla war in the Catskills.
Their fantasies are on a collision course.
And then, just when it seems that things cannot possibly get more explosive, her wilderness cabin burns down and Pamela finds herself left with only the clothes on her back.
From her vividly evoked existential childhood to writing her first children’s book on a sugar high during a glucose tolerance test, Pamela Jane takes the reader along on a highly entertaining personal, political, and psychological adventure.
“Jane has woven a richly empowering memoir…a five-star read!”–Story Circle Reviews
Buy An Incredible Talent for Existing Now:
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Books
*Click on the COVERS for more information about each, and how to order.
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- My latest Halloween Book
“I tried to become famous as a saint, but that didn’t work out too well.”
About Pamela Jane
Pamela Jane is the author of more than thirty children’s books, from board books to memoir. Her recent children’s books include the much-loved Halloween book, Little Goblins Ten, a spinoff of the classic rhyme “Over in the Meadow.” The Christmas sequel is Little Elfie One. Both books are published by Harper and illustrated by NY Times best-selling illustrator, Jane Manning.
Pamela is also the author of a new memoir, An Incredible Talent for Existing: A Writer’s Story (her main talent growing up though she never became famous for it.)
In addition to children’s books and memoir, Pamela is the coauthor of Pride and Prejudice and Kitties: A Cat-Lover’s Romp Through Jane Austen’s Classic. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Writer’s Digest, The Writer, the New York Daily News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Baltimore Sun, and The Antigonish Review, among other places.
Her new children’s book C Jumped Over Three Pots and a Pan – and Landed SMACK in the Garbage Can! (ages 3-6) will be out in 2019. Read more.
Memoir Excerpt Published in The Writer:
Just wait! A short story rejected in grade school becomes a cause of action
In elementary school, back in the 1950s, we were never given writing assignments, and I never imagined there were any living authors. I pictured a cemetery filled with tombstones of my favorite writers with their last names first, like card catalogs in the library: Baum, L. Frank 1856-1919. Writing – the pleasure of articulating interior worlds sensed but not seen – was something I did on my own. I was in eighth grade before I got a chance to write a story for school. My eighth-grade English teacher, Mr. Mortem, was a malevolent-looking man with a low brow and small beady eyes. We joked that he moonlighted as an axe murderer. But he was even scarier as an English teacher. He terrorized us with menacing-sounding exams called “evaluations,” which turned out to be ordinary multiple-choice tests. But he was the first teacher to give us an assignment to write a short story. “Remember,” Mr. Mortem called as we filed out … Read on
My Perfect Writing Fantasy!
Recently I was taking a woodland walk, while indulging in an unbelievable fantasy. It’s the same fantasy I’ve had, with variations, since I was a little girl. I’m a children’s book author who works at home while her wonderful husband is away at work and her wonderful child is off at school. So, what’s my real life like? Well, I’m a children’s book author. I work at home while my family is away at work or off at school and they are wonderful-most of the time. And yet my fantasy couldn’t be further from reality. As I walked through the spring woods, I pondered why. To begin with, my children’s author fantasy is set sometime in the 1940s. I write quietly at home; I don’t have to market or promote my books. I’ve had the same editor for twenty years; she buys everything I write, and all my books stay in print forever. If I need a little extra money … Read on
Am I Good at Anything Else?
Children’s book authors get asked all kinds of questions at school visits. “How much money do you make?” “How old are you?” “Does your hand get tired when you color?” (This last was asked by a kindergartner and I consider it one of the great existential questions of all time. Often, when I’m in a philosophical mood, I reflect on it.) The most unnerving question I’ve ever been asked was “Are you good at anything besides writing?” As I stood in front of the school auditorium with 500 curious faces peering up at me, my mind went blank. The embarrassing truth is, I don’t do anything but write. I don’t even have a hobby. I’d like to act in a daytime drama and play the piano and write lyrics for Broadway but I don’t have time. Then suddenly, as I stood staring out at the young, expectant faces, I remembered something. “I’m good at laundry!” I said. The kids weren’t … Read on