Mother's Day Archives

Water, Ash, the Ticking of a Clock: Using Concrete Images

By Lee Martin | May 10, 2026 |

In 2003, I published a book, Turning Bones, as part of the American Lives series at Nebraska Press. The book was a hybrid of nonfiction and fiction. I took what I knew about the paternal side of my family and used the facts to imagine lives for ancestors I never knew. In one section of…

The Other Mothers

By Lee Martin | May 12, 2025 |

When I was a little boy, I was greedy for my mother’s attention. An only child, I lived with my parents on an eighty-acre farm. When the children at the farm across the fields were otherwise engaged, my mother was my potential playmate. She was a kind and patient woman, but she was burdened by…