
Labor of Love: A Literary Mama Anthology
Labor of Love is available NOW!
The anthology was edited by Amanda Jaros, former Literary Mama editor-in-chief, and published in collaboration with Small Harbor Publishing. The twenty-seven contributors to the anthology are all current or former Literary Mama staff members and their writing includes a range of creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry.
We held a launch party and reading on Facebook on February 1, 2024, and you can enjoy a recording of the event.


“Motherhood is a nuanced identity and the contributors to Labor of Love handle it with the care and expertise that are cornerstones of Literary Mama. This anthology is a patchwork quilt of excellence.”
~Jamie Sumner, author of Roll with It

“Celebrating 20 years of Literary Mama, this evocative anthology explores the transformative power of writing about motherhood across its many stages. Through the voices of writers from Literary Mama’s past and current staff, we are able to witness a reckoning of identity and motherhood and the work of parenting through forms ranging from poignant poetry to captivating fiction to hybrid family histories and reflective personal essays. This important, resonant collection is a snapshot of mothering at many stages that captures the essence of the magazine’s past and present even as it looks towards its future.”
-Andrea J Buchanan, author of Five-Part Invention and The Beginning of Everything
List of Contributors
“The essays, stories, and poems collected here from Literary Mama staff are raw and beautiful. Though many are about the more trying, painful aspects of mothering, they somehow work as a salve. No thinking, reading, sometimes struggling mother should be without this book.”
-Ona Gritz, author of Present Imperfect