Local author explores mother’s love

Share stories of motherhood

Motherhood is life-changing for every woman, so when Elizabeth Adam began chronicling the story of her motherhood experiences in her new book, Mother Love: Portraits of its Power, it was no surprise that her book changed to include more mothers than just herself.

“When I started dialoguing with other women around me, I realized that I need to start putting other people’s stories in here as well,” Adam said last Friday at Westwood United Church, where she launched her promotional tour in support of the self-published book.

Adam has simultaneously published a companion work for pregnant women, called Great Expectation: An Inspirational Pregnancy Guide. She says the subject matter is what she thinks will get people interested in her work.

“I think people really enjoy reading stories — personal life stories. There’s very strong stories all around us, but we don’t notice them until we really start looking for them,” she said. “I think it’s a good first book because it’s something that people are interested in because of the subject, more than because of the author, so it will be a good step for developing my readership.”

One of the stories in Adam’s book is that of Lisa Birdsbill, mother of two. Birdsbill said that she was both nervous and excited about the prospect of sharing her story with Adam.

“I was obviously a bit nervous about exposing something that was so personal,” said Birdsbill. “But Liz really captured the story well. All the mothers in the book have unique situations, and it was really interesting to read her take on them, and to watch her weave different themes from the story through them.”

Birdsbill said seeing her story in print was a bit surprising. Another of the women profiled in Mother Love, Pam Warkentin, echoed this thought.

“It was almost a bit strange to see the story told from a different perspective,” said Warkentin, mother of three. “She did a great job of retelling it, though, and weaving in her own lessons and story with ours. It was kind of fun sharing things from my life, and my children’s lives and looking back to when I first had kids.”

Adam would like to follow Mother Love with another book.

“I’d like to write a sort of sequel to this book, but I’m not sure when that’s going to play out,” she said. “I have, of course, ideas coming out my ears, like a lot of writers do, but I’m not sure exactly what my next project will be yet.”