@Literary Mama
Read the most recent pieces @Literary Mama….
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COLUMNS
Bullying: Mom to Mom by Marjorie Osterhout from Dear Marjo
Dear Marjo, My eight-year-old son is having a problem with a playground bully. He’s not being physically attacked or anything. But it’s more than teasing.
Public Secrets by B.L. Pike from Senior Mama
The church is in a suburb of Phoenix that is financially secure and barely integrated. And though both Bob and I come from backgrounds that match that description, the members of this congregation don’t seem to know what to do with us. We do understand their confusion; our family is a hodge-podge of ages, skin tones and (with service dogs in tow) mammalian species, a kind of unscripted performance art.
CREATIVE NONFICTION
The Historian by Jennifer Neves
What will I remember of this child when my hair has whitened, my eyesight blurred, and my muscles weakened?
Newgrange by Elaine Fowler Palencia
When you are perceived as living with a tragedy, even though our family does not consider our son to be a tragedy, other people share sorrows with you.
Things We Can Not See by Dawn Erickson
The local tribes considered the mountain a spirit, one that informed their daily lives; an integral part of their stories and legends.
If We Get Out of this Rite Aid Alive by Kelly Fig Smith
In aisle two, your four children run around you in circles, bouncing and jumping between leaning towers of grape-extract-infused conditioner and columns of hair serum that promise to make your frizzy hair miraculously smooth.
FICTION
Swimming by Susan Celia Greenfield
Sarah Kessler had her first real encounter with Rick Wolfson when he hit her leg with his gym bag at the West Side Nursery School. She had noticed him before of course, not because he was particularly handsome but because he had dark eyes and reckless hair and the sweaty intensity of an unsatisfied appetite. That Rick was married to a small-busted and well-assembled Wall Street banker who seemed unworthy of her husband’s bohemian charm only increased his value. As Sarah knew from experience, it was easier to fantasize about unhappy men.
LITERARY REFLECTIONS
Essential Reading: Beauty by LibbyMaxey
This month, our editors (and a columnist!) are ruminating specifically on the theme of Beauty: the physical, human kind, but also the kind of beauty that takes us out of ourselves.
PROFILES
Mother is an Artist: A Profile of Visual Poet Mirella Bentivoglio by Toti O’Brien
In the summer of 1996, I interviewed a famous Italian poet, Mirella Bentivoglio, then 74 years old. I had long admired Bentivoglio’s ability to match her creative career with tremendous amounts of critical work (mainly aimed at supporting women artists), all while a mother of three. I was curious about her strategies and about the source of her exceptional balance and strength. Most importantly, I wanted to explore the nature of her mothering choice, and I hoped that she would share her memories with me.
REVIEWS
Pain and Miracles: A Review of Labor Day: Birth Stories for the Twenty-First Century by Erinn Kelley
Pregnancy and childbirth provide a glimpse of ourselves at our most elemental. There is no room for inauthenticity or the masks of politeness that we wear daily.