@ Literary Mama

The past three weeks have been full of creative works.  Read the most recent pieces at Literary Mama…

COLUMNS

Reader Response to Planting: Sowing the Seeds of the Self in One’s Own Writing Room by Cassie Premo Steele from Birthing the Mother Writer.

Last month’s column invited readers to submit a short story or creative non-fiction piece on the theme of claiming one’s own space as a mother writer.

 

CREATIVE NONFICTION

Frozen Concentrate by Anika Fajardo

Making orange juice from concentrate was, the way my mother did it, an overwhelmingly complicated task. She never defrosted it first, and had to run the can under hot water until steam rose above the white enamel sink in our rented townhouse.  Then she pried off the lid and sometimes let me lick the yellow slush. I remember its heady sweetness tinged with bitterness, a taste so intense I could never decide if I liked it or not.

Nihari by Zainab Shah

“I’m coming to New York,” my mother informs me. A week earlier, I had told her that I’d decided to get divorced. She thought I had lost it. No Pakistani girl in her right mind would give up a husband of any sort, let alone a rich one.

 

FICTION

Morning Star by Paige Walker

Ellie blows into the yellow rubber glove, creating room enough to slide her hands through to the fingertips with little resistance.  She has the phone on speaker as she listens to her sister, Mel, complain about scraping dried macaroni and cheese from bowls.

Simple Addition by Margaret Willey

Always, the goal was to create more space, but Rita, at seventeen, knew that there was no longer any way to make space; they were packed to the walls of every room like sardines and the only solution now was for someone to move out, a solution that was still more than a year away in her case. She was the eldest. She would be the first to leave.

Safety Net by Mary McCluskey

She tightens her arms, nuzzling her face against the infant’s downy hair, inhaling the soft sensuous smell of young skin. He smells just baked, like new bread or a blueberry muffin, a smell that is absolutely and uniquely his own. He is less than two days old and already rules her world.

 

LITERARY REFLECTIONS

Essential Reading: Mother’s Day by Libbey Maxey

For sources of maternal inspiration from the trenches of adulthood, read on.

Now Reading: May 2013 by Libbey Maxey

The unique handful of recommendations below takes us through bewildering territory, delving into the challenges of personality, sexuality, physical deformity and the loss of self that follows from the loss of loved ones.

 

PROFILES

A Conversation with Room Magazine Editor Lorrie Miller by Katherine J. Barrett

Part of Literary Mama’s series of interviews with editors and publishers of women-focused journals and books.

 

REVIEWS

The Motherhood Fantastic: A Review of What You Are Now Enjoying: Stories by Susan Barr-Toman

What You Are Now Enjoying won the 2012 Autumn House Press Fiction Prize and was longlisted for the 2012 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award.