Mama Sez

Stepmothers are the silent voices in the mothering community. This month at Literary Mama, many of our departments feature pieces by and about stepmothers. Since representing stepmothers has always been…

New writers and students often ask me “So, how do you get a book published?” Well, the answer is: part luck, part connections, part platform, and part good writing; but…

Clarify. Unknot. Simplify. Pack away the holiday decorations. Organize the closets. Wear pink, red, orange, plaid and stripes. Wear your pants too short, too high, too low. Wear your nicest…

Three years ago, LiteraryMama.com hit the web for the first time. Our main mission: connecting mama readers with mama writers. As I look at the scrapbook that commemorates that birth,…

My great-grandfather was a fireman. Not the kind who rescues people from burning buildings; rather, he worked for the railroad, shoveling coal into the firebox of a steam engine. A…

When my son was two, he asked me whether Santa was real. He sat on our green couch with his legs straight in front of him, his orange and blue…

When I took the position of Fiction Co-Editor at Literary Mama, I figured it would be easy to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. After all, I’d…

While teaching my first journal writing class for mothers, I realized we had a problem. I looked around the room at pregnant women and new mothers with journals full of…

You’re a reader. You’re a mother. And then gradually you realize that at naptime you race to your computer the way you used to race to the TV, anxious to…

I began my pregnancy journal as a series of letters to my unborn child. Cute idea. I thought I would give it to her as a gift when she grew…

At Literary Mama, we believe that great writing lies in the details and attention to language. Yes, your ideas matter, but unless the prose itself works, you’re going to bore…