Review by Emily Webber Jessica E. Johnson’s memoir, Mettlework: A Mining Daughter on Making Home, revisits her unique childhood during the 1970s and 1980s. Through her mother’s letters, written during Johnson’s childhood, Mettlework beautifully interweaves her mother’s journey with her own. Johnson examines how people continuously discover new versions of themselves and others and how the idea of home changes as people enter different stages of life. Shortly after Johnson had her first child, she received an email from her mother with scanned photographs and two letters written by her mother in 1979 and 1980. Eventually, her mother shares…
Author: Mom Egg Review
MER Quarterly June 2024 Spotlight on our print issue, MER 22 – Ages/Stages Watch the Launch Reading on our @merliterary YouTube Channel. MER 22 Ages/Stages Issue Launch Reading Sunday, June 9, 2024 READERS Allison Blevins, Anne Graue, Barbara Henning, Cheliss Thayer, Christine Jones, Heather Sweeney, Heidi Seaborn, Hilary King Juan Pablo Mobili, Kali Lightfoot, Karla Daly, Laurel Benjamin, Lois Roma-Deeley, Lydia Gwyn, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Megan Merchant Meghan Miraglia, Natalie Solmer, Paulette Guerin, Robin Dellabough, Sarah Browning, Susan Michele Coronel, Tina Barry HOSTS Cindy Veach, Jennifer Martelli, Marjorie Tesser VIRTUAL PROGRAM EXCERPTS…
Selections from MER 22 POETRY FICTION PROSE Get the issue: Print Issue – $18 ($15 with coupon code “STAGES”) PDF Copy – $5
MER vol. 22 Ages/Stages Issue Launch Reading Sunday June 9th, 6 PM EDT Watch the reading on our @merliterary YouTube channel Get the print issue here Get the PDF issue here Hosted by Cindy Veach, Jennifer Martelli, and Marjorie Tesser Readers: Allison Blevins, Anne Graue, Barbara Henning, Cheliss Thayer, Christine Jones, Heather Sweeney, Heidi Seaborn, Hilary King, Juan Pablo Mobili, Kali Lightfoot, Karla Daly, Laurel Benjamin, Lois Roma-Deeley, Lydia Gwyn, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Megan Merchant, Meghan Miraglia, Natalie Solmer, Paulette Guerin, Robin Dellabough, Sarah Browning, Susan Michele Coronel, Tina Barry Reader Bios Allison Blevins is the queer disabled…
Review by Elizabeth Brown Fictions by Ashley Honeysett, the Miami University Press Novella Prize Winner 2023, is the author’s first book. She studied creative writing at Stephens College in Missouri and has lived in the United States, Ireland, and Japan. Before Fictions, she published poetry and prose in various literary journals. Written in almost a diary-like style, Fictions depicts the principal character’s life as a mother and her life as a writer. Writers will identify with the way she has interwoven these strands throughout. The style and tone work strongly together, juxtaposing the mundane and the dramatic in patchwork…
Review by Jane Ward Janelle Wolf’s birthday celebration is approaching, Charles Wolf’s business is going through a rebrand, and their daughter–Mira–is planning her wedding. On the surface, it appears the Wolf family leads a rather ordinary life. But award-winning author Mindy Friddle makes it clear from the start that life within the home of the Wolfs of Her Best Self is nothing close to mundane. Beneath the mannered surface lurks dysfunction and worse: lies, deceptions, and manipulations that threaten to bring down an entire dynasty. The novel toggles between events of 2015 and thirty years earlier when matriarch Janelle…
Review by Theta Pavis Carole Stone’s latest book Limited Editions (her sixth poetry collection) is a love song to a treasured life. Stone, a distinguished professor of English, Emerita, at Montclair State University, writes about a love that encompassed everything and the everything that must be survived after it is gone. From the very beginning, when her date mentions Ulysses, Stone knows she’s met someone to build a life with. Through that steadfast love she finds, even when she has to transition years later into the role of caretaker, a full appreciation for all life can give us. The…
Review by Annamaria Formichella After twenty years of publishing Literary Mama, a publication dedicated to writing for and by mothers, current and past staff members created a space to share their own stories in Labor of Love: A Literary Mama Staff Anthology. What strikes the reader most powerfully in this volume is the honesty with which this collection explores motherhood in all of its complexity. Thirty different writers, representing various ages, backgrounds, and family histories, express their truth in essays, stories, and poems. In a serendipitous coincidence, I found myself with this book in hand on Mother’s Day, riding…
Genoa Yanez-Alaniz Severing Maria In the photo she texted her excessive and carmine uterus — sits inside a sterile dish Her motherhood noduled — dead-fleshed and disposed severed limb of life once divining deity of Coatlicue — vigil of body and earth A newborn cries red-faced and gasping for that first burst of sacrifice served survival at mother’s breast — her enduring gift of sustenance Celebrated memory of gilded crown — of quinceañera princesa Curious reach for that alluring and elusive gasp of pulsing crimson honeysuckle bud and drip — piqued angel shape of sweetness Maria, spirit and embodiment of…
MER Bookshelf – June 2024 Staff Picks – new books of fiction, memoir, and poetry. –Compiled by Melissa Joplin Higley. Alison Stone, Informed, NYQ Books, May 2024, poetry Pulling traditional forms into the 21st century, Alison Stone uses pantoums, ghazals, a jeweled sonnet crown, and other structures to explore the subjects of contemporary life. Love, sex, family, politics, and the pandemic are both confined and liberated into the frameworks in which Stone places them. Claiming and owning these forms allows Stone to bring a rich and layered music to these poems, leaving the reader both moved and transformed.…