Review by Emily Webber “It starts with a face in a binder, CHILDREN AVAILABLE, reads the cover” (1). This is the first sentence of The Risk of Us, Rachel Howard’s remarkable debut novel. In the novel’s opening scene, the unnamed narrator and her husband, Sebastian, are looking through binders to select the child they will foster and hopefully adopt. When they come across pictures of older kids, they discuss how hard it will be for them to find a home, deemed too unlikely to form a bond with their new parents. Beyond hope, they seem to say. The opening scene…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Review by Tina Kelley I always felt, after reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting, that the sweet little book we’d used as a bible while gestating had left us all completely underprepared for parenthood. Now that I’ve gotten two teenagers through a total of 33 person years without too much lasting damage, I see that the book didn’t remotely warn us of what really awaited us. Sure there would be flatulence, and increased teariness, and let us not forget the discourse on the mucus plug, which might cause any single lady to consider better methods of birth control. We…
Lara Lillibridge On Writing Mama, Mama, Only Mama Lara Lillibridge on her memoir, Mama, Mama, Only Mama: An Irreverent Guide for the Newly Single Parent—from Divorce and Dating to Cooking and Crafting, All While Raising the Kids and Maintaining Your Own Sanity (Sort Of). (Skyhorse, May 2019) Being a single mother means relaxing your cleanliness standards. A lot. Being a single mother means missing your kids like crazy when your ex has them, only to want to give them back ten minutes after they come home. Being a single mother means accepting sleep deprivation as a…
Squeaky Wheels: Travels with my Daughter by Train, Plane, Metro, Tuk-tuk and Wheelchair by Suzanne Kamata Review by Lara Lillibridge Suzanne Kamata grew up in Grand Haven, Michigan. She went to Japan to teach English, fell in love, and married a Japanese man. She gave birth to micro-preemie twins, one of whom was deaf and had cerebral palsy. Kamata recounts her struggles in learning to support and advocate for her daughter, while fostering independence at the same time. She writes about her first overseas travels to the US, and local trips around Japan. Kamata received a grant to…
Review by Barbara Ellen Sorensen A definitive theme in Margo Taft Stever’s new volume of poetry, Cracked Piano, is the mercurial role of mothers. That motherhood is both a terrifying and transcendent time in many women’s lives is not lost on Stever. Over and over, the poet sketches images of women who don’t just model binary traits of good and bad but who are fully realized human beings. Children and infants inhabit the poems as well and motherhood is filled with the vestiges of childhood from eating animal crackers to feeding puppies. These are unfailingly light images embedded in…
Review by Carole Mertz Maggie Nelson centered her Bluets around its “blue” theme and Inger Christensen around the alphabet. In her book Pansies, Carol Barrett shaped her vignettes around the personality and culture of an Apostolic Lutheran babysitter. Teenage babysitter Abigail is hired to care for the author’s child Sarah. This collection conveys a profile of the babysitter and of how her character influenced the author’s family. For the writing of Pansies, Barrett, a clinical psychologist, received the support of two grants, one a GAP grant from the State of Washington, the other from Union Institute & University. As a…
Review by Lara Lillibridge “One word. One breathless syllable, as steady, as fragile, as a hinge. Try to say it softly. If… The sound lingers, the weight of the word hovers.” (75) Deborah Batterman’s novel, just like february, is filled with lyrical prose in this coming of age story. As the story begins, we join Rachel in watching the dynamics between her Vietnam veteran father and anti-war mother as they prepare to finally wed. Her grandmother—the family matriarch—adds her own drama to the occasion, and we meet the rest of the quirky siblings. Rachel is often relegated to the role…
Review by Barbara Lawhorn Two and a half years ago, I found myself questioning my identity in the face of a marital separation. Larger than the question of who I was beyond being a wife, was the deeper interrogation of who I was when my children were gone. Since their births, the contours of my life have been shaped and sanded by their astounding existence. I knew I was a writer, and a teacher, but shared custody initially left me reeling in a house too quiet and too empty. Mothers Without Their Children, edited by Charlotte Beyer and Andrea Lee…
Happy Mother’s Day! On Mother’s Day, MER celebrates all aspects of “mother”–the noun (“a mother’) but also the verb (“to mother”), and, for that matter, adjective and adverb. Wishing all who mother in any way a beautiful day! French artist Camille Aubry’s astute graphic art depicts the dawn of the mothering experience. Joetta Maue’s art references stages of motherhood and mothers’ work. Laura Foley’s poem evokes the joy of grand-mothering. Laura Foley – Poetry Camille Aubry – A Journey to Motherhood Joetta Maue – Art
Camille Aubry – A Journey to Motherhood Artist’s Statement I am a French illustrator and cartoonist based in Bristol, UK. I explore the subject of motherhood in my artwork, and more particularly through my comic book A Journey to Motherhood. The project was this year long listed for the Laydeez Do Comics Prize. As a side project to this long form graphic novel, my self-published book of cartoons Toddler Moments was selected as part of the April line-up for the Laydeez do Comics event where I was invited to present the project to the public. The book was recently reviewed…