Literary Mama writing about the many faces of motherhood
Creative Nonfiction
2018
May 2018 A Life in F# Major
Dairy Farms: A Glossary for the Farmer’s Girlfriend Before her Child Leaves Home
April 2018 Off He Goes
Clara
January 2018 Baby Brain
2017
December 2017 Natural Tan
November 2017 Outside/In
Dark Water
October 2017 Wrestlings
Mother Me
September 2017 White Noise
Water Baby
June 2017 Celebrating a Father She Doesn’t Remember
My Father, at Rikers
Christmas Cards
May 2017 Memories of My Mother
Nursing the Heart
Mother Time
April 2017 The Support Group
March 2017 The Carry Home
January 2017 The Fall
When They Say Your Son is Normal
2016
November 2016 Happy to Starve
The Guest Room
October 2016 Unexpected
How to Have a Hysterectomy
The Four Seasons of Longing
September 2016 An Unrehearsed Song
The Road from Santiago
June 2016 Second to Second
Routine Visit
May 2016 Ghosts at the Costco
Putting Down the Needles
Shared History
April 2016 What’s Left
People in Your Situation
March 2016 The Care and Feeding of a Carnival Goldfish
Measuring Tape is a Flexible Ruler
February 2016 The Woods
Ethan and the Question of Death
January 2016 A Glimpse
What We Made
2015
December 2015 Let the Building Begin
Composing the Air
November 2015 Flight Risk
One More Thing
October 2015 Your Story
The Ambivalent Agnostic: An Adoption Story
September 2015 Holding Pattern
Absence Makes the Heart
June 2015 Another Birthday
Bruises
May 2015 Tongue-Tied
Anatomy of a Mother
April 2015 O
March 2015 Truce
February 2015 Model Mother
Your Every Move
2014
December 2014 The Neighbor
November 2014 Flirting with Wilderness
October 2014 Near Miss
Reminder
The Fixer-Upper
September 2014 In Harm’s Way
Bodies of Water
Haru-Haru
Swimming These Waters
August 2014 If We Get Out of this Rite Aid Alive
The Things We Can Not See
Newgrange
The Historian
July 2014 The Small Things
The Gustavs in My Life
It’s Never Too Early
A Djiboutian Refuge
June 2014 Seven
My Father’s Arithmetic
May 2014 The Stranded Bird of Pavia
She Was Here
Navigating Widowhood; My Mother Finds Her Way
Keep, Donate, Discard
April 2014 Flesh Undone
Flood
Boys
Birds and Bees and Bullets
March 2014 A Lovely Disposition
Postpartum
Mud and Trees
February 2014 Landscape
The Neutral Ground
Hootchie-Cootchie Mama
January 2014 Hold My Hand
Waiting on Rhoda
Lucky Guy
2013
December 2013 Twenty-nine
Acts of Silence
A Word for When There Are None
November 2013 Girls Don’t Drive
Beautiful Things
Going Metal
October 2013 Womb With a View
October 2013 Tiny Apocalypse
Communion
Origination
September 2013 A New Millennium Summer
Meltdown
August 2013 What More, I Say, What More?
August 2013 The Evergreens
His Beautiful Face
July 2013 Benjy, Awake
Labyrinth
Same Old Song and Dance
June 2013 Father Tongue
Dad’s Army Tricks
Sailors
May 2013 Nihari
Frozen Concentrate
April 2013 Liver Nights
Sunday Visit
Things That People Say
March 2013 Ex Utero; A Postpartum Notebook
Mother’s Milk
Clean Start
February 2013 Kindergarten Pick-Up
Bloom Where You’re Planted
January 2013 Underwater
Braided Love
2012
December 2012 Africa or Disney World?
Notes From a Napkin
November 2012 Wry Neck
In Defense of the Rat
October 2012 Good to Go
Memorial Day
September 2012 In the Wild Without Child: One Mother’s Invitation to Self
Dr Dude
August 2012 The Deeps
Spinning
July 2012 Kissing the Dark Balloon
Crossing the Milky Way
June 2012 Writing a Father
Dinner of My Dreams
May 2012 Unwrapping the Gift
February 2012 Dutch Elm
Calendar
2011
December 2011 Driving Lessons
October 2011 Dare To Love
Natural Family Planning
August 2011 Going Down to the Water
June 2011 Once More to Wire Lake
May 2011 In My Mother’s Garden
April 2011 Spent
February 2011 The Garden Party
January 2011 A Boy Like Mine
2010
December 2010 Woman Overboard
October 2010 A Baby’s Cry
As Long As It Takes
Unbraided
September 2010 The Tipping Point
Perdition
August 2010 The Words For It
Sustenance
July 2010 The Summer of Broken Things
Talismans of the Whirlpool
June 2010 A Letter Never Written, Never Sent
The Tangle River
May 2010 Wanted
Changing Places
April 2010 Insights
And I Am The Baseball
March 2010 The Name Game
Dead and Almost Buried
Mama, Mama, Can’t You See?
February 2010 Cry, Baby
How to be a Schizophrenogenic Mother
Latching On
January 2010 Call Me, Ishmael
2009
December 2009 Christmas Eve at St. Clement
Trap Door
November 2009 Squirrel For Dinner
I Am A Bad Mother
October 2009 Third Baby
Inconceivable
September 2009 Finding My Voice
House of Stone
Swimming Lessons
Drifting To Shore
August 2009 One Eye Laughing
Leaving My Kids in the Dark
Summons
July 2009 Fair Division
Nursing Johnny Depp
Beautiful Friend
June 2009 Advice From My Father
Night Moves
Discarded
May 2009 Love and Laundry
Mom Takes the Slow Road
April 2009 Teenagers in Spring
The Forward Motion of an Accidental Death
March 2009 Kindergarten Season
Bodies of Water
February 2009 I’d Rather Die by Ice Than by Fire
A Tale of Two Brothers
Arkansas Time
January 2009 Unassisted
The Loss of Meaningful Things
Nanny
2008
December 2008 Born of the Dragon
Lice Season
Searching for the Sweet
December 2008 Getting There
Lala
Seeing in the Dark
November 2008 Marooned
Surfacing
October 2008 Unexpecting
Girl Feelings
September 2008 More Than a Boy
A Mother and a Daughter on the Subject of Men
August 2008 The Color of Alone
Holding On
Where the World Is
June 2008 Choosing Daddy
A Tree House of Her Own
May 2008 Walking Our Mothers
Girl-Shy
A Summer’s Day: Mother to Child
April 2008 Leaving Neverland
Erosion
March 2008 Peeling Back the Truth
Varanasi
February 2008 The Free Range Bionicle
January 2008 Unprepared for Fury
Dear Em
2007
December 2007 Human Behavior Experiment
Admissions Roulette
November 2007 A Kite in November
Our Choice
October 2007 Testing: One, Two, Three?
Falling to My Knees
Wanting, Waiting
September 2007 Losing Thomas
September 2007 Wonder Mold Mother
August 2007 One True Note
Mom Memory
July 2007 Love and Money
July 2007 Bitter, Sweet
June 2007 I’m Bored
June 2007 Absolution
May 2007 Brooklyn Bridge
13 More Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
April 2007 Kyoko’s Mirror
Wedding, Dress, Boy, Pretty
March 2007 Put the Blender on Frappe
Judgment Day
My Wild Child
February 2007 The Eyes Have It
February 2007 Rearview Mirror
January 2007 Our Boy, Powhatan
January 2007 Break
Learning to Lie Still
2006
December 2006 What to Tell the Children
Bringing on Baby: A Journal of Augmentation
November 2006 Neighbor
November 2006 Not Alone
October 2006 Baby Fat
A Good Sense of Timing
September 2006 The Boys and Baby
September 2006 See You at the Movies
August 2006 Prenatal Guru to the Stars
July 2006 The Green King
Eleven
June 2006 Down into the Mine
The Great, Death-Defying Father
Poker Face
May 2006 Arrowhead Hunting
Infant Absolution
April 2006 Our Son, the Ring Bearer
March 2006 Failure to Thrive
Normal
February 2006 A Working Mother’s Day
February 2006 French Toast and Freedom
January 2006 The Face In The Mirror
2005
December 2005 Let Down
December 2005 Baby’s No Friend Of Mine
November 2005 Early Frost
October 2005 A Daughter Like Me
September 2005 Waiting For Me
He’s Home
August 2005 The Indecent Question
Mother-Sister
July 2005 How to Make a Meat Pie and Other Tales of the Ambitious Mother
July 2005 China Boy
June 2005 Dad
June 2005 Books and Dust
May 2005 Motherkind
Letter to My Niece
Naked in California
April 2005 Not So Perfect
March 2005 The Golf Cart Incident
The God Question
Fragile Season
February 2005 Why My Garden
Blueberries for Mom
Forecasts
Coming of Age at the Grand Canyon
Zen Broccoli
Dare Not Speak: On Not Being the Other Mother
Twelfth Day
Muse of Fire, Muse of Floss
Humber Takes Over the World
Dump Trucks
Morphine and Mother’s Milk
The Plant
A Post Partum Disease Center
Written in the Body
Acts of Contrition
My Mother, My Child
All The Pretty Little Horses
Healing Arts
When You’re Ten
Dear Friend
Red Hurt
Things You Don’t Know
Analyzing Ben
Screaming Mornings: Living with Autism
Shaggy Hair, Sagging Pants, and Split Feelings
Bedtime Stories
Tenuous
Albion Street
Inchworm Turns Three
My Mommy’s Job
Johnny
Grey
The Gift
Raging Mom
Under the Chuppah
Just One?
Tested
My Non-Abortion Era
Having A Boy? Better Luck Next Time: Mothers, Sons and Stereotypes
How to be a Cybermom: Successful Real-Life Avoidance through Obsessive Internet Use
The Power Behind the Pink
Unsung Motherhood
Transparent Motherhood
A Good Enough Birth; A Good Enough Parent
Ask Me About My Abortion
Millennial Grandma
Where Have All the Grandmas Gone?
2004
October 2004 The Child
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