The Mom Egg

The Mom Egg, an annual journal, seeks flash fiction, prose, poetry and art for its Spring 2010 issue, which will be a print issue on the theme of "Lessons". The Mom Egg publishes work by mothers about everything, and by everyone about mothers and motherhood. Details on the site ("Submit"); you can also download a special online issue free ("Current Issue") and see samples from back issues. Deadline Dec. 31, 2009. http://themomegg.com.

Pen Parentis

Join us Tuesday, November 10th for a night of great fiction with Joanna Smith Rakoff, celebrated author of A FORTUNATE AGE and singer-songwriter/novelist/radio personality Stewart Lewis. Have a glass of wine in our exclusive Pen Parentis Upstairs Library bar, be part of a literary movement, and support contemporary writers who are also parents.

Joanna Smith Rakoff's novel, A FORTUNATE AGE, was a New York Times' Editors' Pick, a winner of the Elle Readers' Prize, and a selection of Barnes and Noble's First Look Book Club. She has written for the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Vogue, O: The Oprah Magazine, and many other periodicals. Her poetry has appeared in The Paris Review and The Kenyon Review, among others.

Stewart Lewis is a singer songwriter, novelist, and radio personality. His soulful blend of pop and folk has been featured on TV and film and he has performed worldwide. He has published two novels, Rockstarlet, and Relative Stranger, which was hailed by best-selling author Augusten Burroughs as, "A droll, spirited read--terrific fun." His reports on "City Life" can be heard thrice weekly on WCBS News Radio. He lives in New York City with his partner and three year old daughter, Rowan. For more information, visit www.stewartlewis.com

DATE:Tuesday, November 10, 2009
TIME: 6-8 pm, come after work!
LOCATION: The Upstairs Library at the Libertine, inside the Gildhall Hotel @ 15 Gold Street, NYC.
DIRECTIONS: Walking directions from A/C (@ Broadway/Nassau) or 2/3/4/5/J/M/Z (@ Fulton) trains: Walk east on Fulton Street to Gold Street, turn right and right again at Platt.

Walking directions from 4/5 train or E train or PATH: From Broadway take Maiden Lane east to Gold Street (third intersection). Turn left on Gold and left again at Platt.

Enter through the lobby of the Gildhall Hotel and join us upstairs for a night to remember.

Literary Reflections Selected Short

Literary Reflections is pleased to present our featured writing prompt response from October. We asked, "Is there a character -- dead or alive -- who acts as your muse? Does this character make frequent appearances in your writing or does he or she merely serve as a cattle prod in your everyday activities?"

Kirsten Butler wrote:

"Spend time every day listening to what your muse is trying to tell you."

--Saint Bartholomew

It is said that each of us has a muse, someone or something that inspires us, drives us, and guides our lives. I have a muse and her name is Cancer. Not just any cancer but Childhood Cancer (CC).

CC and I are relatively new acquaintances, I must say. Oh, I had heard of her a few times before. But generally speaking, her name was only whispered in a far away corner or talked about on a quickly turned TV "children’s marathon." I honestly meant to spend a lifetime without ever having met her. After all, her name is so powerful, it strikes fear and dread into the strongest of hearts. And for good reason. So, when I tell you I wanted nothing to do with her, I'm being honest.

However, fate and CC had other ideas. And so, on a dreary morning in January, in a cold hard hospital room, CC sought me out. She wasn't to be denied this meeting. No! She intruded in my life and broke down my walls and demanded to be heard. And hear her, I did.

Since that fateful day, CC and I have become inseparable. She is always dreaming up new and interesting ways to keep me and my family on our toes. She has, indeed, been a vicious task master. Just when I think I have her figured out, she turns and throws a new "curve ball" our way.

But, knowing CC hasn't been without its advantages. As with any muse, CC has flashes of brilliance and I am privileged to watch her work. She has shown me beauty and sorrow, humor, agony, and blessings. Most of all, my muse has shown me myself. She has held up a looking glass, and I have bravely gazed into it.

What I find is not always pretty, not always comfortable. But, it is always insightful. She inspires me every day to never, ever, ever forget that this moment, right now is all we have in this life. All of our human plans for the future and all of our longings for yesterdays do not exist. We work towards them. We dream about them. We spend entirely too much time focused on them. But the only time we truly have is right here, right now.

My muse touches every part of every day that I live. She inspires. She degrades. She brings me to my knees. I like to wonder what life would be like right now if I had not met her. And yet . . . I cannot now imagine myself without her.

Kirsten Butler can be reached at dayspringjoy(at)msn(dot)com.

Blog Book Review: enLIGHTend

by Jessica Berger Gross
Reviewed by Merle J. Huerta

At twenty-five, Jessica Berger Gross, overweight, depressed from a recent breakup, and craving self esteem, was coping the only way she knew how – through comfort foods, cigarettes, and alcohol. Raised in an abusive, emotionally dysfunctional family, Jessica fed her unhappiness with bagels and cream cheese, and though she was an overeater, she had come to assume that her constitution was genetically predetermined. While heading to a local bagel shop one day, she wandered into a neighborhood yoga center and joined the others doing Sun Salutations. After an hour of stretching and doing "om's," Jessica noticed an emotional release and an elevated mood. She became a yoga teacher, adopted yogic principles in her life, began eating pineapple for breakfast, took long walks with her dog, Salem, and changed her physical constitution to a leaner, vibrant, healthier one.


Sound a little too fairy-tale-ish? In five hundred words or less, it might. But what Jessica Berger Gross outlines in her newest book, enLIGHTened, How I Lost 40 Pounds With a Yoga Mat, Fresh Pineapples, and a Beagle Pointer, is an effective and applicable road map that any overwrought mommy lost in the mire of dirty laundry, sleepless nights, and poor eating habits can integrate into her life. Anchored by yogic principles, healthy eating suggestions, yoga poses, and painfully humorous vignettes of her own transition from emotional dysfunction and fluctuating weight to enlightenment, Jessica provides a pragmatic approach to changing poor lifestyle habits.


At first, I was skeptical. In the sea of memoirs where the narrator seeks spiritual and emotional enlightenment, few outline a constructive, easy-to-integrate approach. And in my real life, children, work, bills, and too little personal time made it implausible for me to seek enlightenment, whether by escaping to an ashram in Tibet or to a small, rustic shed on the Cape for a year of self-reflection. Just locking myself in the bathroom for fifteen minutes of meditation while a four year old banged on the door was difficult enough.


I decided to put enLIGHTened to work from Chapter 1. So, one weekend morning, I cut open a pineapple, broke the book binder, spread the book open on the living room floor, and practiced the yoga poses. And though my three year old climbed in and around my twisted body, in the end, I felt like I had indeed accomplished something personal. At night, while my husband zoned on B-rated Sci-Fi movies, I lay in a Final Resting Post. I learned how to do a headstand, something I hadn't done since fifth grade, and taught my younger children the approach. I adopted some of Jessica's vegetarian recipes – some that were met with "oooh's," some that were met with "ich's." And finally, I joined a gym so I could do more constructive yoga with other grownups.


In the end, I did indeed integrate some of Jessica's philosophies. And most importantly, if I skipped a day, the omission wasn't viewed as an overall personal failure. The book's inherent applicable nature is precisely what differentiates it from other memoirs. While some, written from the perspective of a fictional romance novel, are enjoyable simply as an escapist read, enLIGHTened drops breadcrumbs so that real women and mommies can find their way back to an emotional center.

End of Life Stories

END OF LIFE
Creative Nonfiction is again working with the good folks at SMU Press, this time on a collection tentatively titled "End of Life Stories."

For this collection, we are seeking essays that explore death, dying, and end of life care. We're looking for stories from physicians, nurses, hospice workers, counselors, clergy, family members, and others.Narratives should highlight current features, flaws, and advances in the health care system. Essays must be vivid and dramatic; they should combine a strong and compelling narrative with a significant element of research or information.

There is a $20 reading fee--$25 covers the reading fee AND gets you a 4-issue subscription to CNF. Creative Nonfiction editors will award $2500 in prizes.

Submissions must be postmarked by December 31, 2009, and "End of Life Stories" must be clearly marked on the envelope and cover letter.

Please send all manuscripts, accompanied by a cover letter with complete contact information, SASE, and payment (when necessary) to:

Creative Nonfiction
5501 Walnut Street, Suite 202
Pittsburgh, PA 15232

For more information about any of these collections and complete submission guidelines, visit us online or email us at information@creativenonfiction.org.

Being and Thinking as an Academic Mother

Being and Thinking as an Academic Mother: Theory and Narrative
CALL FOR PAPERS FOR ONE-DAY SYMPOSIUM

The Association for Research on Mothering (ARM) and the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University will co-host a one-day symposium at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute on Thursday, April 08, 2010 on “Being and Thinking as an Academic Mother: Theory and Practice.”

ARM and the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University are now seeking submissions for the symposium. The symposium will explore academic mothers’ experiences from both narrative and theory. While previous panel discussions and collections such as PhD Momma and Parenting and Professing examined being a mother academic from narrative or “lived experience” and others, Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering issue on Mothers in the Academe, explored mother academics’ experiences from a theoretical perspective, this is the first symposium to do so incorporating both narrative and theory. The symposium will explore how both research and narrative can inform contemporary understandings of academic motherhood, particularly in regard to strategies of resistance and empowerment.

Paper proposals should strengthen the dialogue among academic motherhood, intellectual ideas, and personal narrative. The symposium will explore the topic of Being and Thinking as an Academic Mother from a variety of perspectives and disciplines. We welcome submissions from scholars across disciplines.

The symposium will run from 9-5 and will include approximately 25 papers, with each panelist having 20 minutes to present their paper. To present at this symposium, you must be a member of ARM. The symposium will coincide with the NeMLA conference (April 07-11, 2010) at McGill University. The Institute is located at 2170 Bishop Street, MontrealQuebec.

Topics can include (but are not limited to):
the maternal wall, "opting out", mentoring and modeling, being a professor mother, work-life balance, negotiating or resisting the maternal wall, single mothers and academic work, graduate student mothering, being a mother on the tenure track, being a pregnant professor, maternity leave and academic mothering, poverty and academic mothering, juggling mothering and academic expectations, intersections between feminism and academic mothering, being an academic artist and mothering, race and academic mothering, academic job searches and mothering, teaching and mothering, sexuality and academic mothering, male organizing principles and academic mothering, the academic schedule and mothering, fertility and academic mothering, challenging assumptions about academic mothers, ethics and academic mothering, “having it all” as academic mothers, adoption and academic mothering, networking, strategies for surviving academic mothering, class and academic mothering, race and academic mother mentors, social reproduction and academic mothering, motherhood closet, being out as a mother, second/third shift in the home, academic culture and mothering, maternal pedagogy, myth of ideal worker/ideal mother, intensive mothering and academe, unboundedness of mother work and academic work, childcare, fathering, trailing spouses, academic couples, biological clock, university policies and mothering, timing and spacing of children, perceptions of mothers in academe, discrimination avoidance, discrimination against mothers in academe, motherhood penalty, “price of motherhood”, adjunct work, teaching and motherhood, benefits of motherhood on teaching and research.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
Abstracts due by December 01, 2010.

Scholars interested in submitting proposals to this symposium are invited to submit proposals to D. Lynn O’Brien Hallstein at lhallst@bu.edu
or Andrea O’Reily aoreilly@yorku.ca

Sophia Raday at LitQuake!

Former Literary Mama columnist Sophia Raday, who is profiled this month, will read from her memoir, Love in Condition Yellow, THIS SATURDAY October 10th from 12-1, as part of Litquake, San Francisco's annual literary festival. She will join other memoirists, Andy Raskin, Canyon Sam, Genine Lentine, Holly Payne, and Steven Winn for an hour panel, "As I Recall It," which is part of Litquake's traditional "Off the Richter Scale" reading series.

Free!
October 10th, 12 - 1 pm
At the Koret Auditorium in the San Francisco Main Library.
More details: http://www.litquake.org/saturday-october-10/

Fathers and Daughters

Enter your non-fictional narrative for the opportunity to be included in an anthology, sharing real life accounts of how fathers have shaped daughters lives, to be published in June 2010.

It is my mission to gather authentic experiences to create an inspirational anthology of collective wisdom, an offering of guidance for the dads of tomorrow in the care of their daughters.
Please pass along to all the women in your life, I'd like to cast the net as far across the US (for now) as possible.

Go to www.daughterstory.blogspot.com for details on how to submit.

Thank you for believing in the importance of this anthology, I look forward to reading each and every illuminating story.

The East Bay Monthly

Dear Writers,

We’re now accepting short first-person essays (900 words maximum) for possible publication in our January 2010 issue.

The theme: "A moment (big or small) after which nothing was the same."

Please note that although we have nothing against poems, short stories, or epic novels, we can only consider bona fide essays for the purpose of this issue.

To submit an essay for consideration:
Paste it into your email to editorial@themonthly.com and attach it as a Word document (doc, not docx, please).

Please include your name, telephone number, and email on every page.

Deadline: November 16.

Autumn Stephens and Sarah Weld
Co-Editors,The East Bay Monthly

East Bay Monthly Call for Submissions:

We’re now accepting short first-person essays (900 words maximum) for possible publication in our January 2010 issue.

The theme: "A moment (big or small) after which nothing was the same."

Please note that although we have nothing against poems, short stories, or epic novels, we can only consider bona fide essays for the purpose of this issue.

To submit an essay for consideration: 
Paste it into your email to editorialATthemonthlyDOTcom and attach it as a Word document (doc, not docx, please). 

Please include your name, telephone number, and email on every page.

Deadline: November 16.

Please feel free to forward this call for submissions to anyone who might be interested.

Very truly yours,

Autumn Stephens and Sarah Weld 
Co-Editors, The East Bay Monthly