In addition to her new children’s book, "Jack the Healing Cat," English Professor Marilyn Kallet has coedited a multicultural mother/daughter anthology, "The Movable Nest: A Mother/Daughter Companion."
Her coeditor is North Carolina Poet Laureate Kathryn Stripling Byer.
The book features poems, essays, letters and stories about sending grown daughters out into the world and caring for aging mothers. It includes essays by such notable authors as Pulitzer winner Rita Dove, Nobel Laureate Nelly Sachs, Linda Pastan and Jamaica Kincaid.
Writings are from both the mothers’ and the daughters’ perspectives and include some mother-daughter pairs, with pieces by Byer and her daughter, Cory Lynette Byer; Hispanic poet Pat Mora and her daughter, Libby Martinez; and author-poet-musician-screenwriter Joy Harjo and her daughter, Rainy Ortiz.
Six years in the making, the book is supported by the Missouri Arts Council, the Midwest Council on the Arts and private foundations, as well as the UT Humanities Initiative and the John C. Hodges Better English Fund.