Literary Mama Blog

Literary Reflections Selected Short: March

Literary Reflections is pleased to announce this month's featured writing prompt Selected Short. Each month we will choose one submission to appear as a short on our blog. Check out our section for more information on how to be considered for future Selected Shorts.

In March's prompt, we asked readers "What do you imagine your most conducive writing situation would look like? In what environment do you feel like you've done your best and/or most creative writing?"

Loida Casares Ruiz wrote,

"Virginia Woolf’s famous quote is: “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” I thought of this quote when I read Terri G. Scullen’s essay, “Green Means Go.”

I believe Virginia Woolf whole-heartedly and since I already have the money part (I work full-time) I figured the room part wouldn’t be too hard, especially now that my kids aren’t babies anymore. I set up a desk in my upstairs guest room and told my husband that once a week I was going to retreat into my room to write. I surrounded myself with some Maya Angelou quotes and a print of the Three Graces by Peter Paul Rubens. I pictured myself sitting in this room writing a great novel. It didn’t quite work out that way.

First there were the children. No matter how much we told them it was my writing time, they chose to ignore it and they insisted on coming upstairs, breaking my concentration. It’s hard to reason with a five and two year old, the ages they were at the time.

Next I tried to get away once a week to write, but that was short lived. By the time I drove out somewhere, or dropped the kids off and picked them up, I felt like the process took too long. I might as well stay at home and write, I reasoned. I would actually get more writing time on a good day when the children kept busy.

Finally I gave up and started writing in my kitchen. Far away enough from the television in the living room, but close enough when needed. This is how I finally finished writing my novel. I clicked away on my laptop, while listening to the sounds of the children and my husband in the background. Sometimes my little one would wander in and would climb on my lap or would stand on my chair behind me and would pat me on my shoulders. But when I was in the zone it didn’t matter. I kept right on writing.

In my dreams my room upstairs is a perfect oasis. It’s decorated with prints from all of my favorite artists and quotes by writers. Patchouli candles are burning and the lighting is just right. I lock myself in for one hour every night with my laptop to weave my words. No one comes in to bother me and I have a whole glorious hour to myself. This would be my perfect writing environment.

The truth is, now I write at my desk top computer almost every night for one hour, in the middle of the house. I write almost every day. Because when you have that fire burning in your belly you can’t help but write. I read about a new author in Book Magazine who wrote her first novel while rocking her newborn in a baby swing. It can be done."

By Loida Casares Ruiz
http://houston.skirt.com/blog/2201
www.shoegirlcorner.blogspot.com

Who We Are

Elrena Evans, LM's Marketing and Publicity Manager, holds an MFA from The Pennsylvania State University, and together with Senior Editor Caroline Grant is co-editor of Mama, PhD: Women Write About Motherhood and Academic Life (Rutgers University Press, 2008). She writes the column Me and My House for Literary Mama, and her writing has also appeared in Brain, Child, Hip Mama, MotherVerse, Mamazine, and the anthologies Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers (Random House, 2006) and How to Fit a Car Seat on a Camel (Seal Press, 2008). She lives in Pennsylvania with her family, and blogs at her website, http://www.elrenaevans.com.

Who We Are

We'd like to introduce LM's new E-Zine Editor, Marie Walden.
Marie lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with her husband and six children. After a number of years as a stay-at-home mom and community volunteer, she returned to the workforce as a CPA and found that putting on panty hose and pumps was infinitely less enjoyable than wearing pajama pants and Uggs. She quit her job, turned her living room into a lovely workspace, and took up writing and other soul-nurturing arts with fervor. She is writing a book on financial savvy for newlywed women and blogs for Not My Tribe and Wanderlust and Lipstick.

Who We Are

Jenny Hobson is Literary Mama's new Profiles Copyeditor. Jenny lives, blogs, knits, and does GIS in an Ohio River town in West Virginia. She lives with her husband and preschooler daughter. Her blog can be found at Hobson's Choice.

Who We Are

Okay, I've dropped the ball and haven't featured any editors in too long...and now we have some new additions to our crew.

Nicole Stellon O’Donnell, Columns Editor, is a poet and essayist who lives in Fairbanks, Alaska with her husband and two daughters. Her poetry has appeared in various literary magazines, including Ice Floe, The Women’s Review of Books, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Prairie Schooner. Her essays and reviews have appeared in Anchorage Daily News and as commentaries for the Alaska Public Radio Network. With the support of a grant from the Rasmuson Foundation, she’s currently working on a book of personal poems about the life of Sarah Ellen Gibson, who in 1903 decided to start her life over in Fairbanks. She writes about life in Alaska at her blog Subarctic Mama.

Literary Mama Needs Editorial Help!

Got any newsletter or marketing experience? Literary Mama is seeking an e-zine editor! Work entails formatting and copy editing the weekly newsletter on a strict deadline, as well as research and reporting (not on deadline) about what kinds of blurbs generate the most click-throughs, what kind of content our readers are most hungry for, and who our readers are.

The job requires a gimlet eye for detail, a rudimentary knowledge of HTML, and editorial experience. The editor would also need to learn GraphicMail.

This is not a paid position – we are all volunteers here. But it’s part-time, and you’ll get a behind the scenes peek at running an online publication, a fabulous line on your resume, and access to lots of great writers and editors.

For more information or to apply, contact Caroline Grant, LM Senior Editor, at cmgrant AT speakeasy DOT org

Help Wanted: Literary Mama Seeks Web Wrangler!

Job description:

Update the content of the Web site on a weekly schedule, using Moveable Type, FTP, and HTML. Maintain the integrity of the site: update templates and style sheets, fix broken links and outdated code, add new departments or sections as the site grows, and filter and report C Panel statistics. Work closely with Senior Editors to plan and strategize moving our large, complex, heavily-archived site to a new Web host with new authoring tools. Train technical assistants and editors as needed.

Requirements:
The person in this position must be relentlessly cheerful and fearless about figuring out what they don’t know. The job also requires:
· Demonstrated expertise in HTML and Moveable Type 3.
· Knowledge of other authoring systems such as Moveable Type 4, Drupal, and WordPress is a big plus.
· Comfortable with the structure and needs of a large-scale online publication with many authors (beyond the scope of a large blog).
· Unqualified attention to detail.
· Ability to meet weekly deadlines.

This is not a paid position – we are all volunteers here. But it’s part-time, and you’ll get a behind the scenes peek at running an online publication, a fabulous line on your resume, and access to lots of great writers and editors.

To apply, send letter and resume to cmgrant AT speakeasy DOT org

Who We Are

Maria Scala, one of LM's Columns Editors, is a freelance writer and editor who lives in Toronto with her husband and daughter. Her poetry and non-fiction have appeared in Descant, PoetryReviews.ca, mamazine, Literary Mama, Between O and V, among others. You can find Maria blogging on August Avenue.

Who We Are

In continuation of the Who We Are section, this week we are highlighting LM's Literary Reflections Editorial Assistant, Violeta Garcia-Mendoza, is a Spanish-American poet and writer. Her poetry has appeared in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Cicada and Soleado, and her book reviews regularly appear in RainbowKids Magazine. Violeta posts Bluestocking columns and Bookshelf recommendations on her website, Turn People Purple, and writes about food, family, and the writing life at her blog, Feed Your Loves. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, their toddler son and daughter, both adopted as infants from Guatemala, and their two incorrigible dogs.

"Who We Are"

To continue our Who We Are section, the next on the list is Caroline Grant, Literary Reflections Editor, who writes the column Mama at the Movies for Literary Mama. She is also co-editor, with Elrena Evans, of the anthology Mama, PhD: Women Write About Motherhood and Academic Life (Rutgers University Press, 2008). She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Berkeley, where she taught classes on film, women's studies, American literature, and writing; she has also taught at Stanford University and the San Francisco Art Institute. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two sons, a life she writes about on her blog, food for thought.

"Who We Are"

In continuation of the Who We Are posting,next up on our list is Suzanne Kamata, Fiction Co-Editor, lives with her Japanese husband and bi-cultural twins on the island of Shikoku in Japan. She is the editor of the anthology The Broken Bridge: Fiction from Expatriates in Literary Japan, and the author of numerous stories, essays, articles and reviews. Her writing about motherhood appears in the anthologies It's a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons, It's a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters, Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined, and elsewhere. You can read her blog at http://gaijinmama.wordpress.com.

"Who We Are"

Next up in the Who We Are category is Susan Ito, Fiction Co-Editor who blogs at ReadingWritingLiving.

Susan lives in Oakland, CA with her husband, two daughters and mother. She teaches writing privately and at UC Berkeley Extension. She is the co-editor of A Ghost At Heart's Edge: Stories & Poems of Adoption (North Atlantic Books). Her essays and fiction have appeared in Growing Up Asian American, Hip Mama, Making More Waves, the Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere.

"Who We Are"

Each week, we will introduce you to one of the women behind Literary Mama, including a link to her blog and/or website. Our diverse group of talented, smart and creative women work hard to honor "the difficult and rewarding work women do as they move into motherhood by making these stories visible."

First up: Kathy Moran, Editorial Assistant in Literary Reflections. Kathy has two grown boys and two granddaughters. In addition to being a retired secondary language arts teacher and literary magazine adviser in the Missouri public school system, Kathy is also a teacher consultant for the Greater Kansas City Writing Project and has been published in the Project's magazine The Quarterly (Caring Comes First: A Personal Narrative) and the Missouri Teachers Council of English publication Missouri Teachers Write. More recently, she developed the curriculum for an American literature semester course for the Center for Distance Learning and Independent Study at the University of Missouri. Kathy's personal reflections can be found at marmee's corner and marmee's musings.

1.) Go to Amazon.com and purchase Karen Rizzo's memoir

Los Angeles writer, playwright, and performer Karen Rizzo wrote the book Things to Bring, S#!t to Do . . . and other inventories of anxiety made entirely out of lists she's saved since she was a child.

1) The memoir was a 2006 Book Sense Highlight for ‘Fascinating Lives’
2) Our interview with her is now up in Profiles
3) Find out what she thinks list-making really tells us about ourselves
4) She just wrote to tell us that she's now working on a novel
5) She says it scares her
6) We wonder if there are any lists in her novel
7) You can watch her here, reading some lists from her book

Focus on Amy Hudock!

This month, Literary Mama profiles our brilliant Editor-in-Chief, Amy Hudock. Read about the birth of our magazine and get an insight into the woman who got us all started and keeps us all going.

Amy is also currently featured in SKIRT! magazine's "she'ssoskirt" section. "Motherhood is how I found my voice," Amy says.

Help Wanted!

Would you like to join our editorial staff? We're looking for a very part-time Associate Editor -- or two -- in Columns, as well as a Copyeditor. The ideal AE has experience as a substantive or line editor, while the ideal CE is psychotic about detail and is comfortable writing (and testing) links in HTML.

You'll work with amazing writers and editors, plus gain exposure to publishing industry contacts. We are an all-volunteer organization, though, so unfortunately we can't offer payment.

To apply, please send an email expressing your interest and summarizing your experience to marjo(at)literarymama.com (replace (at) with the @ sign).

Crisis at Op Ed!

Ok folks, my iBook gave up the ghost just before the holidays and despite expert assistance, I can't move my mail over to my shiny new MacBook. This means that submissions I've received for Op Ed (including accepted pieces) are (in the immortal words of the Violent Femmes) gone, daddy, gone.

If you've submitted an article to me ESPECIALLY if you had it accepted, please Please PLEASE send it to me again! I've learned my lesson and all of my email now goes straight to my gmail account, where it will remain untouched by computer crashes. That email is Dawn DOT Friedman AT gmail DOT com.

Thanks so much!

More LM News and Notes -- Andi Buchanan

Never let it be said that you have nothing to read... at least not if you stick with us!

This month, Andi Buchanan, Literary Mama's founding Managing Editor, was mentioned in the New York Times article Chick Lit, The Sequel: Yummy Mummy. And, keeping it all in the family, Andi also has a piece in LM columnist Jessica Berger Gross's new book, About What Was Lost.

Go Andi!

Write On, Jennifer Margulis

Our intrepid columnist Jennifer Margulis not only sends us fascinating (and worrisome) missives from Africa, but continues to rock on as an international freelance writer. Her article in Oregon's Ashland Daily Tidings on nursing past her son past the age of three has gotten responses around the U.S. and abroad: from Alaska, to Texas, to Japan. Check it out.

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.

--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)

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!

Sign Up for the Literary Mama E-zine!

Do you have time to check Literary Mama for updates? If you don't, we'll come to you!

Sign up to receive our bi-weekly e-zine, with selections from the website and other Literary Mama news and information, delivered right to your e-mailbox.

http://www.literarymama.com/ezine/

Literary Mama Seeks Copy Editor

Would you like to join our editorial staff? We're looking for a copyeditor for our Reviews department. Please send a letter/resume expressing your interest/experience to Sybil Lockhart, Jen Lawrence, and Rebecca Kaminsky -- reviews@literarymama.com.

Bare-breasted Mama

At the close of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we're pleased to debut a new column called Bare-breasted Mama. Actually, we're more than pleased -- we're totally psyched. Written by Gail Konop Baker, it's a raw, intimate, and powerful look at her journey as a mother with breast cancer.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. On the one hand, breast cancer has touched several women in my life. And who can argue with the need for more awareness? Research dollars? Treatment options? On the other hand, I have issues with corporations that wrap themselves in a pink ribbon and then giggle all the way to the bank. If buying a pink can of chicken soup makes you feel better, then go for it. But if you really want to learn more, feel more, and think more about what it's like to have breast cancer, check out Bare-breasted Mama.

In her first entry, Gail writes:

I'm sitting topless in the oncologist's office on Valentine's Day. Cancer is a bitch. It doesn't give a shit about holidays. Doesn't give a shit when the oncologist gently presses his thick hairy fingers near the wound above my nipple. Tears well, burn the raw edges of my puffy eyes, dribble down my cheeks and roll past blood-caked stitches, landing in a puddle in the space between the oncologist's cold wedding band and my warm flesh. "Still swollen," he says and I hate him, hate that I'm swollen, hate that I'm here on Valentine's Day instead of at Victoria's Secret buying the cleavage enhancing Miracle Bra that Redbook recommended for guaranteed flawless shape.

You can read more of Gail's writing at her Web site.

The Literary Mama E-zine Relaunches!

After a vacation, the Literary Mama e-zine is back up and running. If you are a subscriber, you already will have received the first of a new bi-weekly newsletter in your email box, bringing you tasty tidbits of Literary Mama's latest writing, news and more. If you aren't a subscriber and would like to be, please join us!

Shannon

Become a Literary Mama! Seeking Editors and Editorial Assistants

We're looking for four wonderful women (mothers!) to join us here on the Literary Mama editorial board.

Creative Nonfiction Co-Editor
The Creative Nonfiction Co-Editor will head up the Creative Nonfiction department with Shari MacDonald, our current CNF Editor. Duties and joys include selecting nonfiction pieces, writing acceptance and rejection letters, working with authors on accepted essays, disseminating submission calls, formatting material for web publication, and more. Editing experience vital, computer savvy helpful, publication history a strong plus.

Columns Co-Editor
The Columns Co-Editor will head up the Columns department with Marjorie Osterhout, our current Columns Editor. Duties and joys include working with columns authors, handling administrative duties (our Columns department is very active), formatting material for web publication, and more. Editing experience vital, computer savvy helpful, publication history a strong plus.

Creative Nonfiction Editorial Assistant and Columns Editorial Assistant
We seek two Editorial Assistants for our Columns and CNF departments. The Editorial Assistants' duties and thrills include copyediting, troubleshooting, and general support services. Candidates should possess strong copyediting skills and some computer savvy. Publication history helpful, but not necessary.

* To apply for any of these positions, you must be a mother and a writer.
* All work is done over the Internet.
* Literary Mama is an all-volunteer organization.

Please send us an email to info@literarymama.com stating which position(s) you are interested in talking with us about. Include a cover letter, CV, mention of your mothering status, and a writing sample.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Former LM Editor Awarded Fulbright Fellowship

Former Literary Mama Creative Nonfiction Editor Jennifer Margulis (Author of Toddler and Why Babies Do That) was recently awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to conduct research, teach in the English Department, and write in Niger, West Africa for the 2006-2007 academic year.

Jennifer and her family will be living in Niger, the poorest country in the world according to the United Nations, for the next ten months. Jennifer is interested to see how her children will respond to the experience, as they will see poverty that they do not know exists.

Jennifer plans to revisit all of the project sites that she worked on when she was there 13 years ago working as the small project coordinator for Africare/Niger. She will be working on her book about her experiences in nonprofit development work.

Mama Sez and Other Opinionated Writing

Literary Mama has launched two new sections for your reading pleasure.

LM's new Op-Ed section features blistering, humorous, controversial, and of course opinionated commentary. Check out the latest piece by Susi Elkins about the Bush Administration, Budget Cuts and Big Bird. And if you have something to say, let our Op-Eds department know. We're always loking for fresh and opinionated voices.

Mama Sez is a new column which features the voices of Literary Mama's editors discussing hot topics in mother writing. The aim of this column is to be more of a discussion forum for mother writers and we welcome your comments (and we do mean you, yes you, sitting in the back row there, averting your eyes).

The current column deals with the frustration of mother writers who have been told by the publishing world that mothering has been 'played out': that the handful of texts about mothering is sufficient, and what the world really needs are more books about the Civil War, polar expeditions, the Kennedy clan and golf. We'd love to hear what you're reading, the impact mother writers have had on you (can you even imagine a world without Operating Instructions?), and your rejection stories.

Welcome

Welcome, new readers, to the Literary Mama blog. You may have found us by way of media appearances or book readings for Literary Mama, It's A Boy, or Confessions of a Naughty Mommy, all of which were written or edited by Literary Mama editors. Perhaps you attended one of the Mother Talks which took place in various cities over the last few month. However you found us, I'd invite you to take a litle time to wander through the Literary Mama website, named one of Forbes' Best of the Web. So whether you prefer columns, book reviews, author profiles, fiction, literary criticism, creative nonfiction or poetry, we feature some of the best writing out there today by mother writers. So find a comfy spot, pour yourself a cup of coffee and stay awhile. Oh, and feel free to leave a comment on the blog -- we always love to know what you think.

Mothers still talking...

The buzz from last Friday evening's Mother Talk has yet to die down. I pick my son up from preschool and a mom stops me with an urgent glance: "I'm so disappointed I missed the Mother Talk! Are you doing it again soon?" I've gotten calls and emails from others who couldn't make it and have heard what a great conversation we had. The calls and emails from those who did come are terrific: grateful, enthusiastic, and also a bit rueful – why didn't we do this sooner? Why don't we manage to have conversations like this more often?

Why not? Well, we could blame the kids. It's hard, we all know, to finish a sentence, let alone a conversation, when you're negotiating turns with the magna-doodle, putting snacks on the table, and keeping the preschooler's teeny-tiny lego pieces out of the baby's mouth. But many of us who attended have known each other since before we became mothers; two of us have known each other fifteen years (yikes!) And some of us do occasionally get together without the kids now that they don't all nurse all day and all night, and even then some combination of fatigue and familiarity, perhaps, keeps us from digging deep and talking about what really matters to us. Grabbing a coffee on Saturday afternoon while the kids and dads are all at the playground is wonderful, and we're all happier for it, I know. But it's good to make an event of conversation every once in a while, to change out of the playdoh-smeared clothes, sit down and really pay attention to each other. We revealed truths to each other, and to ourselves, that had otherwise gone unacknowledged.

I've been involved with Literary Mama for a year and a half, but it was last week's Mother Talk that moved one friend, with whom I've often discussed my editing, to finally look at the site, read some essays, and say to me, "The night inspired me to read more, to write more, and to more fully embrace my motherhood."

Thanks for getting the conversation started, Andi, and thanks to everyone who came for making it such a rich one; we'll do it again soon!

Andi writes about the LM Deisel Reading

Jennifer Margulis predicted we might have a big crowd, but I didn't believe her. After all, how many of these bookstore things have I done where it turns out to be just me, standing next to a tower of destined-to-be-returned-to-the-warehouse books, and one old guy who thought he was sitting in the café? But she was right: nearly 70 people showed up for the reading.

I was glad that I'd thought ahead when I was in Seattle and had prepared some remarks. Usually I do these things on the fly, talk about whatever springs to mind, or say the same intro I said at the last thing I did, but with so many people there, it seemed more formal. Plus there was a podium and a microphone. So prepared remarks seemed necessary. I was relieved I had some ready.

Before I got to that part, though, I got to meet in person a ton of people I email with, sometimes daily, but never actually see in real life: Literary Mama editors, my editor and publicist at Seal, writer friends like Barbara and Susan Ito and Gayle Brandeis and friends from Readerville. It was like a family reunion, except we'd never actually uned in the first place. Some people were exactly how I expected them to be; others couldn't have been more different. All of them were a thrill to meet outside the matrix of the Internet.

Once all the meeting and greeting was over, the 11 readers and I settled in to the reading space at the front of the crowd. With so many people there to read from Literary Mama and It's a Boy, I decided to confine my speaking to the short background info I'd prepared and the introductions of the writers. I did that, and then we got right into the readings.

Literary Mama columnist Jennifer Eyre White kicked things off with Analyzing Ben, a piece about the differences between her son and her daughter. She had the forethought to bring a visual aid with her -- a big chart replicating the table in her essay that list the behaviors shared by her kids – and it was really great. Her piece got a ton of laughs, and really got the reading off to a great start. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of her reading from her chart, as it didn't hit me until after that point that since I wasn't reading myself, I was free to document everything photographically from the sidelines.

Literary Mama Profiles editor Joanne Hartman was up next with an excerpt from Evolution of a Muse, an essay that ran in our Literary Reflections department. It's a great piece, made all the more poignant by the presence in the audience of Joanne's muse herself – her daughter. Reviews editor Rebecca Kaminsky read a section of Down Will Come Baby, an essay based on her column of the same name, and then Columns editor Rachel Sarah read Coming, a piece from her Literary Mama column Single Mom Seeking. This piece also got a lot of laughs – the best moment was when Rachel read from the part in the piece where she's frustrated by her date's lack of sexual staying power. When she said, "He told me that no other women had ever complained about being dissatisfied," all the women in the audience laughed, while all the men crossed their arms and looked grumpy and uncomfortable.

Barbara Atkinson, Literary Mama's assistant editor for creative nonfiction, followed with a tantalizingly brief excerpt from Camping, a short fiction piece, and then creative nonfiction editor Jennifer Margulis spoke about her piece in It's a Boy and her new book, Why Babies Do That. Cathleen Daly read her poem Mama's Orange Robe, originally published in our Mother's Day issue last spring, and then Susan Ito read an excerpt from her heartbreaking piece "Samuel" from It's a Boy. It was a joy to hear her read, and a revelation, too – her essay is so wrenching, so personal and raw, that until I'd heard the ending read aloud, I hadn't fully realized how sweet and funny and tender it was. I'd been focused on the story of loss, and not as drawn in to the equally powerful story of how loss eventually heals. Hearing her read the ending, where she muses about who her son would be if he were alive today, jokes with herself about her maternal pride and expectations, cast a whole different light on the essay, which always seemed to me to be at the heart of the book, but for different reasons.

Reviews editor Sybil Lockhart was up next with an excerpt from Grey, a creative nonfiction piece about coping with her mother's mortality and failing mental health. This piece was not only one of the first ones we published on the site, but one of the original essays from the "writing about motherhood" group that was started by Amy Hudock back in 2002/2003 – the group that eventually morphed into Literary Mama. Then Fiction editor Ericka Lutz read from her nonfiction essay Why My Garden, a powerful meditation on personal history and place.

The evening wrapped up with the wonderful Gayle Brandeis reading her short fiction piece Eyes in the Back of Her Head. This was another piece that was a revelation to hear read aloud. It was another one that was published in the early days of Literary Mama, and I remembered it as being powerful, but hearing it spoken out loud, it was a whole other story. It was an incredible way to end the night, hearing this fable about a mother who never truly "saw" her children, and the stories the children told themselves to explain her indifference.

But the night didn't end there – after mingling for a bit with friends and audience members, we went across the street for a small after-party that turned out to be a raucous tiki lounge. We sat and shouted to each other over cocktails and stayed up far later than is a good idea for people with young children who don't yet get that whole sleeping all the way through the night without waking up thing (or people who are jet-lagged and up way past their bedtime). But it was wonderful. A great night, and great company, and a fabulous event overall.

Photos here!

What Mothers Are Talking About

Well, the mother writer community has been busy in January. Between the book tours for the Literary Mama anthology and a series of Mother Talks, bookstores, coffee houses and, yes, even bars (or perhaps especially bars), have been filled with Literary Mamas.

Seattle played host to 2 readings in January as well as a Mother Talk. The first reading was at Queen Anne books on January 8 and featured Andrea Buchanan, Marjorie Osterhout of MomBrain, Heidi Raykeil (The Naughty Mommy), Jennifer Margulis, Martha Brockenbrough, and Literary Mama anthology contributor Jennifer Munro. Andi Buchanan provides the details (with photos) in her blog entry.

The next night, Marjorie, Andi, Heidi and Jennifer Munro read at Third Place Books.

Then on to the Seattle Mother Talk where Heidi, Martha, Marjorie (who hosted) and Andi read briefly to a group of 30 mothers from all walks of life. Discussion was sparked by the various readings and topics discussed included post-baby sex, mothers' responses to pain (why there sometimes is a strange form of competition to been seen as "Most Stoic"), mothering sons and daughters, and work and motherhood. The topic of maternal judgement and mothers judging mothers arose, as it has during other Mother Talks across the US. In fact, in anticipation of the Seattle Mother Talk, Andi wrote an interesting piece about mother judgment on her blog.

After Seattle, a number of Literary Mamas hit Oakland for a reading at Diesel Books. Over 60 people came to hear readings from the Literary Mama anthology by Gayle Brandeis, Ericka Lutz, Sybil Lockhart, Susan Ito, Cathleen Daly, Jennifer Margulis, Barbara Atkinson, Rachel Sarah, Jennifer White, Rebecca Kaminsky, and Joanne Hartman.

Then Andi headed off to the Mother Talk in San Francisco, hosted by Caroline Grant. There, 19 mothers from all walks of life gathered to talk about mothering. Half of the women were writers, although interestingly don't consider themselves as such because they are not paid to write, are not published, or do not write "literary work". And so, as Caroline put it, "a big topic of conversation was the extent to which any of us is able to claim an identity other than mother -- if we don't get paid for the work we do, or only do it part time, we're thought, or even think ourselves, to be just 'dabbling.'"

The Sacramento Mother Talk was hosted by the wonderful women of Mamazine.com. Andi Buchanan and Jennifer Margulis read exerpts from their new books which kicked off a discussion on gender and social norms. The group discussed whether it was ok to write about one's children and families (they were split on this one). Jennifer Margulis's piece from It's A Boy on how birthing a son helped her to heal emotionally years after terminating a pregnancy, led to a brief discussion about abortion. Sheri Reed of Mamazine.com, said of the evening, "I felt like we just got started and then we ended (even though we talked for several hours). There's just so much ground to cover, and I do feel mothers are hungry to talk —- even the ones with supportive families, friends, and mother groups. It's not often we get an arena to talk this way on the specific topic of mothering."

New content

We have four new fiction pieces up: San Andreas by Ericak Lutz,The Hero of Queens Boulevard by Michelle Richmond, Embarrassment of Riches by Carol Cronin, and Day Care Lady by Deborah Bauer. And in slice-of-life nonfiction, we have new columns: Down Will Come Baby, Mother and Other, and our newest column by our newest columnist, Jessica Berger Gross: Passport to Parenting.

Mother Talk Follow-Up

The Mother Talk event the other week was well attended and (I think) well enjoyed. Deena was a gracious hostess, and her house was more than accomodating to the 35 or so women who came to eat, drink, and talk. This event was more political than the others, since we were featuring Miriam's book, and the conversation was lively and topical, covering everything from the recent NY Times opt-out redux piece to the encouraging yet simultaneously 100% unrealistic portrayal of a mother's return to the working world on "Desperate Housewives." Mostly the focus was on work and mothering, and making work work. There were women in attendance who were self-described stay-at-home moms, and women who worked full-time; but most of us in the room were mothers who were cobbling together some kind of part-time work and full-time parenting arrangement, squeezing work into precious preschool hours or post-bedtime late nights (or, god forbid, marathon sessions of Noggin). So the issue of work and its value, and the invisibility of mothering-work, was quite compelling.

Miriam wrote a bit about her thoughts on the night here, and Kateri at WetFeet had some interesting things to say in response to the evening:

I was struck by a few things: in the capitalist ecomonic climate most companies are functioning in, mothers are very small players. In the individualist culture of "every man for himself", why should an employer bend over backward to accomodate the seasons of motherhood when there are other, childless (child-free?) workers who don't have such extra-curricular obligations? That's the problem with benefits for mothers: someone has to pay for them. Mothers aren't good for the bottom line. And the bottom line is what matters. ... It highlights what's missing in this culture, and in this country especially. There is no sense of shared responsibility for the children who will make up the next generation. Children are a luxury, a hobby, a lifestyle choice made by an individual. That individual is considered lucky to get any accomodation at all, much less paid leave and job security. Who pays, in the end? Mothers do: financially, professionally, and emotionally. Until the focus shifts from the welfare of the individual to the welfare of the community, change will be hard to come by. ... I didn't say anything all evening because as a stay-at-home mother who never even considered for a moment going back to work, I thought that this discussion didn't really apply to me. But then I remembered that I did make these choices, and I live with the consequences.

What I came away with from the overall discussion was mainly two things: 1. the sense of being overwhelmed by something so big and so wide-ranging that it seems impossible to "fix" -- someone brought up the important point that mothers are different, and they do not have monolithic needs, even in the workplace; and 2. the idea that these issues (specifically making parent-friendly workplace policies) fall out of the cultural memory (leading each new generation of mothers feeling as though they are fighting this battle for the first time) because those non-monolithic needs change as our children get older and the toughness of the balancing act of those years becomes a faded memory. Everyone agreed that one of the main things we can do is to return to the workplace once our children get older, because that's an important way to make mothers visible and make the issues important to us relevant at work -- and then young mothers trying to "sequence" or "juggle" or whatever you want to call it will have allies (the older mothers) in the process, not just women who are bitter about having to make everything work themselves (and therefore giving the old "it sucked for me and it'll suck for you, suck it up and get used to it" attitude).

Actually, I guess the most important thing women with kids under 5 or 6 can do is to remember what this awful work-parenting time crunch feels like, and not dismiss it later, when things aren't so hard. I think about how many of us who write about mothering lose interest in writing about the intensity of that identity shift as our kids get older and things get less intense and the things that seemed so challenging just aren't any more. But when we stop writing about it or talking about it, or taking seriously the issues young mothers deal with daily, it fades from our cultural memory, and new mothers have to reinvent the wheel -- or rewrite the momoir -- to figure it all out.

In the meantime, the question of making work and mothering work is overwhelming, and for those of us with young children, I think the answer is small steps. Miriam suggested just simply calling your local politician and asking "what are you doing for mothers?" You won't necessarily get an answer, she said, but if you call enough and ask enough, you might get the notion of mothers on the radar. Another small step is to actually talk about it when we are with other mothers. It's another "dark side" that's not so rosy to bring up at playgroup, but sharing this kind of stuff and initiating this kind of discussion is the first step. (On a similar note, Brain,Child has a great piece on the burgeoning mother's movement that discusses just this kind of thing.)

Our next Mother Talk will be Thursday, November 17, at 8 p.m. in Center City Philadelphia, and will feature writer Marion Winik talking about her new book Above Us Only Sky and both of us talking a little about my new book It's a Boy, to which she is a contributor.

Mother Talk: Philadelphia

If you're in the Philadelphia area, we have another Mother Talk event coming up: Thursday, Sept. 29, at 8 p.m. Here's the official invitation.

Mother Talk: Thursday, Sept. 29, 8 p.m. Sponsored by Literary Mama and Time Out!

Please join us for "Mother Talk," an old-fashioned literary salon with good food, good company, and good conversation with local writers Andi Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz, talking about Miriam's book The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars: Who Decides What Makes a Good Mother? Miriam is a mother, writer, and professor, and has appeared on TV, radio, internet and print media throughout the country, including CNN, KQED’s Forum with Michael Krasney, Seattle’s KUOW and KCTS Connects, Philadelphia’s Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane, and The Atlantic Monthly, Bitch, and Bust magazines.

You can email me at my gmail account (andi dot buchanan at etc.) for exact location and to RSVP.

An interview with Barbara Katz Rothman

This week we're running a fascinating conversation between LiteraryMama contributor Deesha Philyaw Thomas and CUNY professor of sociology Barbara Katz Rothman, author of (most recently) Weaving a Family: Untangling Race and Adoption.

DPT: You have what is, in my experiences with white people, a not entirely popular view of white-skin privilege. You observed that such privilege can be taken for granted but "adoption, mothering across racial borders . . . give[s] you perspective," makes you aware of it. It's easy to see why those benefiting from white-skin privilege can be oblivious to it, but why do you think some people deny or are even hostile to the idea that they enjoy this privilege? And, particularly for white parents raising black children, what is the significance of recognizing such privilege?

BKR: It's very easy to not notice the privileges we have -- people don't think of themselves as, say sighted, until a blind person enters the room. Then the social privilege of being sighted -- the ways that we have organized our social world around assumptions of sight -- becomes obvious. If you have a blind friend coming to your home for the first time, or a blind colleague coming to your office for a meeting, the social privileges of sight start becoming clear to you.

This is much the case with the privileges of whiteness -- when you are sharing your life with someone who does not have those privileges, you will come to see what they are. When that someone is your child, you had best be one step ahead, seeing what privileges might be denied that child, and working to smooth the way. Sometimes that means becoming politically and socially engaged, but it also means the daily things you will learn.

Read the entire, thought-provoking interview here.

LM makes the front page of THE STATE

The State published the following article on Literary Mama on the Sunday edition's front page. We have the wonderful Claudia Brinson to thank!

From the article:

This is a new generation coming to terms with the demands of motherhood, says Cassie Premo Steele, 38. A mother and stepmother, Steele edited nonfiction for Literary Mama, teaches at Midlands Technical College and most recently published the chapbook “Ruin.”

“We want to make it different, so this generation of mothers isn’t forgotten.”

Check the whole article out here.

LM discussed in San Francisco Chronicle

One of our Review editors, Joanne Hartman, altered me that Literary Mama had appeared in a July 24th San Francisco Chronicle article by Katherine Seligman titled "Ayelet, Unfiltered." The subtitle reads: "Berkeley writer Ayelet Waldman's bald honesty about putting her husband first made her a magnet for controversy. Would she take any of it back?"

Seligman interviewed me on the history of mother writing, and you can find me quoted in the article. You can read it here.

An interesting piece, Katharine Seligman. Thanks!

Another LM Editor signs book deal

Congratulations to Rachel Sarah, one of our two Senior Columns Editors, for her newly signed book deal with Seal Press for Single Mom Seeking. You can read her Literary Mama column which inspired the book here.

Here is the blurb from Publishers Lunch that announced Rachel's news:

July 15 05

Non-fiction:
Memoir

Rachel Sarah's SINGLE MOM SEEKING, a dating memoir chronicling the humor, pitfalls, and rewards of balancing the complexities of parenting when coupled with the search for Mr. Right, to Jill Rothenberg at Seal Press, in a nice deal, by Rebecca Kurson of Anderson Grinberg Literary Management.

Yeah for Rachel!

Interview with Brain,Child editors

Jennifer Niesslein and Stephanie Wilkinson are the brains behind Brain,Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers, one of the best print magazines around when it comes to reporting on and exploring the life of mothers. Stacey Greenberg interviews the duo for Literary Mama:

SG: How has the material you received changed over the years, if at all?

JN: It's funny -- certain subjects come in waves. For example, we'll receive nothing about atypical boys for a long time, then all of a sudden, everyone's son is wearing dresses and putting on nail polish. Generally, the subjects haven't changed a lot. It's motherhood, right?

SW: I think we get sent some really great stuff. Of course, it gets harder as you go along, from an editorial standpoint, since you don't want to repeat yourself too much. So it will always be a challenge for us to find fresh ways to talk about the tried and true stuff.

SG: How do you account for the fact that hundreds of mothers are clamoring to get their writing into your magazine?

JN: Mothers have interesting stories to tell and Brain, Child is one of the few publications committed to publishing personal essays about motherhood. I can't speak for all our contributors, but I personally think that our readers are the people whom I want to talk to when I write.

SW: I do think we hit a cultural nerve. The mid-to-late 1990s was a time when talking and writing about motherhood in a new, open, fresh way became popular. We are riding the wave, and helping sustain it, I hope.

New Columns

In our newest columns, Sybil Lockhart (Mama in the Middle) writes about her daughters' intense connection to one another:

[Encouraging their closeness] seemed like a brilliant tactic at the time, but watching Zoë and Cleo now, I wonder what weird dynamic I have created between my children. Zoë depends on Cleo being hers. They seem almost too close, too joined. Why is it SO important that they look the same? I wonder if Zoë, in her own kid-logic, has decided that if they look exactly alike, no one will compare them, and then they will be equally loved. Or maybe they really are just close, loving sisters, and I don't recognize that when I see it.

I lean forward, as if this will help restore my balance. I can feel the familiar tingling in my fingers and toes now. My heart feels like it is racing, and I take a couple of deep breaths, in the hopes of slowing it all down. The whole right side of my face is throbbing. I massage the back of my neck as my jaw pops. This is it. This is what it feels like to have your body assailed from the inside out. I don't know why they call a migraine a "headache" since it is so much more than that. It is an all-over bodily assault.

"The little one isn't so little anymore," a friend remarks of her nearly four-year-old son. "What am I supposed to do next year, when he's in school for a full day?" She worries her uselessness will be exposed. Without a young child, a baby, to consume those long school-filled hours, she fears she will no longer have justification for being, as she calls it, out of the world. Is it time to go back in the world? Does she want to go back in the world? A third baby might make those questions moot, at least for a few more years.

Passing Judgment

New in our "Your Commentary" section, editor Dawn Friedman poses the question: What pushes your judgmental button?

In her interview with Literary Mama, author Marrit Ingman speaks about the lure of casting a critical eye on other mothers. She says, "It's hard to reason qualitatively when you are tired and you have an infant, and you are making decisions that you think are going to make or break your child as a human being forevermore. We have no idea whether we are successful as parents of very young children except by comparing ourselves to other people."

Do you find yourself critiquing other mother's choices? What pushes your judgmental button? We want to hear more about what's going on for you when you find yourself shaking your head over another woman's parenting decisions. What makes YOU indulge in other-mother gossip?

Mom-on-mom judgment has proven to be the hot topic in every Mother Talk salon we've done, no matter what we start talking about, and I'm hoping this will spark an interesting conversation here as well. Send in your thoughts on this to Dawn at commentary at literarymama dot com.

Profile: Marrit Ingman

Literary Mama's own Rebecca Kaminsky interviews Marrit Ingman about her forthcoming memoir, Inconsolable, due out from Seal Press in October. In talking about the book, which explores Ingman's experience with post-partum depression, they hit upon what's turned out to be a fruitful topic among mothers: judgement.

RK: In the book you talk about the judgment mothers have of one another's parenting. Did your perceived judgment by other mothers at the time of your depression affect your recovery from PPD? Do you think that these judgments affect how we perceive ourselves?

MI: A hundred times yes. I went into labor as a very judgmental person, and I came out of it with a surgical birth, and in my community that's considered a failure. I'm a middle-class white person living in a politically progressive community, more or less, and I think there's a lot of pressure on families to stick to the model of "I don't vaccinate, and I had a homebirth, and we have a family bed, and we eat organic food from the farmer's market" or whatever. When I wasn't able to do some of those things, I felt like even more of a failure. We forget sometimes that it's hard to reason qualitatively when you are depressed. It's hard to reason qualitatively when you are tired and you have an infant, and you are making decisions that you think are going to make or break your child as a human being forevermore. We have no idea whether we are successful as parents of very young children except by comparing ourselves to other people.

RK: In terms of writing the book, did you think about how people, especially other mothers, would judge you? If so, do you think it affected your writing or choice of content?

MI: At times I think I went too far the other way, that I adopted this attitude of "If you don't like my parenting choices, then fuck off and take your sustainably-grown produce with you." That attitude is just as dangerous.

Read the rest of the interview here.

Mother Talk Report

Asha Dornfest reports on the most recent Mother Talk event in Portland:

About 35 women filled the house, and the conversation was lively from the get go. This is Portland –- a small town in the guise of a city –- so many of the guests were connected. . . About 45 minutes later everyone crowded into chairs and onto the floor for more focused discussion. Our guest speakers were Jennifer Lauck and Ariel Gore. . . . Jennifer brought passion and power to the talk, Ariel was saucy and full of self-deprecating humor. Everyone enjoyed hearing them both; once the conversation got started it kept rolling with its own momentum.

Also, Jennifer Lauck reports on the LA Mother Talk event with Hope Edelman and on the Mother Talks she and I did with Jennifer Margulis in Portland and Seattle last month.

A conversation with Miriam Peskowitz

My Literary Mama interview with Miriam Peskowitz is up and running. Miriam, who writes a blog called Playground Revolution, is not only smart and interesting, but she's also a Philly mama, so I've been lucky enough to meet her in person for coffee, commiseration, and general hanging out. We'll be doing a Philadelphia Mother Talk event featuring Miriam soon. In the meantime, head on over to the Q & A. Here's a sampling:

AB: Why is it always framed as Mommy Wars and not Parent Wars? Why are any of these issues specifically women's problems? Isn't limiting the focus and excluding fathers in fact preventing us from ever making any real headway in the work vs. family debate?

New stuff

We're running an interview with author Jennifer Lauck in which she talks about writing and motherhood and writing about motherhood:

Before I wrote Show Me the Way, an agent asked, "Are you going to be a serious writer or are you going to disappear into the abyss of motherhood?" I said I was going to be a serious writer, of course. I had been a writer for 20 years, why would mothering change that? Now that I am eight years into mothering, I see what she was asking. The day-to-day of mothering is so consuming that it's tempting to give yourself up to it completely. Still, I believe that I can be lost in the abyss of motherhood and be a serious writer too. It isn't a black and white choice because this isn't a black and white life. I write because I must and I mother because I must.