“If I’d Known You Were Coming”
Everybody needs somebody. Just one other person who is as faithful to them as they are to themselves.
Winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award (the John Simons Short Fiction Award) in 2013, If I’d Known You Were Coming is a collection of 12 short stories written by Kate Milliken. Although each story stands alone, many of the colorful characters reappear in several of the narratives which makes parts of the book appear to be a novella. The common theme that runs through all the stories is the dysfunctional characters – people who abandon or neglect their children, chase addictions, skirt responsibility, or succumb to their fears or desires – whose flaws impose great harm upon others.
Read more 
“The Problem with Teenagers is Their Parents”
In my mailbox this week was the current issue of New York Magazine (Jan 20, 2014) which displays the upfront and in-your-face shot of a raging mother and a calm teenage son with the words “The Problem with Teenagers is Their Parents“ emblazoned across the cover. My first reaction was to read the cover story (The Collateral Damage of a Teenager, an excerpt from All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior, to be published later this month), and then either tear the cover off or hide the issue from my teenage daughter thinking this would be another article about over zealous helicopter parents pushing their kids to the brink of insanity. But, after reading the article, my opinion completely changed. I e-mailed the link to both my daughter and husband with the by-line: “you have to read this.” Read more
Paddock Post 