Literary Mama

I was saddened to hear about the death of NOW co-founder and Feminine Mystique author Betty Friedan yesterday. I didn’t really know why I felt sad. I did not know her. She was 85 years old. By all accounts, she had lived a very full and remarkable life. It was author Ann Douglas who (as […]

Welcome, new readers, to the Literary Mama blog. You may have found us by way of media appearances or book readings for Literary Mama, It’s A Boy, or Confessions of a Naughty Mommy, all of which were written or edited by Literary Mama editors. Perhaps you attended one of the Mother Talks which took place […]

The buzz from last Friday evening’s Mother Talk has yet to die down. I pick my son up from preschool and a mom stops me with an urgent glance: “I’m so disappointed I missed the Mother Talk! Are you doing it again soon?” I’ve gotten calls and emails from others who couldn’t make it and […]

Jennifer Margulis predicted we might have a big crowd, but I didn’t believe her. After all, how many of these bookstore things have I done where it turns out to be just me, standing next to a tower of destined-to-be-returned-to-the-warehouse books, and one old guy who thought he was sitting in the café? But she […]

Well, the mother writer community has been busy in January. Between the book tours for the Literary Mama anthology and a series of Mother Talks, bookstores, coffee houses and, yes, even bars (or perhaps especially bars), have been filled with Literary Mamas. Seattle played host to 2 readings in January as well as a Mother […]

Martha is one of my favorite online writer friends. She is also a force to be reckoned with. Read her impassioned response to Maureen Dowd’s recent piece in the Times, In Defense of the Bake Sale. My favorite part is the whole damn thing, so I’ll restrain myself and just quote a few choice paragraphs: […]

We have four new fiction pieces up: San Andreas by Ericak Lutz,The Hero of Queens Boulevard by Michelle Richmond, Embarrassment of Riches by Carol Cronin, and Day Care Lady by Deborah Bauer. And in slice-of-life nonfiction, we have new columns: Down Will Come Baby, Mother and Other, and our newest column by our newest columnist, […]

The Mother Talk event the other week was well attended and (I think) well enjoyed. Deena was a gracious hostess, and her house was more than accomodating to the 35 or so women who came to eat, drink, and talk. This event was more political than the others, since we were featuring Miriam‘s book, and […]

Miriam Peskowitz has an eloquent response to the recent New York Times feature on Ivy-educated women who plan to give up work for motherhood. And she also links to an excellent piece by MMO editor Judith Stadtman Tucker, who writes, in part: . . . [I]t’s occurred to me that mothers may not be doing […]

If you’re in the Philadelphia area, we have another Mother Talk event coming up: Thursday, Sept. 29, at 8 p.m. Here’s the official invitation. Mother Talk: Thursday, Sept. 29, 8 p.m. Sponsored by Literary Mama and Time Out! Please join us for “Mother Talk,” an old-fashioned literary salon with good food, good company, and good […]

LiteraryMama contributor and New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Lauck (who has an essay in all three of my upcoming anthologies, It’s a Boy, Literary Mama, and It’s a Girl) posed a question for her blog readers about the kind of situation many of us have experienced: making a judgment call about another person’s parenting. […]