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Essays

Nautilus shell

Come Up With Something New: On Manuscripts, Mothering, and Writing the Book You Have to Write

I had to write in order to understand the kind of mother I wanted to be.

Essays, Literary Reflections | July/August 2022 | By Anne Zimmerman


bubbles against blue background

A Grandmother’s Tale

The grandmother figure as little old lady tends to be how we are represented in children’s literature today.

Essays, Literary Reflections | July/August 2022 | By Linda Stallman Gibson


Mama Dreams, Daughter Dreams

My children need me to reach for the moon. They’ll never know how to do it themselves if they don’t see me try.

Essays, Literary Reflections | May/June 2022 | By Crystal Rowe


Letting Go

After years of love and care, I have no choice but to release this book.

Essays, Literary Reflections | March/April 2022 | By Susannah Q. Pratt


Mother Mentors and Muses: Finding My Way Back to Writing in Midlife

Throughout the sleep-deprived haze of my early child-rearing years, I wrote very little, if at all—but somewhere deep inside, the longing for poetry remained, dormant but very much alive.

Essays, Literary Reflections | January/February 2022 | By Therese Gleason


Field in autumn

Storybooks and the Liberation of New Motherhood

Absorbing these images, it became clear: motherhood, at least in its initial stages, is simpler than I’d originally thought.

Essays, Literary Reflections | November/December 2021 | By Katie Greulich


Kneading Bread

Daily Bread

It’s like the act of writing, where I have kept my sourdough starter alive by continuing to feed it, and I have practiced the art of baking over and over again, knowing that not every loaf will leave my home, that some of them may even go in the garbage or become croutons. It is only because I continue that I succeed.

Essays, Literary Reflections | September/October 2021 | By Sara Dutilly


Little Women and blue flowers

Jo March and the Fiction of the Writing Mother

What I wanted, of course, was some kind of Plumfield. A space that didn’t force me to choose, but accepted both parts of my life.

Essays, Literary Reflections | September/October 2021 | By Steph Ebert


Saying Goodbye to Childhood, One Book at a Time

The books, as my daughter said, were her childhood. How could I possibly give them away, deny her that safe corner of imagination?

Essays, Literary Reflections | July/August 2021 | By Leslie Lindsay


girl in flower crown

Confronting Literary Theory: Ice Princesses and Don Quixote

I understood her loyalty to the one true story, the first version in her experience. That comforting feeling of stability and rightness is not easily outgrown.

Essays, Literary Reflections | May/June 2021 | By Annette Lucksinger


Oak tree in winter

Even in Winter

I jog and write. Feet find road, fingers ping keys. I don’t lose weight. Essays are left in pieces. Chapters are only ideas. I had hoped that by now my resolutions would be paying off.

Essays, Literary Reflections | March/April 2021 | By Erin Lyn Bodin


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