July 18, 2008
Traveling Mamas Anthology
[Posted to Calls for Submissions ]TravelingMamas.com is in search of true uplifting, funny, inspirational, and touching stories with a travel theme for an upcoming anthology series. Possible themes may include family travel, romantic escapes, girlfriend getaways, and solo trips.
We’re looking for stories that inspire us, force us to laugh out loud or make us reach for the tissue box. Bring us into your story by using the five senses. Every story must have a beginning, middle, and end.
Rights:
We are requesting one-time rights. Reprints are acceptable as long as you own the rights.
If your work has been published before we ask that you please send the name of the publication the story appeared and the date it was published with your submission. We will have the right to edit your work.
Submission:
Word count: 300-1000 words.
More than one story may be submitted.
The story can be told in first or third person. You don’t have to be a mom to tell the story.
Deadline is midnight September 1, 2008.
In the body of your email please include your name, address, phone number, and preferred email address. At the bottom of your story please include a brief author bio (no more than 100 words) to be included in the back of the book. If your story is chosen you will be able to revise your bio before publication.
Please send your submissions in the body of an email to: anthology@travelingmamas.com (no attachments will be opened).
Compensation:
$50 (Payment upon publication)
A Traveling Mamas travel pack that includes one copy of the book your story appears in.
Please be patient. This is a long process. We will let you know as soon we know if your story has been selected. If you don’t hear from us, we may be holding your story for upcoming books.
Thank you for joining our journey. We look forward to reading your stories.
July 16, 2008
Multilingual Living Magazine
[Posted to Publishing ]Violeta Garcia Mendoza, LM's "Multi-Culti Mami" columnist has an article published in the July/August issue of Multilingual Living Magazine. It's entitled "What Led Us to These Doors: Our Family's Journey of Bilingualism and International Adoption." It's the (brief) story behind her family's adoptions, and how bilingualism looks in her house. There's also a section with tips for parents interested in keeping their adopted children's native language as part of their lives.
July 07, 2008
Literary Reflections Selected Short - June
[Posted toLiterary Reflections is pleased to present our featured writing prompt response for June. We asked "Is there a difficult or joyful experience of your own that you have not yet been able to write about? What would it look like if you could paint a scene of it?"
Meredith Hatcher wrote:
Forgiveness Pending
I knew immediately when I saw that pink blot on the tissue paper. My husband heard my hysterical wailing and ran into our tiny bathroom. (Was it hysterical wailing? Or did I call his name? Yell out "No", or maybe "Oh, God"? I remember the horror more clearly than the dialogue.) He had to repeat his frantic "What?" before I could manage to say, "I'm having a miscarriage."
Seven hellish days of ultrasounds, blood work, doctor appointments, and spotting produced no clear answers. I grew to hate the doctor's office and everyone associated with it.
"Still no heartbeat, but it's possible that we were just off on your due date. With a very early pregnancy, a heartbeat isn't always detectable. The pole appears to have gotten slightly smaller. Your hormone levels are low. This is either a six-week pregnancy or a miscarriage."
"There's no way my due date is off by that much," I answered clearly. (Do you KNOW how much time I've spent poring over my calendar these past seven days? How many times I've stared at that one calendar box? I hate that little white calendar box, crowded with smiling doodles, hearts and the screaming words "I'm pregnant!" I hate that little white box almost as much as I hate you!")
"There's no way," I repeated, "I found out I was pregnant ten weeks ago."
"Well then, it looks like we're dealing with a miscarriage."
The discussion that followed yielded one of the most regrettable decisions I've ever made. I chose to have a D&C to remove the baby, and I've doubted that decision since. The valid reasons I once saw for having the D&C now haunt me as weak excuses. (It had been the worst week of my life. I was exhausted and emotional. I couldn't bear to just sit around and wait for a full miscarriage -- a nightmare I imagined of blood and baby gushing down my legs. They said there was a risk of infection if the baby, not living, remained inside of me for too long. I was so sure of my dates. I was so sure when I saw that first pink spot on the tissue paper.)
When I delve into the wreckage of my regret, my computer screen disappoints me with the same hurtful string of unanswerable questions. Was my baby truly ready to go? Did I ask enough or the right questions of the doctor and nurses? Could my baby have survived? Did I give up on him (her?) instead of fighting like a real mother? (Surely only really mothers experience this aching guilt. There's not enough space in 500 words for this guilt.) Can I forgive myself for falling so short of my own expectations?
I try to write about it, but the results always smell more like old library book documentation than freshly-cut green growth. My writing offers up my endless apology, but it falls painfully short of granting me absolution.
Meredith Hatcher may be contacted via meredithhatcher(at)hotmail(dot)com.
July 05, 2008
Literary Mama Ericka Lutz's Scavenger Hunt
[Posted to General ]Enjoy a good hunt? You can win four of LM founding editor and columnist Ericka Lutz's parenting/teen books by participating in an online Scavenger Hunt at her Red Room author site.
Winner receives:
One copy of each of the following four books, all signed by Ericka:
On the Go with Baby
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Stepparenting
Mom's Guide to Disciplining Your Child
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Looking Great for Teens
Cruise through Ericka's blog entries, stories, and media to find the answers to eleven questions, and send in your answers by July 17. Some are obvious, some a little less so. ALL are fun.
Start here for Rules and Clues.
Happy Hunting!
The Maternal is Political
[Posted to Publishing ]Check out the write up of LM columnist (Zen and the Art of Child Maintanence) Shari MacDonald Strong's new anthology, The Maternal is Political in Susie Bright's Journal. Bright has an essay in the anthology and writes a brief summary of some contributors such as Marion Winik, (LM's) Ona Gritz, Mary Akers, Cindy Sheehan, and Rebecca Walker of who she says,
"I might not have jumped in to read this chapter, except that Rebecca recently made Tabloid Headlines in the Daily Mail of London. She described her mother, Alice Walker— an icon of American literature and feminism— as an incompetent, narcissistic, bitch, who abandoned her daughter for celebrity and the chance to live as a "feminist," i.e, a woman unencumbered by motherhood."
July 01, 2008
Yoga Philosophy and Weight loss....
[Posted to Publishing ]LM Mama's Boy columnist Jessica Berger Gross has a new book titled, enLIGHTened: How I Lost 40 Pounds with a Yoga Mat, Fresh Pineapples, Vegetarian Chili, a Monkey Temple, and a Beagle-Pointer from West Virginia(and You Can Too), to be published by Skyhorse Press in Spring 2009. A memoir about yoga philosophy and weight loss, look for her book in spring 2009.
A Special Issue of Women's Studies Quarterly
[Posted to Calls for Submissions ]Call for Papers: MOTHER
Guest Editors: Nicole Cooley and Pamela Stone
We have entered a motherhood moment--from celebrity mom baby-bump sightings to recent televised debates between “stay at home moms” and “working moms,” from “welfare mothers” to “Alpha moms,” images of motherhood are circulating in our culture as never before.
Motherhood demands a new look. As women push motherhood later and later, as a larger share forego it entirely, and as mothering itself takes up a smaller fraction of women’s lives, why is the fascination with all things “mother” at an all-time high? What does it mean to be a mother when motherhood is increasingly decoupled from biology? At a time when women’s reproductive rights are vulnerable and the pro-choice movement on the defensive, why is so much of the discussion about mothering framed in the rhetoric of choice and agency? As the majority of mothers pursue both family and paid employment, the “cultural contradictions” of intensive mothering that sociologist Sharon Hays first identified over a decade ago do indeed seem, to paraphrase writer/journalist Judith Warner, an ever more “[im]perfect madness.”
This WSQ special issue invites feminist work that speaks to our current historical moment in an effort to try to begin to construct a comprehensive and critical overview of mothers, mothering, and motherhood. We welcome academic papers from a variety of perspectives in all disciplines, from theory, qualitative research, and empirical studies to literary studies. We would also be interested in memoir and first-person essays, fiction, poetry, art, and writing which blurs boundaries and crosses genres in its exploration of mothering.
Topics to be explored include:
· Discourses around motherhood and how they are shaped by race, ethnicity, immigrant status and sexuality
· Mothers in the workplace: The price of motherhood, “mommy tracking” and “maternal wall,” “opting out”
· The “mommy wars”: Stay-at-home moms vs. working moms
· The paid and unpaid work of mothering and caregiving; the “second shift”
· Motherhood, loss and grief: Infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth and infant and child death
· Motherhood and disability/special needs
· Intensive mothering: Ideologies and practices around co-sleeping, breastfeeding, homeschooling and unschooling, toilet-training, tutoring
· Mothers as consumers: The marketing of motherhood
· Pregnancy: The medicalization of and birthing practices, representations of the mother’s body, assisted reproductive technologies (ART), surrogacy, abortion and reproductive choice
· New models of motherhood: LGBT moms, young moms, single mothers, stepmothers and blended families
· Men as moms: Stay-at-home dads, coparenting, single fathers
· Immigration and motherhood; global labor chains
· Childcare and domestic labor: Practices, issues and politics
· Motherhood and ecofeminism, explorations of “mother nature”
· Mommy lit as its own brand of chick-lit and the new “dad” books
· Mothers and digital media: The role of mommy blogs, list-servs, message boards and social networking sites
· Adoption: Transnational and domestic, transracial
· Motherhood and public policy: From debates about FMLA to activist groups such as MomsRising
· Mothering older children, mothering adult children, grandmothering
· Motherhood and Third Wave Feminism
· The experiences of women who choose not to mother
· Mothering in comparative, global and transnational contexts
If submitting academic work, please send abstracts by September 30, 2008 to the guest editors Pamela Stone and Nicole Cooley at: WSQMotherIssue@gmail.com. If accepted:
Full papers should be no longer than 22 pages, and will be due by January 1, 2009.
Poetry submissions should be sent to WSQ's poetry editor Kathleen Ossip, at ossipk@aol.com, by January 1, 2009.
Fiction, essay, and memoir submissions should be sent to WSQ's fiction/nonfiction editor, Susan Daitch, at sdaitch@hunter.cuny.edu by January 1, 2009.
Art submissions should be sent to WSQMotherIssue@gmail.com by January 1, 2009. Please keep in mind that after art is reviewed and accepted, accepted art must be sent to the journal’s managing editor on a CD that includes all artwork of 300 DPI or greater, saved as 4.25 inches wide or larger. These files should be saved as individual JPEGS or TIFFS
June 30, 2008
Chicken Soup seeking submissions
[Posted to Calls for Submissions ]This comes from the Yahoo Group, "Paying Writer Jobs" message boards.
Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms
Subtitle: 101 Stories Celebrating the Power of Choice
for Stay at Home and Work from Home Moms
Raising children, managing homes, and maybe even keeping a hand in the
working world can place incredible demands on mothers. These multi-tasking,
high-performing women have become today’s power moms.
Moms – share your stories about being a mom and doing it all.
Dads – share your feelings about your stay at home wife.
And children of moms who stayed at home – tell us about your mom.
Stories should be written in the first person and should not exceed 1200 words. Any stories are welcomed, including those on the following topics:
• Celebrating the choice to be at home: Share your most treasured moments
• Making the choice to stay home or scale back work to raise kids
• Managing the new demands of raising healthy, accomplished and
well-balanced children
• Meeting the challenges of running a household in an increasingly busy
world
• Clever ways of multi-tasking: getting it all done every day
• Dad at work, Mom at home: Surviving the division of labor in your marriage
• Facing Baby Brain Drain: Making quality time for yourself
• Reclaiming the joys of work through charity and community service
• Creative ways to work from home
• Mompreneurs: Making your own family-friendly job
• Reinventing yourself when the kids are all in school
• The power of female friendship: How women rely on each other to get
through the day
• The buck stops with you: Feeling the pressure of being everyone’s go-to person
• Life in the minivan: Making the most of the driving black hole
• Giving up the Guilt: When doing it all is impossible
If your story is chosen, you will be a published author and your bio will be printed in the book. You will also receive a check for $200 and ten free copies of the book, worth more than $100. Your story will be copyrighted in your name and you will retain your rights to resell the story to another publication after it is published by Chicken Soup.
DEADLINE IS SEPTEMBER 1, 2008. SUBMISSIONS GO TO
Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Submissions to our web site receive faster attention and are more likely to be published, but if you do not have Internet access, please submit your story by mail or by facsimile.
Chicken Soup for the Soul
P.O. Box 700
Cos Cob, CT 06807-0700
Fax 203-861-7194
June 24, 2008
A Nursing Triad
[Posted to Publishing ]Read LM columnist, of (Me and My House), Elrena Evans' essay in this month's issue of online Mothering.
"Should I have weaned her? The question looms in my mind. Should I have weaned her when I had the chance, before the baby was born? But I didn't want to wean her then. I was so aware of the dwindling days, the end of our time together as just the two of us. Every moment was saffron-precious, and I couldn't bear to waste it. Weaning was not an option."
June 23, 2008
Readings in Portland and Pasadena
[Posted to Events ]Just a quick reminder about two events this week: readings in Portland, OR, and Pasadena, CA, for The Maternal Is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change, edited by LM senior editor Shari MacDonald Strong, and including pieces by LM editors and columnists Violeta Garcia-Marquez, Ona Gritz, Susan Ito, Helaine Olen, and Jennifer Margulis -- and contributors Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser, Jennifer Brisendine, Jennifer Graf Groneberg, Kris Malone Grossman, and Karen Maezen Miller. Bring a friend (or a group)! Come feel politically energized! This is the year of empowered political motherhood!
June 25, 2008, 7:00 p.m.
A reading for The Maternal Is Political with Jennifer Margulis,
Gigi Rosenberg, Margaret McConnell, and Shari MacDonald Strong
In Other Words Bookstore
8 NE Killingsworth St.
Portland, OR 97211
June 28, 2008, 5:00 p.m.
A reading for The Maternal Is Political with Gayle Brandeis, Mona Gable, Karen Maezen Miller, and Shari MacDonald Strong
Vroman’s Bookstore
695 E. Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91101