Contributors, J-L

Gwen A. Jadwin ("Not Mom") is a mother of one and step-mother of four -- all girls. She received her MA in English, and Certification in Creative Writing, from Binghamton University, and she currently teaches Basic Language Skills and College Writing at Broome Community College. This is her first published poem, though it originally appeared in her Master's thesis. She can be reached at jadwinga@aol.com.

Trish Lindsey Jaggers ("Scottie" and "Passage")'s poems appear or are forthcoming in Clackamas Literary Review, Red Rock Review, Earth's Daughters, WordWrights! Magazine, The Tobacco Anthology, Zephyrus, Red River Review, and in the books Blue Moon Rising: Kentucky Women in Transition, edited by Jennie L. Brown (Turner Publishing, 2001), and Writing Who We Are: Poems by Kentucky Feminists by Elizabeth Oakes and Jane Olmsted (WKU, 1999). She was an editor for Zephyrus, Western Kentucky University's annual literary publication, for three years. She recently won the WKU Jim Wayne Miller Poetry Award for 2002. She belongs to the International Women's Writing Guild. Currently, she assists the director of the Women's Studies Program at Western Kentucky University. She's married with two children -- a son, Scott and a daughter, Bridgette.

Jennifer James ("Unsung Motherhood") is a stay-at-home, freelancing mother of two living in North Carolina. The founder and director of the National African-American Homeschoolers Alliance, Jennifer has appeared on BET Nightly News and the Korean Broadcasting System and has been interviewed by Reuters, The Christian Science Monitor, Newsday, and The Boston Globe. Jennifer is also the publisher of Mommy Too! Magazine, an online magazine for at-home mothers of color. She hopes to one day see it in print.

Leanna James ("Written in the Body") lives with her husband and eight year-old daughter in Easthampton, Massachusetts. She holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from Mills College in Oakland, California, and has been published in literary journals, national parenting magazines, and literary anthologies. A contributor to Brain, Child, the Magazine for Thinking Mothers, she most recently appeared in Toddler: Real-life Stories of Those Fickle, Irrational, Urgent, Tiny People We Love. Currently at work on a novel, she also writes for Amherst Magazine, and she recently won a full fellowship in fiction from the Vermont Studio Center.

Maria Jerinic ("Talking to Ourselves and Other Necessities of Adult Life") is the mother of three children. She also teaches in the University of Nevada at Las Vegas Honors College, and is an editor for Topics for Victorian Literature and Culture(Cambridge University Press). Her personal essays have appeared in KnitLit the Third: We Spin More Yarns, in Mom-Writers Literary Magazine, and on Mamazine.com.

Jocelyn Johnson ("Our Boy, Powhatan") has published fiction and essays in Salome magazine, Rumble, and Antithesis Common. Her fiction has placed first in the Writer's Eye story contest, and received honorable mention in the E.M. Koeppel and Piedmont Writer's Institute's fiction contests. For more information, check out her blog, JOCELYN'S STORIES: fiction and prose about motherhood and more, at her Web site, www.jocelynjohnson.com.

DeAnna Jones ("Weaning") lives in Frisco, Texas with her husband and 11-month old son, and she is expecting her second child in September. Her work has appeared in IIlya's Honey, Venue, Zillah, Palpable and Mute: An anthology by the Dallas Poets Community and Courier: An anthology of Women Poets. Her work is forthcoming in Rattle and TCU's literary journal, Descant.

Vivian Morrow Jones ("An Inheritance from My Mother: Emily Dickinson") is working on her Masters Degree in Humanities at the University of Texas/Dallas. Concentrating on Creative Writing, Vivian is a former journalist and teacher who enjoys writing about small towns in Far West Texas, where life is never as simple as it seems. She is a full-time caregiver for her mother, who still dreams that she will make her grandsons a quilt if and when they get married.

Louise Kantro ("Union" and "Reclamation") has been serious about her writing for 20 years and holds an MFA from Goddard College. She has combined full-time high school teaching with the raising of youngsters, teens, and now "boomerangs" -- adult children with school loans who need to be back "home" for a while to save money. She was lucky in her choice of life-mate. As she tells her students, she's still on husband number one. Read more on her website.

Katie Kaput ("Things You Can't Teach") is a twenty-two-year-old Irish/Italian–American Midwesterner living in Palo Alto, California , with her partner and her son.

Food-and-travel writer Jen Karetnick's (Rules for New Parents) poetry has appeared in North American Review, The Georgetown Review, Blue Unicorn, River Styx, Black River Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, The Nebraska Review, and The Greensboro Review, among others. The author of Around Miami with Kids (RandomHouse) and co-author of Raw Food in the Real World (ReganBooks, July 2005), she is the editor of the anthology-in-progress, Enopoetica: A Collection of Poems Inspired by Wine. (E-mail submissions to Kavetchnik@aol.com.) She is the features editor for The Wine News; the "Kitsch'n" columinst for the Drexel Online Journal and the "Sexy Tastes" columnist for Citizen Culture. Jen lives in Miami Shores with her husband, Jon; her children Zoe (6) and Remy (4); four cats of various ages and pedigree; and 14 mango trees of indeterminate age.

Julia Spicher Kasdorf ("Fine: On Maternity and Mortality") is the mother of a young daughter. She has published two collections of poetry, a collection of essays, and a biography. Most recently, she co-edited with Michael Tyrell an anthology, Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn, from NYU press. She is associate professor of English and women’s studies at Pennsylvania State University where she teaches creative writing. "Fine" was previously published in Central PA Magazine.

Annie Kassof's ("Plumbing Problems: A Love Story") essays and articles have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, LA Times Magazine, Adoptive Families Magazine, KQED FM's Perspectives, and more. She's currently at work on a memoir called Kaleidoscope Family, about her experiences as a foster and adoptive parent. A "veteran" single parent, she lives in Northern California with her son, daughter, and foster baby. "Plumbing Problems: A Love Story" is her first published work of fiction.

Ashley Kaufman (At Second Sight) lives in kid time with her two sons, a precocious third grader and a wild and wooly preschooler. She steals minutes to write. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rosebud, susurrus, Mad Hatter's Review, flashquake, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Pearl, among other venues.

Wendi Kaufman ("Intimate Landscape") holds an MFA in English/Fiction Writing from George Mason University. Her fiction has appeared in various literary journals and magazines, including The New Yorker, Fiction, New York Stories, and Other Voices. Her stories have been anthologized in Scribner's Best of the Fiction Workshops, Elements of Literature and most recently, Faultlines: Stories of Divorce. Wendi is a recipient of a fellowship from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the winner of a Mary Roberts Rhinehart award for short fiction, and a 2000 Breadloaf Writer's Conference David Sokolov Scholar in Fiction. She is a frequent contributor to The Washington Post. She is the mother of two energetic boys, ages seven and three, who have a more demanding social calendar than she does. She can be reached at kaufs@aol.com.

Gail Kavanagh ("Body Language") is a freelance writer living in Queensland, Australia. Gail has had short stories published in Arabella, For Me (an Australian publication), Fables and Romance Ever After. Her articles have been published in Dollar Stretcher, Every Writer, Women's Independent Press, and Brady Magazine. Her true story "No Place Like Home" will be published by Atriad Press this year. Her ebook The Five Writing Questions and How To Answer Them is available at Lulu.com. Gail is married and the mother of seven children. Her youngest daughter, who inspired the story "Body Language," is now 17. Gail's website is at http://www.geocities.com/gailkav.

Angela Kenyon ("Humber Takes Over the World") loves her hectic life with her family in British Columbia, but treasures every moment she can spend writing. She has been mother, step-mother, and foster-mother to six children. She currently works in technical and administrative support and is an outspoken advocate in her community on issues of poverty and access to quality public education. Her fiction has appeared in a variety of Internet publications.

Mary Kenyon("The Stealth Mama and the Muse") and her muse live in rural Dyersville, Iowa, with her husband David and six of her eight children. Mary is the author of Home Schooling from Scratch: Simple Living, Super Living (Gazelle, 1996) and has been published in such magazines as The Writer, Home Education, Back Home, Backwoods Home, and Woman's World, among others. One of her essays appears in Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul.

Kathryn Kerr ("Alternation of Generation") is the the mother of Nancy, age 20, and Sarah, age 11. She teaches writing at Illinois State University. Her poems, essays and reviews have been published widely. She earned an MFA from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

Kathy Kincade ("50/50") has been a technical journalist for 20 years. She lives and writes in Alameda, CA with her 10-year-old son, Tommy. This is her second published piece of fiction; her story "A Season of Uncertainties" appears in the Winter Solstice edition (December 2006-March 2007) of Cezanne's Carrot.

Priscilla Kipp ("Winning My Peace") is a freelance writer living in Massachusetts and Prince Edward Island, Canada, mother of four sons, mother-in-law of three, and grandmother of two. Her work has appeared in the online magazines Exceptional Parent and Night Train, and has appeared in print with the Worcester Review, Berkshire Review, and New England Writer's Network. She can be contacted at: pkipp04@yahoo.com

Karen Knowles ("Holiday") is the editor of the anthology Celebrating the Land: Women’s Nature Writings and has broadcast her creative non-fiction on Northeast Public Radio. "Holiday" is her first published fiction. Karen lives in Halfmoon, NY, with her husband and two amazing daughters. She can be reached at kknowles2@nycap.rr.com.

Rebecca Koffman ("The Creature Feature") is a freelance writer living in Portland, Oregon. Her essays and journalism have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Salon, and several other magazines and newspapers. "The Creature Feature" is her first published fiction. She is working, sporadically, on a collection of short stories, based largely in South Africa, where she grew up, and also on a mystery novel. She has two children, a son of ten and a daughter who is seven. She can be reached at rebeccakoffman@yahoo.com.

Leah Korican ("Snow Plant") is a poet and visual artist. She has published chapbooks of poetry and art, and her work has appeared in literary magazines including, West Wind Review and the poetry anthology, Her Words. She is the mother of two.

Miriam N. Kotzin ("Civil Ceremonies") teaches creative writing and literature at Drexel University where she directs the Certificate Program in Writing and Publishing. Her fiction and poetry have been published widely in such places as Boulevard for which she is a contributing editor, The Pedestal, Flashquake and Three Candles. Her work has received three nominations for a Pushcart Prize. She is a founding editor of Per Contra: The International Journal of the Arts, Literature and Ideas.

Judy Kronenfeld ("Oh Please, Stay!") has seen her poetry, fiction, and nonfiction appear in numerous journals, including Poetry International, The Women's Review of Books, The North American Review, The Crescent Review, Potpourri, and Under the Sun, as well as in several anthologies. She is currently seeking a publisher for her second book of poems. With the other (disconnected) half of her brain, she has also written criticism on Renaissance subjects (including a book on Shakespeare). She teaches in the Department of Creative Writing, University of California, Riverside, and lives in Riverside with her anthropologist husband. Both of them dearly want grandchildren. They are the parents of a grown son and daughter (so far not complying) who live and work on the East (alas) Coast.

Formerly a travel magazine editor, Cindy La Ferle ("Fragile Season", "I Wish You'd Quit Writing About Me") has published essays in The Christian Science Monitor, Writer’s Digest, Mary Engelbreit’s Home Companion, Reader’s Digest, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, and The Detroit Free Press, and in many online publications, including Just for Mom. A collection of her award-winning essays and newspaper columns was recently published in Writing Home, which is available nationally in bookstores and on amazon.com. Visit her web site at laferle.com or write Cindy LaFerle.

Suzanne LaFetra ("Unmoored," A Review of Swimming With Maya; "Learning Curve," A Review of The House on Beartown Road; "Toddling Toward Community," A review of Toddler) is a Berkeley mom-writer. Her work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Ladybug Magazine, Skirt! Magazine, and on KQED fm. She also writes a parenting column for GetLocalNews.com.

Tua Laine, ("Au Pair in Alabama, or The Legend of the Dog-Killer") a long-lost Finn, lives in Alabama with her husband and the bulimic cat their kids (2) left behind when they went to college in California. Tua's stories have been published in Absinthe, Pindeldyboz, Rosebud, Snow Monkey and Parents' Press in the US and QWF in Britain. She is currently peddling her first novel and the said (bulimic) cat: take one and she'll throw in the other. Offers to tualaine@yahoo.com!

Vera Landry ("Blue") and her partner are moms to two boys, ages 9 and 7. They live in Berkeley, California. Vera has published in Brain, Child magazine, and writes a monthly column for AntiRacist Parent (www.antiracistparent.com).

Kerry Langan (Memphis, Tennessee)'s short stories have appeared in more than two dozen literary journals including Other Voices, StoryQuarterly, Cimarron Review, American Literary Review and The Seattle Review. Selected published stories are available at: oberlin.net/~langan. She is overjoyed to be the mother of two daughters, currently nine and six years old.

Andrea Lani ("Measuring Rain") is a human ecologist and writer who enjoys catching frogs with her three boys around their home in central Maine. She produces the print zine for mamas called "GEMINI" three times a year and blogs at www.remainsofday.blogspot.com.

Bettina Lanyi ("Memo") lives outside Washington, DC with her husband, five-year-old daughter, and two-year-old son. Her essay appeared in the parenting book, Adventures in Gentle Discipline. She has recently completed a novel.

Danielle Lapidoth ("13 More Ways of Looking at a Blackbird") lives with her husband and three children, ages 4, 2 and three months, in Zurich, Switzerland. There she runs an editing business, teaches English, and writes poetry, flash fiction, and essays while her family sits on her lap or sleeps. She has had work published at Flash Quake, Apple Valley Review, Lily Lit Review, Barnwood, Shit Creek Review, Midstream, The Lyric, Ellery Queen, and Mamaphonic.

Julia LaSalle("The Lesson") is a just-engaged writer in Pittsburgh, PA. Her works have appeared, or are forthcoming, in: Storyglossia, The Mississippi Review, Bound off and Drunken Boat. Julia is currently editor of Steel City Review and right now, she can't stop looking at her brand new sparkly ring.

Jennifer Lauck ("Not So Perfect") is the author of the New York Times best-selling memoirs Blackbird and Still Waters. Her new book, Show Me the Way, has just been released in paperback. Read more about her at www.JenniferLauck.com.

Ann Neuser Lederer ("Seeing Babies") is the mother of a 23-year-old son. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Moria, CrossConnect, Kalliope, Adirondack Review, Brevity, Comstock Review and others. Two chapbooks of her work, Approaching Freeze, (Foothills) and The Undifferentiated, (Pudding House) were released in 2003. She has been employed as a hospice visiting nurse for several years.

Meta Lee ("My Mother, My Child") is a retired librarian. Since her retirement, she tells folktales, traditional tales as well as some original stories. She tells to children and adults in south Florida. Her writing, mostly fiction, has appeared in a variety of literary publications. She has won prizes in numerous writing competitions. She is a mother of two and a grandmother of 11.

Monika Lee ("Fertility Restored") is the mother of two daughters, Anna (11) and Natasha (8). They live, cuddle, and read with Monika and her husband in Lobo, Ontario. Monika's book of poetry, slender threads, was published jointly by EBIP (HMS Press) and the Canadian Poetry Association in 2004. Her poems have also appeared in many literary journals.

Tina Laurel Lee("Summer Tantrums") lives with her husband and two children in Minneapolis. She has a MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota. This is her first published essay. Her e-mail address is tina.laurel@gmail.com.

Julia Lisella ("Old Body") is the mother of a ten year old daughter and a three year old son. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Many Mountains Moving, Solo, Pebble Lake Review, Pleiades, Sidelines (a publication for women on pregnancy bedrest) and many other publications. She is a lecturer of history and literature at Harvard University and teaches poetry in the Harvard Extension School. She is at work on a scholarly book dealing with maternity and political poetry of the 1930s.

Laura A. Lopez ("LiLi") lives in Moline, Illinois, with her husband and two daughters. She has received numerous local writing awards. Various works of her writing and/or photography have appeared in Clamor Magazine, Voces Weekly, and Augustana College’s literary magazine, Saga. Laura is happily employed as the marketing/communications and development director at Living Lands & Waters, where there is an ample supply of both subject matter and writing duties.

Ericka Lutz ("Red Diaper Dharma", "San Andreas," "Why My Garden," "Abandoning Nature" "Inchworm Turns Three", and "An Interview with Marian Winik") writes fiction (short and long) and non-fiction (creative and commercial). She is the author of seven non-fiction books including On the Go with Baby: A Stress-Free Guide to Getting Across Town or Around The World and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Stepparenting. Her short stories and creative non-fiction essays have appeared in numerous books, anthologies, and journals including Scrivener Creative Review, Green Mountains Review, Kaleidoscope, Sideshow, France, A Love Story, Child of Mine, Toddler, and Big Ugly Review. She is the recipient of two fiction fellowships at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Ericka teaches writing at U.C. Berkeley and through U.C. Berkeley Extension, and consults privately with writers about their writing and the writing process. Visit her personal website or over at Red Room, where she blogs several times a week.