Moms in the Fast Lane

We are looking for personal stories 1500 to 3000 words in length (approximately 6-12 pages, double spaced, 1 inch margins) that explore the challenges women face while raising kids and working a job, or raising kids and staying at home. We also encourage career women who have made the decision not to have children, or who are contemplating having children,to submit their stories.

Our readers will include young college graduates contemplating motherhood; women overwhelmed by the demands of career and family life; stay at home moms and moms trying to “on ramp” back into a career; husbands and fathers trying to better understand the plight of the women in their lives; and anyone wondering how mothers are faring in the professional world today. The success of this book will lie in the readability of the stories. These are NOT scholarly essays, and they do not need to have a “moral” to the story, or a solution to the problem. They are personal memoirs from real women illuminating the triumphs and failures of raising children while maintaining a career, or not. They should be dramatic, funny, emotional, passionate. Other potential issues to explore: equal parenting or not, successful relationships or not, fidelity or not; feeling good about work or not. Your candor, humor and passion are most important. Funny and outrageous anecdotes (e.g. struggling to keep down morning sickness while presenting to a board room of men) are encouraged!

Manuscripts and queries should be typewritten and double-spaced. Please send in in Word or RTF format. Please provide a 3 sentence description of yourself, contact info, including an email address, and day and evening phone numbers. If possible, send writing clips of other work you have published.

** If you do plan to contribute, we would appreciate you sending a short, one-paragraph abstract/proposal about your subject matter as soon as possible. We will do our best to review and provide feedback.

Deadline for submission is July 15, 2009.

If we decide to include your story in the collection, we will contact you directly to discuss the best way to handle the material/assignment. Due to the large volume of queries we have received, we may not be able to include every story received. We will try to notify you within 30 days of receiving your manuscript to let you know whether it will be included in the collection.

All manuscripts and queries should be e-mailed to:
sam@walravens.com
Subject: submission: “Moms in the Fast Lane”
Samantha Parent Walravens
Writer, Freelance Journalist and Mother of Four
sam@walravens.com