Maggie Smith

From the award-winning poet and bestselling author of Keep Moving and Good Bones, a stunning poetry collection that celebrates the beauty and messiness of life. With her breakout bestseller Keep Moving, Maggie Smith captured the nation with her “meditations on kindness and hope” (NPR). Now, with Goldenrod, the award-winning poet returns with a powerful collection of poems that look at parenthood, solitude, love, and memory. Pulling objects from everyday life—a hallway mirror, a rock found in her son’s pocket, a field of goldenrods at the side of the road—she reveals the magic of the present moment. Only Maggie Smith could turn an autocorrect mistake into a line of poetry, musing that her phone “doesn’t observe / the high holidays, autocorrecting / shana tova to shaman tobacco, / Rosh Hashanah to rose has hands.”​ Slate called Smith’s “superpower as a writer” her “ability to find the perfect concrete metaphor for inchoate human emotions and explore it with empathy and honesty.” The poems in Goldenrod celebrate the contours of daily life, explore and delight in the space between thought and experience, and remind us that we decide what is beautiful.

Poems

Goldenrod

“A Poet for Times of Trouble.” —The Wall Street Journal “Keep Moving speaks to you like an encouraging friend reminding you that you can feel and survive deep loss, sink into life’s deep beauty, and constantly, constantly make yourself new.” —Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Untamed and Love Warrior An October 2020 Indie Next Pick Cosmopolitan’s “Best Nonfiction Books of 2020” Marie Claire’s “2020 Books You Should Pre-Order Now” Parade’s “25 Self-Help Books To Get Your 2020 Off On The Right Foot” The Washington Post’s “What to Read in 2020 Based on the Books You Loved in 2019” For fans of Anne Lamott and Cleo Wade, a collection of quotes and essays on facing life’s challenges with creativity, courage, and resilience. When Maggie Smith, the award-winning author of the viral poem “Good Bones,” started writing inspirational daily Twitter posts in the wake of her divorce, they unexpectedly caught fire. In this deeply moving book of quotes and essays, Maggie writes about new beginnings as opportunities for transformation. Like kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken ceramics with gold, Keep Moving celebrates the beauty and strength on the other side of loss. This is a book for anyone who has gone through a difficult time and is wondering: What comes next?

Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change

Keep Moving

Desperate to reboot her life, Megan Barnes gets her chance when she meets Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jocelyn Jones. Before long, Megan is pulled into the heady world of fame and influence her charismatic new mentor represents.

Truth and Other Lies

“[Smith]...reminds you that you can...survive deep loss, sink into life’s deep beauty, and constantly, constantly make yourself new.” —Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author The bestselling poet and author of the “powerful” (People) and “luminous” (Newsweek) Keep Moving offers a lush and heartrending memoir exploring coming of age in your middle age. “Life, like a poem, is a series of choices.” In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes. With the spirit of self-inquiry and empathy she’s known for, Smith interweaves snapshots of a life with meditations on secrets, anger, forgiveness, and narrative itself. The power of these pieces is cumulative: page after page, they build into a larger interrogation of family, work, and patriarchy. You Could Make This Place Beautiful, like the work of Deborah Levy, Rachel Cusk, and Gina Frangello, is an unflinching look at what it means to live and write our own lives. It is a story about a mother’s fierce and constant love for her children, and a woman’s love and regard for herself. Above all, this memoir is an argument for possibility. With a poet’s attention to language and an innovative approach to the genre, Smith reveals how, in the aftermath of loss, we can discover our power and make something new. Something beautiful.

A Memoir

You Could Make This Place Beautiful

Poetry. Featuring Good Bones, which has made a difference to so many people around the globe--called "Official Poem of 2016" by Public Radio International. Maggie Smith writes out of the experience of motherhood, inspired by watching her own children read the world like a book they've just opened, knowing nothing of the characters or plot. These poems stare down darkness while cultivating and sustaining possibility and addressing a larger world.

Good Bones

Poetry. Winner of the Dorset Prize, chosen by Kimiko Hahn. Delving into the depths of fairy tales to transform the daily into encounters with the marvelous but dangerous, Maggie Smith's poems question whether the realms of imagination and story can possibly be safe. Even as her compressed stories are unfolding on a suburban cul de sac, they are deep in the mythical woods, "where children, despite their commonness, / are a delicacy."

The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison

"A smart, twisty cat-and-mouse revenge tale." - Robert Dugoni, NY Times Best Selling Author of the Tracy Crosswhite series An ambitious district attorney. An enemy she can't see. A daughter at risk. From the author of the award-winning Truth and Other Lies comes a gripping suspense novel about an ambitious prosecutor on the hunt for her sadistic stalker, only to find herself framed for murder when he turns up dead. Rachel Matthews is used to stress-from the cutthroat world of the district attorney's office to her escalating clashes with her teenage daughter. So when a stranger sends a lavish bouquet with a macabre message and leaves a disturbing video on her doorstep, she's quick to act. Teaming up with an old classmate turned private investigator, she wades through old case files, searching for someone harboring a grudge against her. But before she has time to pinpoint a suspect, her stalker issues a demand-he wants money, lots of it, or he'll hurt her daughter. In a dangerous gamble, Rachel agrees to meet her stalker on an isolated beach, only to find herself fleeing from a shocking crime scene. Can she solve the puzzle of who wants to destroy her before she loses her family, her career, and her freedom? Fans of Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent will embrace this taut tale of long-simmering revenge right up to its surprising and twisty climax.

Blindspot

NATIONAL BESTSELLER “A meditation on kindness and hope, and how to move forward through grief.” —NPR “A shining reminder to learn all we can from this moment, rebuilding ourselves in the darkness so that we may come out wiser, kinder, and stronger on the other side.” —The Boston Globe “Powerful essays on loss, endurance, and renewal.” —People Cosmopolitan’s “Best Nonfiction Books of 2020” Marie Claire’s “2020 Books You Should Pre-Order Now” Parade’s “25 Self-Help Books To Get Your 2020 Off On The Right Foot” The Washington Post’s “What to Read in 2020 Based on the Books You Loved in 2019” For fans of Cheryl Strayed and Anne Lamott, a collection of quotes and essays on facing life’s challenges with creativity, courage, and resilience. When Maggie Smith, the award-winning author of the viral poem “Good Bones,” started writing inspirational daily Twitter posts in the wake of her divorce, they unexpectedly caught fire. In this deeply moving book of quotes and essays, Maggie writes about new beginnings as opportunities for transformation. Like kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken ceramics with gold, Keep Moving celebrates the beauty and strength on the other side of loss. This is a book for anyone who has gone through a difficult time and is wondering: What comes next?

Julie Markes

Shahlā Intiẓārīyān

A little boy finds that his life is pretty easy compared to how it might be.

Chih khūb kih Hashtʹpa nīstī!

In Maggie Smith's Disasterology the poems lie down and make angels in the fallout as "a tide of fire drags everything away." Whip smart and darkly funny, Smith chronicles how disaster proves itself time after time, film after film, yet another doom after doomsday. But everything is not one red phone ringing away from ruin. There is a future still waiting to be said, a hope that the pear trees will outlast us, bright, unending, maybe even sweet. -Traci Brimhall As with the Hollywood hairdos of her poems' heroines, no strand is out of place in Maggie Smith's fraught and funny new chapbook. Smith brings her characteristic crispness and smarts to questions of disaster, large and small, with poems that expertly snake through iconic films, color-coded terror alerts, and the bleakest of daydreams. Read it, and read it fast-tomorrow we might all be gone. -Natalie Shapero

Disasterology

Chris Dukes

Making sure that young children with special educational needs have the right support is a top priority for all early years settings, but spotting additional needs can be tricky. This book is the ultimate resource for busy practitioners who want good, clear advice on what to look for and how to set up the necessary provision. From an award-winning author team, the advice contained here will empower you, and give you the confidence to identify and plan for the needs of every child in your care. Topics discussed in chapters are as follows: - observation and assessment of needs - physical development, and how to spot problems - communication, language and literacy, and how to spot difficulties - personal, social and emotional development, in line with the holistic child emphasis of the EYFS There are also: - case studies of children between 0 to 5 years - sample policies - lots of photocopiable material, on the CD-Rom that comes with the book Suitable for all early years students and practitioners, this book reminds the reader that all children require additional support at some stage, and that providing it is an essential part of good practice.

Recognising and Planning for Special Needs in the Early Years

Art & Artist Files (Australia and New Zealand)].

Maggie Smith, bestselling author of the viral poem "Good Bones" and the memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, delivers a lyrical and reassuring picture book perfect for calming active minds at bedtime (or anytime). At bedtime, when lights go out...sometimes thoughts stay on. Scary things and worries flutter and flap around. It's so hard to sleep! But a little imagination (and a lot of love) can create a cozy nest for happy thoughts--and sweet dreams for little ones.

My Thoughts Have Wings

Every Early Years setting strives to create a calm and positive atmosphere, where children can thrive and develop as successful and confident learners. By asking you to reflect on how the ethos, practice and general approach in your setting impacts on the behaviour of both children and adults, the book suggests sensible ways to achieve an exciting and stimulating environment for all From an award-winning author team, there is down-to-earth advice, a number of common-sense solutions and all the essential information you will need to develop the best sort of setting, where everyone supports one another. Chapters offer guidance on: - creating an enabling environment for all - developing a team-based approach - considering the whole child - working with parents and other professionals - observing and assessing behaviour - sharing good practice. There are also: - case studies of children between 0 to 5 years - sample policies - lots of photocopiable material, on the accompanying CD-Rom. Suitable for all Early Years students and practitioners, the book is an encouraging read that will inspire and help you to improve behaviour in your class or setting.

Building Better Behaviour in the Early Years

Illustrations and simple rhymes go from one to ten and back again over the course of a baby's day.

Counting to Ten and Back Again

One Naked Baby

'The number of two-year-olds entering our settings has been increasing over the last few years, and with the government set to continue with the expansion of free places, more and more practitioners will be caring for children in this age range for the first time. For those who still think in terms of the 'terrible twos', this book serves as a vital and urgent wake-up call. Whether experienced professional or someone starting out on an early years career, it has a great deal to recommend it. ' - Neil Henty, Editor and Associate Publisher, The Early Years Educator Do you want to know how best to provide for two year olds in your setting? Do you need effective guidance and advice on how to achieve this? This is an unmissable guide to working with two year olds, offering practical tips and tools to support practitioners, professionals and lecturers in meeting the unique set of needs of this age group. Written by two experienced early years' professionals this resource covers all aspects of provision and best practice for successfully working with two year olds, including key concerns such as: the completion of the Two Year Progress Check transitions into a setting child development formative and summative assessment effective learning environments working with parents. All this plus charts, pro forma, activities and training materials as well as further reading and access to websites, providing you with all you need to respond to the needs of two year olds with confidence. Chris Dukes and Maggie Smith (www.earlymatters.co.uk) are both Area SENCOs in London and experienced trainers and authors in the Early Years.

Provision and Progress for Two Year Olds

"Tight and purposeful as a fable, The List of Dangers gives us sorrows and warnings from a world imbalanced by beasts and little beauties. The images are precise as a child's playroom--keyholes, miniature candelabra, the 'trebly notes' of wrens and gypsies-- but perilous in their tender transformations. Maggie Smith's rich lyric gifts produce here a poetry of balancing composure in the face of peril and pretty chance." --David Baker, author of Midwest Eclogue "In Maggie Smith's The List of Dangers, as in the Brothers Grimm, we learn early how hazardous life is and how eagerly our fate awaits us. In these inventive new poems, Smith borrows elements from folktales, fairy tales, and fables to remind us once again that 'Nothing stays good for long' and 'No one [is] preserved.' And just as before, we're thrilled by each tale and tickled to death at our own imperilment." --Kathy Fagan, author of Lip

The List of Dangers

A celebration of a mother's love for her baby. Perfect for Mother's Day or a shower gift, with a padded cover and space for a personal photo. A cat has her kittens, a dog has her puppies, a sheep has her lamb, and I have you. This book celebrates the love between mothers and babies throughout the animal kingdom. Ducklings, piglets, foals, and fawns frolic through the pages. As our human baby grows from newborn to toddler, Mom offers the constant, comforting refrain: Wherever you go, whatever you see, I'll always have you and you'll always have me. Maggie Smith has created a classic first book for mothers and babies—a feast for the eyes and a hug for the heart.

Maggie Smith

About

Books

Join the club