Literary Blog Content

Photograph by Louise Clausen

August inspires great storytelling. This is the month that has given its summer climate and seasonal backdrop to novels many of us literary mamas will know well. Literary classics we read at school like F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, books simmering with oppressive heat which we now know lends itself well to explosive character dynamics and plot twists on the page. The same goes for British novels often studied at high school level like Ian McEwan’s Atonement and L.P. Hartley’s The Go-Between.

As a mother who writes, this is the time of year that feels a little ‘in-between’. Summer holiday feelings and experiences with our children drive a very different narrative to the one that returns as we head towards the end of August. Our offspring for whom we often put our own lives on hold during the summer, return to routines that do not depend on us so heavily. That may be controversial for parents of kids starting a new stage of their education, but generally the minds of creative mothers are given a little more breathing space, once emotions and organizational logistics planning subside. Still, literary productivity may falter as we work out how to shift our focus from summer vacation mentality to more inner creative imagining. 

Literary Mamas, let us draw your attention again to our July/August issue. In relation to my thoughts above about how summer and in particular August can influence writing, I found Isabella Fusani’s Profile interview with Nicole Graev Lipson about Mothers and Other Fictional Characters: A Memoir in Personal Essays to be most inspirational.

And more of interest On Writing While Mothering by Alice Vincent that is worth a read, as August comes to a close.