Listen To Your Mother is back and badder than ever!

I've been sitting on this for a while, so it is with a great sigh of relief that I can finally shout out to the world: Listen to Your Mother is returning to NYC in 2013!

That's right, once again, this May, I will have the honor and privilege of producing the Listen to Your Mother show, here in New York City. I will again be working with the killer team of Director Amy Wilson and Associate Producer Holly Fink. And this year we will be joined by the lovely and talented Shari Simpson AKA Dusty of the blog Earth Mother just means I'm dusty.

If you're one of those really organized types, you'll want to save the date. This year we'll be performing the show on Mothers Day itself: May 12th, 2013, in the early evening.

If you don't know what all this is about? Here it is (in the words of Ann Imig who started this whole thing):

LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER (LTYM) is a national series of live readings by local writers in celebration of Mother's Day. Born of the creative work of mothers who publish online, each production is directed, produced, and performed by local communities, for local communities.

LTYM began with one show of local writers reading in Madison Wisconsin on Mother’s Day 2010.  The video of the show was posted online in its entirety, and so LTYM reached a global audience and garnered a huge response.

Bloggers across the country began asking to host LTYM in their home towns, and so in 2011 Ann took the project national with shows in 5 cities across the country. And then in 2012 it expanded to 10 cities - including New York City!

The mission of each LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER production is to take the audience on a well-crafted journey that celebrates and validates mothering through giving voice to motherhood–in all of its complexity, diversity, and humor.

Last year's show was amazing. I loved every minute of putting it on, from the auditions, to the rehearsals, to maintaining the local website, and all the hard work that went into making it happen. Working with Holly and Amy and Betsy was a dream. Our cast was an incredibly talented group of wonderful women (and one man) and I can't imagine a better one. And then of course there was the show itself, a highlight of my year.

And this year? (Drum roll, please) ... TWENTY-FOUR cities around the country! Yes, 24! Watch this lovely announcement video to see them all listed: Introducing Listen To Your Mother 2013!

And if there's one near you? You should definitely consider coming out to audition (it's a wonderful experience, whether you get cast or not) and most certainly go see the show, come May!

The production teams in each of these 24 cities will be announced soon (with 9 out of last year's 10 cities returning this year too), and I have to say I am bubbling over with excitement about how many of my dear blogging friends around the country are coming on board. This is some mad crazy talent pool here, and you will be thrilled when you read that list, too.

Watch for that announcement on the main Listen to Your Mother site next week. And in the days and weeks to come, more information about the shows around the country and right here in NYC will appear there too. Also please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for timely announcements.

And if you want to see what we were up to last year? Here's my post linking to the VIDEOS of both the NYC show and all the others as well: The LTYM Videos have Launched!

And also, because hey, it's MY blog, in case you haven't seen it yet, here's the video of me reading "Holding Hands" at the 2012 LTYM-NYC:

Stay tuned for more soon!