Margaret Marcus is a repeat client with Modern Memoirs. Her first memoir, entitled Windows Aglow and Other Stories from My Mother’s Life, was published in 2019, and her second memoir, entitled Suddenly Upside Down: Recollections from Pandemic Years 2020 and 2021, came out in 2022. The first project took five months to complete, and the second, just four months. In this two-part blog series, we ask Marcus to reflect on what the publication process was like for her, and what it has meant to share her books with others. In Part 2, below, we discuss Suddenly Upside Down.
1. What inspired you to write this book?
Margaret Marcus: In April of 2020, my cousin Elizabeth and I found ourselves wondering about our paternal grandmother, whom we had never known. She had been a victim of the 1918 flu epidemic. Or so I thought. Elizabeth wasn’t sure about that. But, we agreed, considering the great pandemic to which our present situation was already being compared, wouldn’t it be interesting to know what life was like for our grandmother and her family during that time, whatever the circumstances of her death?
“I know what I’m going to do,” Elizabeth announced. “Record things related to life during the pandemic for my grandchildren.”
“What a good idea,” I said. “I believe I’ll do that, too.”
Thus the beginning of Suddenly Upside Down.
“The writing process is life-affirming for me. It requires time and reflection and focus, and it inevitably brings about perspective.”
2. In an early chapter you say, “The pandemic darkened our world, but in its wake, it brought along surprisingly bright consequences.” What was the brightest consequence of all?
Margaret Marcus: As soon as schools shut down in March of 2020, I began teaching language arts to my elementary and middle school grandchildren. Our Zoom encounters continued throughout the rest of that school year, and in one way or another, I remained involved as their schools and teachers came back online in a more organized way that following fall. I loved designing lessons for each of the children, and I proudly made a mess of my command center, the dining room table.
3. What did the pandemic reveal to you about teaching and learning?
Margaret Marcus: I had an opportunity to discover the differing gifts of my grandchildren—and to know them as learners, each in his or her own unique way. I consider myself lucky to have had this opportunity.
4. You detail the many ways in which everyday life was turned “suddenly upside down” by the pandemic and other events in 2020 and 2021. How did the writing process help give you perspective on all that happened?
Margaret Marcus: The writing process is life-affirming for me. It requires time and reflection and focus, and it inevitably brings about perspective. Knowing that I’ve created something by evening that didn’t exist that morning makes me happy. During the pandemic, when so much was stalled and uncertain, the writing process energized me.
5. What artwork did you choose for the front and back covers of your book? Why did you choose those pieces?
Margaret Marcus: The artwork on the front cover is the reconfiguring of a design my grandson Samuel, age nine or so at the time, did in school and which got put on a coffee mug for me. I sent off a photograph of the mug, and Modern Memoirs’ talented book designer took it from there. How she did it so creatively, I have no idea! Meanwhile, I asked a good friend to do a painting of an amaryllis for the back cover. “Amaryllis” is the title of the last chapter in my book, and I looked at it as a bright symbol of hope for getting things turned right-side up again.
Liz Sonnenberg is staff genealogist for Modern Memoirs, Inc.