Birthing the Mother Writer

This month Cassie Premo Steele invites you to submit a short story or creative non-fiction piece of 800-1200 words on the theme of claiming one’s own space as a mother…

This month Cassie Premo Steele chose two poems by readers on the themes of mothers and suicide. And yet not. There’s something deeper at play in these poems. As if…

Every mother has a winter season. We don’t talk about it much anymore. We hold up Sexton and Plath as counter-examples, we say, “Oh, how much has changed!” and we…

Last month’s column invited readers to submit poems on “mothering differently.” Cassie Premo Steele shares two beautiful poems about our sometimes painfully complex mother-daughter relationships, as well as a discussion…

In my last two columns, we discussed the intricacies – personal, cultural, and historical – of desiring natural motherhood. This month, I’d like to shift our discussion from the subject…

In last month’s column Cassie Premo Steele invited readers to submit writing on the theme of Desiring Natural Motherhood. This essay by Jessica Ellis Laine brings to light two essential…

My mother was a philosopher. My sister and I grew up with philosophy books all over the house and grad students stopping by. We had a tiny little television that…

In last month’s column, Cassie Premo Steele asked readers to submit short stories about mothers and children in the setting of a school. Perfect for this time of the year,…

This month Cassie Premo Steele invites you to write a short story that takes place in a school or college and involves a mother and her child or teenager.

Last month’s “Birthing the Mother Writer” column asked readers to submit essays about mothering during a child’s adolescence. In this essay, Sarah Marxer writes about how, since she adopted a…

My daughter is twelve. Sometimes I wake at dawn, from a dream that she is gone, and my heart pounds for her. I remember being twelve. Getting so warm, chasing…