Literary Mama Rewind: Birthdays!
Welcome to Literary Mama Rewind! Every few weeks we’ll round up some of our favorite essays, stories, poems, columns, and reviews from the Literary Mama Archives relating to a particular theme. Since Literary Mama is now celebrating her tenth birthday, this week we are discovering the stories that commemorate our lives. All you have to do is click and read….
- Happy Birthday to Literary Mama by Amy Hudock from the Column Mama Sez
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, I see images of the real-time writing support group that played midwife to LiteraryMama.com.
- BRANDED! A Godless Couple Celebrates 20 Years by Ericka Lutz from the Column Red Diaper Dharma
Bill and I recently celebrated twenty years of being a couple. So we did the standard thing — we threw a backyard potluck barbeque. And then we went out and got matching tattoos.
- You Have Struck a Rock: Women’s Day in South Africa by Katherine J. Barrett from the Column Mother City Mama
Women’s Day, August 9, has been a South African public holiday since 1994 but the significance of the date extends back to 1956. On August 9 of that year, 20,000 women marched into Pretoria, to the seat of the oppressive, sometimes violent, pro-apartheid National Party. They stood in silent protest for thirty minutes, many carrying children on their back, and laid petitions of over 100,000 signatures at the Prime Minister’s door.
- Love Always From Ruth by Ona Gritz from the Column Doing it Differently
I’m sitting with a group of friends in one of New York University’s sterile student apartments singing “Happy Birthday” to our beloved teacher, Ruth. “Seventy-one,” she marvels, shaking her head and pushing a loose strand of her long red hair out of her eyes.
- Anniversaries by Vicki Forman from the Column Special Needs Mama
My babies weren’t supposed to come in July. The summer days between June 30 — my birthday — and July 30 — my son’s, were not meant to be layered deep in memory and regret.
- As Long as it Takes by Andrea Vij from Creative Nonfiction
But now that the day has arrived, I don’t feel typical at all. And as much as I’d like to turn this into a typical birthday, I can’t. Two things stand in my way. First, my son is not here to celebrate. And second, I am not yet his mother.
- The Garden Party by Marecelle Soviero in Creative Nonfiction
I planned her fifth birthday party with the obsession only a newly separated mother could bring to such a task, pouring everything into the details that would make my girl happy, as if a party could make up for the events of the last month.
- Birthday Gifts by Joan Pedzich in Fiction
“You going to wish me happy birthday?”
“Weren’t we ignoring it?”
“Yes, but as it turns out, you did get me something.”
“No, you made me swear. No mention. No card. Not even a rose. No cupcake. No nothing.”
The bathroom clouded up. Grace held up the stick with the big red word on it.