Kyran Pittman
Kyran Pittman is a contributing writer for Good Housekeeping. She lives in Arkansas with her husband and three children. Visit her website here.
PLANTING DANDELIONS: Field Notes from a Semi-Domesticated Life (2011)
In the family of Jen Lancaster and Elizabeth Gilbert, Kyran Pittman is the laid-back middle sister: warm and witty and confiding, with an addictively smart and genuine voice-but married with three kids and living in the heartland. Relatable and real, she writes about family in a way that highlights all its humor, while at the same time honoring its depth.
A regular contributor to Good Housekeeping, Pittman is well loved because she is funny and honest and self-deprecating, because her own household is in chaos ("semi-domesticated"), and because she inspires readers in their own domestic lives. In these eighteen linked, chronological essays, Pittman covers the first twelve years of becoming a family, writing candidly and hilariously about things like learning to maintain a marriage over time; dealing with the challenges of sex after childbirth; saying good-bye to her younger self and embracing the still attractive, forty-year-old version; and trying to "recession- proof" her family (i.e., downsize to avoid foreclosure).
From a fresh new talent, celebrating the joys and trials of a new generation of parents, Planting Dandelions is an entertaining tribute to choosing the white-picket fence over the other options available, even if you don't manage to live up to its ideals every day.
“[This is a] hilarious, searing essay collection. … [Pittman’s] tales of modern motherhood are fearless and addictive.”—People (four stars)
"In this wry, warts-and-all memoir, Good Housekeeping contributing writer Kyran Pittman offers up snapshots from her life, and she is nothing if not very, very human. ...[Her] confessional tone is balanced with her clear affection for family life in all its messiness. Now a mommy of three, Pittman is just as passionate when writing about life in suburbia as when musing on postpartum sex...Being a mom isn't always (or even usually) glamorous, but Pittman recognizes the beauty of family life in this interesting, funny and fresh entry in the mommy memoir genre."—Bookpage
"Crisp, witty dispatches from the domestic front by a former wild child. . . . The author writes with an acerbic intellect, blending self-deprecation with reflective back-patting into cohesive life stories that are relatable and, thankfully, usually funny."—Kirkus
"Kyran Pittman is a fresh new voice in non-fiction-honest, intimate, and thoroughly smart. Her self-perception and integrity make us cheer her on as she goes through her domestic trials-and at the same time feel confident that she will emerge from them unscathed. I highly recommend this book."—Amy Sohn, author of Prospect Park West
"Kyran Pittman is a warm, honest, very funny writer. I loved her book."—Julie Klam, author of You Had Me at Woof
"Kyran Pittman's searingly honest confessionals, and her expert wit, should serve as a model and inspiration for all the former 'bad girls' who've crossed over into motherhood."—Neal Pollack, author of Alternadad
Rights: Riverhead, World