From the Editor: July/August 2023

I always imagine that summer will be a creative and productive season, during which I’ll write much more than I usually do. I work fewer hours, travel more, spend more time outside, and spend more time with friends; my kids go off on their own adventures and leave a quieter house behind them. Inspiration should be easier to come by under those circumstances, but with all the planning and doing, there doesn’t seem to be much time left for sitting and writing. I can only hope that on some not-quite-intentional level, I’m like Leo Lionni’s Frederick, storing up warm, colorful memories for the long winter, and I’ll surprise myself with what I’ve managed to gather when I thought I was too busy making lists and prodding others onward. Maybe that’s another way of saying that I trust I’ll find what I need close to hand when I need it, even if I didn’t have the forethought or freedom to collect it. That kind of trust is no small thing, and I don’t take it for granted.

During my years editing Literary Reflections essays, I met many mothers who wrote avidly as children, but stopped somewhere along the way, and later, missing that part of themselves, made a conscious effort to recreate a writing life as parents. My own story is a version of the same, but my effort to restart wasn’t all that conscious, compared with my intention to stop. My creative writing ended rather deliberately around age 14 because it suddenly seemed pretentious and embarrassing to call myself a writer, and because I saw myself as unformed and empty, an imitator of other authors with no thoughts of my own sufficiently interesting to express. When I returned to writing as an adult, it wasn’t a matter of commitment and intention so much as a matter of having something to say and wanting to say it, if only occasionally. I’ve carried on that way, writing when I can and not writing when I can’t, but the gift of maturity is that even when I can’t, I’m not embarrassed to consider myself a writer.

Literary Mama, with its honest portrayals of imperfect maternal experience, offers an encouraging reminder that our identities—as parents, as writers, as readers, as local or global contributors of whatever sort—aren’t predicated on incessant activity, or a checklist of accomplishments, or a certain definition of worthiness. Even those who do sometimes don’t. Sometimes we’re like Frederick the storyteller, gathering ideas and images worth keeping and sharing, and sometimes we’re like the rest of the mice, simply stocking the pantry. Whatever this season is like for you, we hope you’ll find something heartening here to see you through to the next.

Libby Maxey
Senior Editor