*Amy Richards, author of Opting In: Having a Child without Losing Yourself and Jennifer Baumgardner, author of Abortion & Life.
*Cosponsored by Literary Mama and Bitch Magazine.
In 2004, Jennifer Baumgardner created the "I Had an Abortion" campaign to encourage women (and men) to "come out" about their procedures, culminating in the award-winning documentary of the same name. Her experience with the campaign acts as the centerpiece of ABORTION & LIFE, a balanced and at times controversial study of the history of abortion rights activism and suppression in the United States. The book shares with the film a determination to openly discuss issues typically glossed over by the abortion rights movement (the role of men, multiple abortions, being pro-life, late-term abortions) and includes elucidating testimonials by a variety of women and men--speaking from a variety of perspectives--including Ani DiFranco, Barbara Ehrenreich and Gloria Steinem. The testimonials are accompanied by stunning portraits from photographer Tara Todras Whitehill. ABORTION & LIFE concludes with an indispensable resource guide serving all aspects of abortion.
In OPTING IN, Amy Richards addresses the anxiety over parenting that women face today, drawing on memoir, interviews, historical analysis, and feminist insight. Speaking from the vantage point of someone who is both a parent and one of our leading feminist activists, Richards cuts through the cacophony of voices intent on telling women the "appropriate" way to be a mother, and reveals instead how to confidently forge your own path while staying true to yourself and your ideals.
Together, these two books cover the gamut of issues related to a woman's personal decisions surrounding pregnancy, abortion, and parenting--and illuminate the degree to which society so often attempts to co-opt her decisions at every juncture. Attendees to this reading are certain to leave with a refreshed perspective on a feminist's relationship to her fertility in a culture that burdens the act of conception with its own biases and demands.
Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards are the cofounders of Soapbox, Inc., a feminist speakers' bureau representing outspoken authors and activists. In October 2000, their first cowritten book about the state of the women's movement, Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future (FSG), was published. Following a national speaking tour, they coauthored a second book, Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism (FSG, 2005).
LM's Bare Breasted Mama Columnist, Gail Baker, will be will be in San Francisco next week doing a few readings from her new book, Cancer Is A Bitch.
You can also catch her on KGO TV's "View from the Bay" program on the 30th.
September 30 — Kepler's in Menlo Park San Francisco, CA
7:30 p.m., Reading to benefit Breast Cancer Connections
October 1 — Book Passage Bookstore, Corte Madera, CA
51 Tamal Vista Blvd.
1 p.m., Reading
October 1 — Books Inc. in the Marina, San Francisco,CA
2251 Chestnut Street
7:30 p.m., Reading
Apronstrings: A new magazine in production for mothers in Ireland. Just well-written, thought-provoking pieces, portraying with honesty what it is to be a mother - the highs and lows and the in-betweens.
Personal essays to be of length 800--4,000 words. We are looking for original, insightful works which avoid the bland clichés at all costs. For feature articles (up to 6,000 words), please submit outline ideas along with CV / portfolio details. Fiction (up to 4,500 words) - we welcome pieces in the short story format but it's really the personal essays that make up the bulk of this publication. We only plan to include one fictional piece per issue. Work submitted will be held on file until such a time as it may be used, the author being consulted prior to publication. Payment will be agreed with author prior to publication.
At present we are looking at approx €60 - €100 per essay, depending on length. For commissioned pieces such as book reviews and longer feature articles, we will discuss these with individual writers.
The Association for Research on Mothering (ARM) and the Brandeis Women's Studies Research Center are pleased to host a Day Symposium @ Brandeis University, Boston, MASS
February 27, 2009
The Maternal Wall in Academe: Academic Mothers and Strategies of Resistance and Empowerment
Many women today, particularly those that are college educated,middle-class and professional, may not encounter gender discrimination until they become mothers and hit full throttle the maternal wall that blocks and blindsides them in their attempts at advancement. With women still doing the bulk of household management - to include domestic labour, childcare, and the emotional and organizational work of creating and maintaining home, family and community, most mothers are unable to put in the extensive overtime hours that are required for advancement and success in most professions. Mothers thus find themselves "mommy tracked" making sixty cents for every dollar earned by full-time fathers (Williams, 2000, 2). Indeed, today the pay gap between mothers and non mothers under thirty-five years is now larger than the wage gap between young men and women (Crittenden, 94). As Ann Crittenden, author of The Price of Motherhood, writes, "once a woman has a baby, the egalitarian office party is over".
This day symposium will explore the various strategies used by academic mothers as they encounter the maternal wall in academe.
DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACT SUBMISSIONS -December 1, 2008
Please email 250 word presentation abstract and 50 word bio to arm@yorku.ca
Registration and additional information TBA...
Association for Research on Mothering (ARM)
726 Atkinson, York University, 4700 Keele Street,
Toronto, ON, M3J 1P3(Tel) (416) 736-2100 x 60366 (Fax) 416-736-5766
email us at arm@yorku.ca
Columnist Elrena Evans will read from her anthology Mama, PhD: Women Write about Motherhood and Academic Life (co-edited with Senior Editor Caroline Grant) at 1:00 on October 11th at Barnes & Noble in Valley Forge, PA. Elrena will be joined by Mama, PhD contributors Laura Levitt and Miriam Peskowitz. We'd love to see you there!
Please join us...
A New Cadence Poetry Series
Presents:
Sandra Lim, Elline Lipkin & Lauren Eggert-Crowe reading from their works
Sunday, September 28th
Felix Kulpa Gallery
107 Elm Street(behind Streetlight Records)
Santa Cruz, CA 95060 : 7:00pm
Admission is free
Sandra Lim was born in Seoul, Korea and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. She attended Stanford University, and holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her poems have appeared in several literary journals including Gulf Coast, Colorado Review, American Letters & Commentary, Denver Quarterly, and ZYZZYVA.
Elline Lipkin grew up in Miami, FL, and attended Wesleyan University. She received her MFA from Columbia University in 1994 and her Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston in 2003. She has worked as an editor in both New York City and in Paris. Her poems have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Margie, North American Review, The Texas Review, and in The Poets’ Grimm: 20th Century Poems from Grimm Fairy Tales.
Lauren Eggert-Crowe recently fulfilled a New Year's Resolution to read her weight in books. She is the creator of Galatea's Pants, a zine to tear down myths and dress up statues. Her work has been published in Puerto Del Sol,You Are Here: The Journal of Creative Geography, So To Speak, Alligator Juniper, DIAGRAM, Water-Stone Review, and Dirty Goat.
For further information, contact james Maughn :
jamaughn@cabrillo.edu or See anewcadence@blogspot.com
Join past and present Literary Mama editors and columnists at San Francisco's fabulous Lit Crawl. Caroline Grant (Mama at the Movies), Rebecca Kaminsky (Down Will Come Baby), Ericka Lutz (Red Diaper Dharma), and Sophia Raday (Mommy Athens, Daddy Sparta) will be reading at The Beauty Bar, 2299 Mission Street.
http://www.litquake.org/the-festival/lit-crawl-2008/
This website's aim is to gather stories about what we have learned from our mothers, how we feel about it, and how it affects the way we live our lives. These stories will be collected into a book, tentatively titled Wisdom of Our Mothers. Fifty percent of the profits from the book will be donated to shelters for mothers and their children escaping from abusive relationships.
If your work is accepted, you will be paid $100 per story upon publication of the book. (See FAQs for other payment options.)
To contribute your story, click "Send Story"
To read sample stories, click "Read Stories."
ON MOTHERHOOD
Our mothers were our first teachers. The lessons we learned were different, but for nearly all of us, they had a profound impact, laying the foundation for our feelings, values, self-image, and personalities.
This is not to idealize motherhood. We were taught by human beings, and the lessons carried with them all the flaws of which humans are capable. Sometimes they brought distress, resentments, and estrangement, as well as wisdom.
But they came from what is the most demanding task which most humans could ever face: bringing into this world another human being, nurturing, caring for that life, for as long as the mother or child lives.
No one can ever define fully what this means either to mothers or their children, but we can contribute to this site our experiences to flesh out what maternal wisdom means to us. And when, in a few months, we have gathered enough stories, we can share our experiences through the completed anthology, Wisdom of Our Mothers.
Have you ever wondered how other women survived their 40s? The new anthology, Knowing Pains, is an honest, humorous, thoughtful and diverse collection of essays by real women who aren't afraid to tell their age and tell it like it is. Sex, marriage, love, divorce, motherhood, singlehood, passion, obsession. Nothing is off-limits to this group of new female voices that Molly Rosen, a mother in Northern California, has brought together to swap stories and compare notes on the desires, influences and events that have impacted and shaped their midlives.
The anthology features an essay by Literary Mama Columnist Ona Gritz.
100% of all book net proceeds will be donated to Breast Cancer Action ( www.bcaction.org) to support breast cancer education and advocacy.
Please come to one of the upcoming readings near you:
Friday, September 26 at 7:00: A Great Good Place for Books in Oakland
Sunday, October 5 at 2:00: Borders Books in San Rafael
Monday, October 6 at 7:00: Pleasures of the Heart in San Rafael
Tuesday, October 14 at 6:30: Simayof Mansion in San Francisco (AICI)
Wednesday, October 15 at 7:30: Books Inc in San Francisco
Sunday, October 19 at 2:00: Book Passages in Corte Madera
Thursday, November 13 at 7:30: The Lafayette Library in Lafayette, New York
Monday, October 13 at 6:00: Cornelia Street Café in Greenwich Village
Tuesday, December 9 at 7:00: KGB Bar in the East Village, Washington DC
Wednesday, October 1 at 9:30 am: The Wednesday Morning Group in Washington DC
Seeking Children's Drawings for Publication:
Gia Giasullo, who designed the Single Mom Seeking book cover for Seal Press, is working on a book project, and this is a call for submissions for children's drawings.
I have a PDF that I send that further explains the project and how to submit artwork. I am a graphic designer (and a mom), preparing a collection of children's rejected drawings to be published in book format. Please contact me at gia@studioeg.com if you are interested, and I will provide you with additional information about myself, this project, and how your child's drawings may be included.
Literary Reflections is pleased to present our featured writing prompt response from August. We asked "What literary inheritances have you received from your family and/or loved ones? What might you pass on to the next generation?"
Jenny Rich wrote:
From my father, I learned that sometimes the very act of reading to others is the best way to show them how very much they are loved.
I was 21 years old, just home from spring break my senior year of college. It had been an intense week full of drinking, eating and making a fair number of mistakes. It was during that week away with my then-closest friends that depression hit me like a tidal wave. I wanted nothing more than to be left alone, to not have to face the changes that were coming with graduation. I wanted to freeze time and stay a child, to rush ahead and grow up. In short, I wanted everything and nothing.
The flight home was a perfect symbol for the week -- we were heading down the runway, picking up speed when one of the plane's engines blew. The bang, the sudden standstill, the abject fear. When I finally did get back to Philadelphia, my dad was waiting at the gate to take me home. I don't remember speaking at all on that ride to my parents' house but do remember getting home and going to bed. I got into my bed and, quite simply, had no plans of getting up. I didn't want to go back to school, didn't want to shower, to eat, to think.
And then my dad came in with a Janet Evanovich book in hand. He sat down on the side of my bed without pretext and he read to me. That's all he did. I don't know how long he read, hours, days perhaps, but he just kept reading. I remember the dim light in my bedroom, the feeling of being completely shut down, the sound of my dad's voice. I don't remember the book or the plot. I remember that he caught me and pulled me out from wherever I was.
Of course, I did get up and go back to school. I graduated, became a teacher, and later a wife and a mother. When I found out I was pregnant I began to read aloud every night. I brought an anthology of children's classics with me on vacation when I was nine weeks pregnant so I wasn't forced to miss a night of reading. I did this because, in my mind, reading represents love. Just as my dad pulled me along so many years ago, I hoped without realizing it that my reading would pull this baby along, would help him grow and thrive inside of me. I still read to my son every day and every night, never having missed a day. I do this for the unspoken message that I hope to instill in him: I love you, I love you, I love you.
Jenny Rich is the editor of the children's literacy website Ethans Bookshelf and can be reached at editor@ethansbookshelf(dot)com. She also writes the blog Read. Imagine. Talk.
I never voted for Sarah Palin. Politically, we don't get along. She wants drilling where I'd like to leave tundra. She doesn't want kids to hear about condoms, I don't mind them having accurate information about their own health. She wants one big cathedral ceiling covering schools and churches, while I prefer Christianity to stay in its log cabin, smoke peacefully rising from the stack, reminding me I can warm myself if and when I want to.
But I did like her. I've never liked any politician so unlike myself so much. Many of my liberal pro-choice mom friends liked her too. She was an Alaskan after all--a mom like me, bundling babies in snowsuits and dragging them around in sleds. She nursed and governed. She seemed real, someone who, despite our differences, I could talk to. Like everyone else in this giant, small state, I was on a first name basis with her. "Sarah," I'd say if I ever ran into her at the airport, "Hello."
Then McCain flew her to Ohio. When she read off the teleprompter, "It was rightly noted in Denver this week that Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America. But it turns out the women of America aren't finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all," I decided I was finished with Sarah. That she could, with a straight face co-opt the words of a woman she considered "whiny" shocked me. Suddenly, Sarah wasn't as real as she seemed the past twenty months. She wasn't the Sarah I thought I knew. With her speech accepting McCain's offer, she re-mythologized herself.
Alaskans know about myth, how it works. If we drive Outside with Alaska plates, people roll down their windows at red lights to talk to us. Alaska has mystique. It's big. It's dark. It's cold. It's tough. It's the Last Frontier. Our state even brands itself to tourists as the place to go "before you die." Myth is the reason white-haired tourists flock here each summer, and McCain would fit right in on the Princess Tours bus. Conveniently, for the McCain campaign, Alaska is also too far away for most people to know anything about it.
For Outsiders, our self-proclaimed Hockey Mom is exotic. When she chose to take on mother with a capital M, Sarah stopped being human for me. The symbolism eclipsed her humanity. Sarah. Hockey Mom. The Mother. The Alaskan Mother.
Looking back I realize that she's always traded in myth. I just never paid attention. I was so busy liking her. Without me noticing, she traded on her religion to get elected mayor. She emphasized her outsider status to get elected governor (which was easy as a large contingent of the Republican Party in Alaska is under indictment, awaiting sentencing, or in prison).
Now, she's added motherhood to the myths she's willing to play. She's the handbag and red lipstick the McCain campaign slapped on in their cynical attempt at drag. At first I felt sorry for her. It must be frustrating to be toted around on the right's ideological elbow. It must be painful to be rifled through and x-rayed all over the news.
But I reminded myself, while choice may not be the hallmark of the right, individual responsibility is. Sarah chose to read from the teleprompter. She chose to participate, to step up on stage, to become a cardboard cut out for Mother, Family, Life. She chose to step into that spotlight.
Her children didn't. According to Fox news's celebratory play-by-play of the secret flight from Alaska to Ohio, none of the Palin children knew what was going on. Only after they arrived at a hotel on Thursday night, "Palin's children, who had been told they were going to Ohio to celebrate their parents' wedding anniversary, also on Friday, were told for the first time that their mother would be a nominee for the vice presidency."
Again, I try to be sympathetic. She was just trying to do the best she could in a high-stakes situation. Perhaps her children would have texted someone and spilled McCain's secret beans. It seems surprises are a family tradition. For whatever reason, Sarah chose to keep it a secret from her kids.
But I think of Bristol, her daughter, up on the platform next to her mother, and I know some of those 18 million shards falling from the glass are going to hit her. In the glare of the spotlight, her pregnancy is a symbol too. Bristol's privacy wasn't sacrificed by liberal bloggers. Her mother, who aimed the spotlight squarely in her daughter's eyes, sacrificed it.
Sarah chose. Bristol didn't.
I don't like Sarah Palin anymore. Sarah's willingness to brand our state and herself in service to McCain is disturbing enough. That she's willing to do it at the expense of her family's privacy and then simultaneously decry the invasion of her family's privacy is a testament to her poor judgment.
To this Alaskan mom, Sarah's not a person anymore. She's a hammer in the wrong hands pounding on the right ceiling. She's a stiletto heel on a 72-year-old man's foot. She's the "Alaska Girls Kick Ass" bumper sticker slapped on the GOP's Hummer. I'm going to have to let go of calling her Sarah. She's Ms. Palin to me now.
On the third night of the Republican National Convention, Sarah Palin finally spoke up. The next morning I woke up to a front-page article in The Boston Globe, announcing that Sarah Palin has reignited the mommy wars.
No kidding. Birth plans, breastfeeding, working moms, teenagers and sex: it's like the national conversation has become one big mommy kaffeklatsch. Or one big mommy driveby, as women across the country wonder how Palin does it--when they're not condemning her for doing it.
"How," asks one of my friends, a mother of three who is out of the house by 6:45 every morning to get to her full-time job, "is a woman with five kids, including a baby with Down syndrome and a pregnant teenager, going to find time to be vice president?"
"Why," asks another, "did she get on that plane and fly home to Alaska once her water broke in Texas? Didn't she know she was putting her baby in danger?"
Those are the gentle ones. Palin has been attacked on everything from her hair clips and how awkwardly she holds her baby, to who actually gave birth to her fifth child and whether she's exploiting her teenage daughter's pregnancy for political gain.
This time around, though, everything is all mixed up. A right-wing Christian fundamentalist from Alaska is being hailed as the rightful heir to a liberal Senator from New York. We've got conservative Republicans defending working moms, and feminist commentators worrying that Palin is setting standards that are too high for other women.
And then Palin took the stage.
In a speech clearly written by an experienced speechwriter, she began, predictably, by introducing her family. A mom move? Sure, but these days, what politician doesn't talk family? Biden did it; Obama did it; McCain did it the night after Palin did it. Whether we like it or not, spouses and kids have become a political staple, regardless of gender.
Really, though, what Palin's speech revealed was not the mom, but the politician.
Lighting into Barack Obama with a smug sarcasm that made my skin crawl, aggressively separating out her version of the good Americans from the bad, repeating John McCain's name so many times you wondered if she thought we were stupid, and claiming victory in a war that I can't imagine how anyone will win (remind you of any other Iraq victory statements?), Palin showed herself as what she is: a bedrock-conservative culture warrior hellbent on bringing back a low-tax, small-town, gun-owning, bootstraps-pulling Christian America that never really was, not even in Alaska.
So what does this have to do with mothers? Everything.
I feel deeply uncomfortable with--and have frequently been horrified by--the criticism of Sarah Palin as a mother. I may not agree with Palin's choices about how to raise her kids, but they're her kids. So long as they're not abused or neglected, her kids are her business, and it's her right to raise them as she chooses (just as it will be their right to rebel against her, if they choose).
But when it comes to my kids, it's a different story. As a mother, Palin shapes the lives of her children, but as a politician, she could shape the lives of all our children, and, so far, I'm not liking the shape I see.
I want my daughters to be able to read whatever they want, marry whomever they want, and make their own choices if they face unplanned pregnancies. I want them to benefit from stem cell research, and live on a planet that is recovering from global warming, not still denying it. I don't want them to fight wars on behalf of God, and I'm fine with them paying taxes--after all, for those of us who don't have oil company payments, taxes are pretty essential. And, you know, I'd prefer that my children live in a country where people accept and appreciate regional, cultural, and religious differences, rather than exploiting them for political gain.
None of us really knows what happens in other people's families. Maybe Bristol Palin cares more about her mother being elected vice president than her own privacy. Perhaps Sarah and Todd Palin have negotiated an effective arrangement for sharing childcare. Or maybe not. We don't know.
But we do know what happens in our country, and that's what really matters right now. Moms should be talking about Palin, with each other, and with everyone else. But for the sake of our children, let's focus on policies, not parenting.
Gail Konop Baker
Cancer Is a Bitch
Or, I’d Rather Be Having a Midlife Crisis)
Tuesday, September 30th 7:30PM
Kepler's Books
1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park
www.keplers.com
Based on her popular Literary Mama column, the author’s raw, moving account of juggling midlife, motherhood, and marriage with a rogue boob.
Baker is busy on her novel—with a protagonist she happens to have
diagnosed with breast cancer—when real life intervenes. Shocked by
a diagnosis of breast cancer herself, the 45-year-old mother of three
begins a yearlong struggle to combat and comprehend the turn her
life has taken. As Baker grapples with the demands of motherhood
and marriage, she also begins a relentless search to find the cause
of her disease and head off its recurrence in the future. In this heart- felt memoir, Baker proves to be both humorous and compassionate, as when a friend is diagnosed with colon cancer.
“Gail Konop Baker is a knock-out writer who cracks me up one
minute then brings me to tears the next. Her beautiful, funny, feisty,poignant memoir isn't just an inspiration for cancer patients and their families—but for all of us. There is so much wisdom between these pages, yet the story is told without an ounce of self pity or a trace of triteness. In the end, this tale is a testament to how precarious and priceless life is, and how each of us needs to live it to the fullest, starting right now.” — Lolly Winston, author of Good Grief
This reading is a benefit for Breast Cancer Connections
is a charity anthology chronicling real-life experiences of infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth and related issues. Please share your story: droll or indifferent, angry or melancholy, we want to hear about every aspect of this often hidden situation. Anonymity assured if requested.
Email babyshapedhole@googlemail.com for more information and submission guidelines.
Former LM columnists Jennifer Eyre White (Degrees of Freedom) and Rachel Sarah (Single Mom Seeking) will be reading, along with Marilee Stark and Cynthia Borris,from A Cup of Comfort for Single Mothers at Book Passage in Corte Madera, Sunday, September 7th, at 7pm.