Online Parent-Lit Writing Workshop to Start in January

Starting January 7, 2007

Anyone who has had a child knows that parenting is one of life's most exhilarating, awesome, maddening, humbling, crazymaking, joyful and wrenching experiences--which is what also makes it excellent inspiration for writing. This past decade has shown an explosion in "Parent-Lit," or the literature of parenthood, in all forms: creative nonfiction, poetry and fiction.

This workshop is for anyone who wants to tap that rich vein in their writing. It's for new parents, prospective parents, grandparents, stepparents, adoptive parents and birth parents. It's for people all over who want to come together and share their stories and their words, to learn something about the craft of writing.

It's not easy for some parents who want to write to get out of the house for a writing workshop. So this workshop will allow parents to participate while breastfeeding, sitting at home in a robe and pajamas, hanging out at the playground (with wireless internet, that is) or in the wee hours of the morning.

About the class:

The class will run for 10 weeks, starting January 7, 2007. Fee for the class is $350. Participants will learn the fundamentals of both creative nonfiction and fiction writing, using parenthood as a theme. We will read and discuss published examples of great parent-lit, and write some of our own. Assignments will consist of a combination of short exercises and more developed projects. Class size is limited to ten.

Workshop topics will include (more to come, based on class requests):

* Turning Life Into Fiction
* The Parent Pantoum: the Poetry of Repetition
* The Many Faces of Creative Nonfiction
* Writing Columns: the Slice of Life
* Taking a Stand: Writing Op-Ed and Opinion Pieces
* Flash Fiction: writing short-shorts
* My Family, My Material: How to be intimate, yet not invasive when writing about relatives
* Fun with Research

About the instructor:

Susan Ito is fiction co-editor and columnist (starting December 2006)at Literary Mama. She co-edited the anthology A Ghost At Heart's Edge: Stories & Poems of Adoption. Her work has appeared in The Essential Hip Mama: Writing from the Cutting Edge of Parenting, Growing Up Asian American, Making More Waves: New Writing By Asian American Women and many other journals and anthologies. She is the mother of two daughters, a preteen and a teen.

Email susan@susanito.com for more detailed information, or to enroll.

Better op-ed guidelines

Last weekend I attended the 2006 Nieman Narrative Conference. There were a lot of great workshops by a lot of thrilling presenters but one of the most inspiring was given by Connie Schultz.

Ms. Schultz is a mom, a wife (to newly elected senator Sherrod Brown) and a Pulitzer-prize winning writer. Her op-eds appear in the pages of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Listening to Ms. Schultz speak about the particular challenges -- and rewards -- of writing was just what I needed to hear as op-ed editor here at Literary Mama. I came to the conference frustrated by a publishing schedule dictated by the lack of great submissions and struggling to write clearer guidelines when soliciting more writers. Her talk clarified my role as an editor here and I wanted to share my thoughts with you.

Literary Mama isn't just a great literary magazine; it's also a terrific opportunity for women writers to get a strong and valuable clip. Our reputation as a lit magazine of high standards is always growing and many of our writers and editors are able to use their work with Lit Mama as a stepping stone on their career paths. I left the Nieman Conference knowing that I need to recommit myself to op-ed editorial duties here in order to give more women the opportunity to build a writing portfolio, especially in the competitive world of op-ed and columns. To that end, I'm tightening up my focus:

• With newspaper space at a premium, op-eds are getting shorter. I've stretched our limits before but now I'm looking for submissions with a very tight 650 to 850 word count.


• I want to see more narrative. It's understandably easy to get lecture-y when you're arguing your point, but the strongest columns show, don't tell.


• Speaking of lectures, get down off your soapbox and get conversational. You'll be more convincing when you write to the reader the way you'd talk to a friend.


• Because we're an online magazine, steer clear of subjects that have been talked to death on blogs. While a print publication's audience may not know that the Internet is already a-buzz about something, our readers do. Exceptions? When what you have to say hasn't gotten any play anywhere and really does cast a new light on what could otherwise be a tired subject.


• Our publishing schedule (once a month) will continue although I would love to see enough great submissions coming in that we publish every couple of weeks. Until then, please know that if your piece is accepted, it may get bumped further down the schedule if a more timely op-ed happens to come in. Don't worry -- an acceptance is an acceptance but I can't guarantee when things might run.

To see two examples of great op-eds, check out these links. I hope that they will inspire you to submit your work. I am always anxious to hear from new writers!!!!

--Here's a Little Tip About Gratuities (reportage, narrative, and a strong argument -- all in less than 850 words!)
--Who's to Blame for the Decline of Marriage? (personal, conversational and a new take on the issue)

Rachel Sarah in the News!

Single Mom Seeking debuts on the 11 o'clock news!

Last night (11.21.06), the charming CBS 5 News reporter Joe Vasquez tracked Literary Mama columnist Rachel Sarah and her single mom friends down during their weekly "Girls' Night."

A new study was just released - about the new surge of unmarried moms - and he wanted to talk to a local single mom. After knocking at the door of her previous address, her former 13-year-old neighbor gave him Rachel's cell (thanks Zi-Zi!).

You can watch the short segment here:
"Percentage of Unmarried Moms Hits New High in U.S."

Conveniently, Rachel and her lovable single mom buddies were having their weekly potluck dinner at Siobhan's house. As the CBS crew pulled up, their girls were running around naked. But when Rachel and her friends announced they were going to be on TV, the girls dashed to put on some glittery costumes.

The moms scrambled to clean up the house. Joe Vazquez knocked on the door. The girls were very polite. Arden got TV-shy, but you can spot her in some wild glasses in the background. Siobhan's turtle, Dottie, is now a celebrity!

Joe asked Rachel why she thought that out-of-wedlock births were on the rise. Have we finally stopped shaming single moms?

The kicker was when he asked Rachel: "So, are men obsolete?"

Listen here for Rachel's answer.

And check out Rachel's website, www.singlemomseeking.com.

Special STEPPARENTING Issue! ***edited***

We're doing a special issue focusing on STEPPARENTING, and we need your help and your writing!

Here at Literary Mama, we've always welcomed -- encouraged -- made it our mission -- to feature the many voices and faces of motherhood. That includes stepmothers, of course. As a stepmother, and as the author of a bestselling stepparenting book, I'm keenly aware that stepparents are under-considered, under-heard, under-recognized.

Unfortunately, that's been true even here at Literary Mama.

Yes, we've published the occasional piece by a stepmother, but we just don't get many submissions. I suspect many stepmothers don't feel fully qualified to speak out in a literary magazine with "Mama" as part of the title.

Okay, time to change all that. Next March, we're publishing a month's worth of writing by stepmothers about the stepparenting experience. Please submit! And please, if you know a stepmother who has something contribute, pass this Call for Submissions on to her.

And if you're a mother who is not a stepmother who writes about stepparenting, please send us your work, too.

***We are not looking for submissions from the STEPCHILD's point of view!***

Call for Submissions
(Please circulate widely)

Literary Mama, an internationally-acclaimed online literary magazine (http://www.literarymama.com) seeks top-notch writing for a special March 2007 issue: Stepparenting.

According to The Stepfamily Foundation, 64% of families today live in some form of divorced and/or stepfamily relationship. From Snow White's evil witch of a stepmother to Hamlet's stepfather (who killed Hamlet's dad, married his mother, and stole the throne), stepmothers and stepfathers get a bad rap in literature. And the stepparent point of view? Rarely seen and explored.

For our Special Issue on Stepparenting, Literary Mama seeks fiction, creative nonfiction, literary reflections, poetry, and a guest column ("Faces of Motherhood") BY stepparents ABOUT the stepparenting experience.

Deadline: December 31, 2006

Our guidelines vary by department. Before submitting, review individual guidelines at: http://www.literarymama.com/submissions/

FICTION:
Submissions in the text of an email along with a brief cover letter. Please put "Stepparenting Submission from Your Name" in the subject heading.
Editor: Susan Ito -- fiction@literarymama.com

CREATIVE NON-FICTION:
Submissions both in the text of an email and as an attachment.
Editor: Shari MacDonald Strong -- nonfiction@literarymama.com

LITERARY REFLECTIONS:
Submissions of 750-5000 words in the text of an email and/or attached Word document, along with a brief cover letter.
Editor: Caroline Grant -- litcrit@literarymama.com

POETRY
Poems of any length and form. Maximum of four poems per submission. Please send submissions in the text of an email.
Editor: Rachel Iverson -- poetry@literarymama.com

"FACES OF MOTHERHOOD" COLUMN:
Seeking personal essays of 600-1200 words about how being a "mom-by-marriage" makes you feel out of step with the mainstream image of mothers. Send submissions in the text of an email, along with a brief cover letter.
Editors: Marjorie Osterhout and Erin Sullivan -- columns@literarymama.com

General notes:
* Response time up to 4 weeks.
* Authors retain rights. Please credit us if your work is republished.
* Simultaneous submissions okay as long as you notify us if accepted elsewhere.
* We prefer previously unpublished work. We will consider reprints, however, if you have the rights and the work is not currently available online.
* Electronic submissions only.
* Literary Mama attracts over 30,000 unique visitors a month. We do not, however, pay our writers or editors -- we are all volunteers here.

More Questions? info@literarymama.com

Andi Buchanan on "The Escalation of Cool"

Literary Mama's own Andi Buchanan recently appeared at the Association for Research on Mothering conference in Toronto, Canada talking about trends in mother-literature. The full text of her speech appears on her own blog, Mother Shock, but you can get a flavor of it here:

It used to be transgressive to write about "the dark side" of motherhood. I still remember when a friend read one of my essays from Mother Shock -- "Loving Every Other Minute of It" -- where I concluded by admitting that I didn't love every single minute of being a mother. Now, in this climate, in 2006, that seems almost quaint. But when that piece was first published, in 2001, my friend called and said she'd been positively shaking when she read it. She told me, "I love it. But I'm so glad it was you who wrote it, and not me."

I'd like to think that books like mine and others helped give people the courage to voice their dissatisfaction, or their worry, or their difficulty, or give voice to their own dark side. But now that it is becoming no longer transgressive to admit that motherhood isn't all Hallmark moments and peak experiences, the pendulum has swung. And suddenly, at least when it comes to what publishers are thinking about what makes books and newspapers sell, if you aren't a bored mother, a depressed mother, an I-could-care-less mother, a mother who drinks, you are not a mother who is having an authentic experience.

And here:

The fact is, the hallmark of the parenting experience is vulnerability. You are never more a part of the messy, hot, sticky, sometimes boring, sometimes disgusting, sometimes painful reality of life than when you become a parent. You are plunged into the reality of biology, of life, of the heart of human existence -- the emergence of self. And you are plunged into this often as ill-prepared as a newborn is for life out in the world. And it is harrowing and punishing and exhilarating and incredible, and sometimes it brings you to your knees.

Cool is an armor against that.

Sometimes when we don it, it is protective gear against a world that is cruel or difficult or that we can't face without a mask. Sometimes we take it on to protect us from our experience. But sometimes we take it on to prevent us from being fully where we are. And in literature, that prevents us from really getting to the raw truth of our experience. We become ironic, painfully self-aware narrators of our own lives whose endless chatter never allows the unmediated thought to emerge. We fall in love with our own edge, but we don't allow ourselves to look at how it cuts both ways.

Read Andi's full speech and report back -- we'd love to know your thoughts!

Living in the U.S.? GO VOTE!!!

Here in the United States it's Election Day. Honor your revolutionary foremothers and get thee to your polling place!

Remember that most of the early Suffragists in this country were mothers (many had five or six children): Julia Ward Howe, Kate Shepard, Ida B. Wells, Sojourner Truth. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote suffrage speeches while nursing her sixth child.

These women suffered arrest, hunger strikes, and force feedings for our right to vote. Honor their struggle, exercise your rights. Go on... turn off the computer... VOTE!!!! ... we'll still be here when you get back.

"O" Magazine Publishes Article "No, Daddy, No"

If a man gets caught molesting a child down the street, he'll get jail time.

If a father or step-father gets caught molesting a child living in his own house, he'll get probation and therapy.

This month, "O" Magazine takes on laws and family court systems that abuse children by failing to protect them from sexual predators in their own families. Jan Goodwin writes:

All across the country, legal loopholes let convicted incest offenders go home and crawl back into bed with their traumatized daughters and sons. Even in states were that's not the case, weak links in the judicial system often leave a child in the groping hands of the molesting parent. "In our culture, if you grow your own victim, you are legally protected, says Linda Davis, a licensed clinical social worker and the executive director of Survivors of Incest Anonymous (an international support organization). " If a stranger rapes a child, it's "Call the police, jail him, throw away the key." But if that same man rapes his daughter, its "Call the therapist, slap him on the wrist, let him go back and do it again."

To read the rest of the article, go here. For more information, check out:

Justice for Children
PROTECT
The Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence
Small Justice
Child Help
Mothers Against Sexual Abuse
Courageous Kids Network
California NOW on the Family Court
Protective Mother
California Protective Parents Association
California NOW Family Court Watch Program
Mothers of Lost Children
Institute on Violence, Abuse, and Trauma
Stop Family Violence
Battered Women, Abused Children, and Child Custody Conference

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