Rivka Galchen is the author of Little Labors (New Directions, 2016). Her 2008 first novel Atmospheric Disturbances and her 2014 story collection American Innovations were both New York Times Best Books of the Year. She has received many awards as well as an MD from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Galchen lives in New York City.
Contributors
A. V. Klotz →
I am a mother, teacher, writer and live in Shaker Heights, OH, where I am the Head of Laurel School, a girls' school. Our house is full of books and tiny rescue dogs. My work has appeared in Mothers Always Write, Community Works Journal, Independent School Magazine, and an anthology about parenting older children called Motherlode. I blog semi-regularly for the Huffington Post.
A.K. Summers →
A.K. Summers is the author and artist of the graphic memoir Pregnant Butch (2014 Soft Skull Press-Counterpoint), which was nominated for a 2015 Lambda Literary Award and included in 2015 Best American Comics as a notable comic. She lives with her son in Providence, Rhode Island.
Abby Walthausen →
Abigail Walthausen lives in Los Angeles where she writes and teaches.
Adina Giannelli →
Adina Giannelli is a nonprofit director and lecturer in the Department of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts. Her essays have appeared or are forthcoming in publications including the Boston Globe, Cinema Femme, Feministing, Kveller, Mamalode, the Manifest-Station, Role Reboot, Sliver of Stone, and the Washington Post. Giannelli lives in western Massachusetts with her child, where she is at work on a social history of infant mortality. Find her online at www.adinagiannelli.com.
Alex Behr →
Alex Behr is a single mom in Portland, OR. Her piece on breastfeeding as an adoptive mom -- "Milk It" -- appeared in MUTHA, and her work has also been published recently in Nailed, Manifest Station, and elsewhere. Her debut story collection, Planet Grim, will be out in fall 2017 (7.13 Books).
Alina Stefanescu →
Alina Stefanescu was born in Romania and lives in Alabama with four incredible mammals. Find her poems and prose in recent issues of Juked, DIAGRAM, New South, Mantis, VOLT, Cloudbank, New Orleans Review Online, and others. Her debut fiction collection, Every Mask I Tried On, won the Brighthorse Books Prize and will be available in May 2018. She serves as Poetry Editor for Pidgeonholes and President of the Alabama State Poetry Society. More arcana online atwww.alinastefanescuwriter.com or @aliner.Alison Stine →
Alison Stine works as a freelance reporter. She is the author of four books, most recently SUPERVISION (HarperVoyager, 2015), and lives with her son in the foothills of Appalachia.
Allegra Hirschman →
Allegra Hirschman lives in San Francisco with her wife and two little ones. She is a researcher, multimedia storyteller, outspoken bisexual, and line dance enthusiast. She has a Masters in Women’s and Gender Studies which makes her a great addition to any party where people want joy-killed. You can find her occasionally commenting under the unfortunate twitter handle @allegrahirschma
Allison Carr →
Bio: Allison Carr is a witch, writer, healer, and queer. She holds a master’s degree in Chinese Medicine and is currently a stay-at-home-mom. She writes articles and teaches workshops on self-acceptence, healing, magic and spirituality. She lives in Santa Barbara with her partner and their son. For more information find her at her blog: http://Allisoncarr.netAllison Langer →
Allison Langer is a Miami native. She graduated from the University of Georgia and has an MBA from the University of Miami. Allison travelled the States taking pictures for fun before landing in Telluride where she worked for the brilliant ski photographer TR Youngstrom. Allison moved back to Miami in 2000 to launch her own photography business, which she still actively runs today. She is a single mom to three children, ages 7, 10 and 12. Her stories and her voice can be heard on Writing Class Radio, a podcast she co-produces that shares stories and writing lessons from her Wednesday evening writing class. Her most recent story, Sloan Therapy, was published in the Spring 2018 edition of 50GS Magazine. Through writing and sharing her own story, Allison has been able to overcome life’s greatest challenges and learn how to write from the heart. When she is not taking pictures or writing, Allison can be found at the Dade Correctional Institution where she teaches memoir writing as a facilitator for Exchange for Change.
Ama Karikari Yawson →
Ms. Yawson is co-founder of Joojos, an artisanal children's shoe company that aims to inject love, fun and play into the children's shoe making business. Additionally, Ms. Yawson hopes to publish her first children's book, Sunne's Gift, with funds generated through a Kickstarter campaign. Sunne's Gift is about a magical creature with spirally hair that grows toward the sun named Sunne. Sunne's three straight-haired siblings, who also have magical powers, poke fun of Sunne's hair. Sunne starts beating the spirals of hair to fit in, but as a result... With this story, she hopes to promote a culture of acceptance in which we see that celebrating diversity is not just "nice to do," it is essential for our survival. Ms. Yawson earned a BA from Harvard University, an MBA from the Wharton School and a JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She works as a securities lawyer and lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and two sons.
Amanda Webster →
Amanda Webster holds a degree in medicine from the University of Western Australia and an MFA in Creative Writing from City University of Hong Kong. She was a general contributor at Bread Loaf in 2010. Her memoir, The Boy Who Loved Apples, was published by Text Publishing in 2012. A Tear in the Soul, a hybrid work of creative nonfiction, was published by NewSouth Press in 2016. Her essays have appeared in Black Warrior Review, Alimentum, Hunger Mountain, and Vogue Australia. She lives in Sydney, Australia.
Amra Brooks →
AMRA BROOKS was born and raised in California. Her novella California was published in 2008 by Teenage Teardrops. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, Spin Magazine, index, the LA Weekly, The Encyclopedia Project Volume F-K, Ping Pong: the literary journal of the Henry Miller Library, Inventory Magazine, and other publications. She has taught at the University of California in Santa Cruz and San Diego, Naropa University, and Muhlenberg College. Currently she lives in Providence, Rhode Island and teaches creative writing at Stonehill College in Easton, MA.
Amy Abugo Ongiri →
Amy Abugo Ongiri is a masculine of center lesbian author and educator who hopes her children can grow up to be strong and free. She wishes more radicals/queers/people of color would get involved in the foster care system.
Amy Kurzweil →
Amy Kurzweil is the author of the debut graphic novel Flying Couch, which received a Kirkus star and is a Junior Library Guild pick. Her comics appear in The New Yorker and other publications. Her short stories have appeared in The Toast, Washington Square Review, Hobart, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. She teaches writing and comics at Parsons School of Design and at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Amy lives in Brooklyn.Amy Shearn →
Amy Shearn is the author of two novels, The Mermaid of Brooklyn and How Far Is the Ocean From Here. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Real Simple, Martha Stewart Living, The Millions, and elsewhere. She regularly writes for Oprah.com, and curates a reading series called Lit at Lark. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, photographer Adam Tetzloff, and two adorable and time-consuming children.
Andrea Askowitz →
Andrea Askowitz is the author of My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy and the editor of Badass: True Stories. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, Salon, AEON, xoJane, Brain, Child, NPR and PBS. She is co-creator of and teacher on the podcast Writing Class Radio, where you hear true, personal stories and a little about how to write your own stories. She lives in Miami with her wife, Victoria, and kids Sebastian, Natasha and Beast. For more Andrea, check out writingclassradio.com. Author photo by Stephanie Howard.
Andrea Lani →
Andrea Lani is a writer, naturalist, and public servant. Her work has appeared in Brain, Child, Orion, and SaltFront, among others. She lives in Maine with her husband, three sons, and six ducks and can be found online at www.remainsofday.blogspot.com. Andrea Lawlor →
Andrea Lawlor teaches writing at Mount Holyoke College, edits fiction for Fence, and has been awarded fellowships by Lambda Literary and Radar Labs. Lawlor’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, the Millions, jubilat, and the Brooklyn Rail, as well as a chapbook, Position Papers (Factory Hollow, 2016), and a novel coming from Rescue Press in 2017. More at anderlawlor.tumblr.com.Anita Manderfield →
Anita Manderfield is a writer, stay-at-home-momma (SAHM), and American interloper in Belgium trying to learn the way of the SAHMurai. She's written for ScaryMommy and Mamalode. Read more at her blog, SAHMurai.
Anna Doogan →
Anna Doogan is a writer, dancer, and mother of four. Her writing has also appeared in Hip Mama, The Literary Kitchen, The Boiler, Threadcount, and elsewhere. She lives in Portland, Oregon.(author photo by Sarah Krajewski)Anna Sellheim →
Anna Sellheim graduated from the Center For Cartoon Studies in 2016. Her work tends to either be political or focus on mental health. She has been published by The Nib, 7 Days, and In These Times Magazine.
Anthonia Akitunde →
Anthonia Akitunde is the founder and editor-in-chief of mater mea. Raised in Kansas City, Missouri on a healthy diet of books and magazines, her decision to be a journalist was practically inevitable. After graduating from the University of Chicago and Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Anthonia moved to New York City to further her journalism career, freelancing for The New York Times, Fast Company, Fortune.com, and The Root. Always bothered by the lack of diversity in her favorite magazines—she even wrote letters to Ebony and Essence when she was 12, proposing they create a teenaged version of their publications and make her editor-in-chief—Anthonia was especially struck by the dearth in mainstream media of professional women of color. Mater Mea is a website that tells the stories of women at the intersection of motherhood and career. Launched in 2012, the site offers a more realistic depiction of black women in the many spaces they occupy: as mothers, daughters, employees and employers, lovers, and friends.Anya Ulinich →
Anya Ulinich is the critically acclaimed author of Petropolis, which was awarded the Goldberg Prize, named a best book of the year by The Christian Science Monitor and The Village Voice, and translated into ten languages. Following its publication, Ulinich was selected for the National Book Foundation’s “5 under 35” list of promising young fiction writers. Her short stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, n+1, and Zoetrope: All Story, and she has taught at New York University and Gotham Writers’ Workshop. She lives with her two daughters in Brooklyn, New York.
Aren Aizura →
Aren Z. Aizura is a writer and scholar. He is the author of Mobile Subjects: Transnational Imaginaries of Gender Reassignment (Duke University Press, 2018) and the co-editor of the Transgender Studies Reader 2. His work has appeared in zines and literary journals. He lives in Minneapolis, MN.
Arielle Greenberg →
Arielle Greenberg is the coauthor, with Rachel Zucker, of the nonfiction book Home/Birth: A Poemic, and the author of the poetry collections My Kafka Century and Given and the chapbooks Shake Her and Farther Down: Songs from the Allergy Trials. She is the coeditor of three anthologies: with Rachel Zucker, Starting Today: 100 Poems for Obama’s First 100 Days andWomen Poets on Mentorship: Efforts and Affections; and with Lara Glenum, Gurlesque: the new grrly, grotesque, burlesque poetics. Twice featured in Best American Poetry, she lives with her family in a small town in rural Maine.
Asha French →
Asha French is a poet and essayist. She writes about parenting her favorite daughter, mourning her favorite father, and learning how to love women in ways that heal. She has a spirit guide in the person of a five year old daughter who loves bats. Her work has appeared in Pluck, PoetryMemoirStory, Emory Magazine, Mutha Magazine, Women's Media Project, and Autostraddle. She is a former columnist for Ebony.com and is currently looking for a home for her collection of essays.Ashley Lefrak Grider →
Ashley Lefrak Grider's work has appeared in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, n + 1, The Rumpus, and Salon.com. Originally from Virginia, she now lives near Philadelphia with her family.
Aya de Leon →
Aya de Leon teaches creative writing in the African American Studies Department at UC Berkeley. Kensington Books publishes her award-winning feminist heist series, Justice Hustlers: UPTOWN THIEF (2016), THE BOSS (2017), THE ACCIDENTAL MISTRESS (2018) and SIDE CHICK NATION in 2019 about the hurricane in Puerto Rico. She also authored the children's picture book puffy: people whose hair defies gravity. She has received acclaim in the Washington Post, Village Voice, SF Chronicle, and The Establishment. Her work has also appeared in Ebony, Guernica, Writers Digest, Huffington Post, The Toast, The Root, Catapult, VICE, Quartz, Essence, Bitch Magazine and on Def Poetry. She is also at work on a children's picture book to help talk to children about racism, a black girl spy YA novel called Going Dark, and an adult spy novel about FBI infiltration of an African American political organization. She blogs and tweets about race, gender, and culture at @AyadeLeon and ayadeleon.com.Ayun Halliday →
Ayun Halliday is the Chief Primatologist of the award-winning zine The East Village Inky and the author of seven books, including Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo and the graphic novel Peanut. She wrote and performed in over 500 short plays and several full-length solo performances as a member of the Neo-Futurists. Homeschooling her youngest child resulted in a bottomless appetite for working with with teens. Her most recent plays are The Mermaid’s Legs and Fawnbook, available through IndieTheater Now. A fan of dialogue in all forms, Ayun has also published several autobiographical and historical comics on Narrative.ly.
Becki Melchione →
Becki Melchione’s writing about motherhood, young adult cancer, infertility and raising twins has appeared in Brain,Child Magazine and Literary Mama. Her essays have been anthologized in Oh Baby! True Stories About Conception, Adoption, Surrogacy, Pregnancy, Labor, and Love and Multiples Illuminated. She’s been working on a memoir about choosing hope through cancer, infertility and motherhood for too long to admit.Becky Fine-Firesheets →
Becky Fine-Firesheets is a writer with an MFA from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Her work has been published in Lumen Magazine, Serving House Journal, The Boston Phoenix, Portal del Sol, and The Northeast Performer, among others. She plays keys and sings in rock band The Brooklyn Players Reading Society, teaches ESL at Kingsborough Community College, and runs a menagerie out of her Brooklyn apartment featuring the toddler Lew, two awesome dogs and two okay cats. She loves the beach, books, cooking, and swimming. Originally from Kentucky, she also loves fried chicken and biscuits with gravy. You can learn more about her at her website.
Belle Chesler →
Belle Chesler lives in a very pointy house in Portland, Oregon with her husband, Andy, her daughter Cleo Mae, and one very cranky old cat. By day she teaches visual art in a large public high school, by night she falls asleep with a book on her face.
Bernadette Murphy →
Bernadette Murphy is the author of, Harley and Me: Embracing Risk on the Road to a More Authentic Life (May 2016, Counterpoint Press). She has published three previous books of narrative nonfiction including the bestselling Zen and the Art of Knitting, is an Associate Professor in the Creative Writing Department of Antioch University Los Angeles, and a former weekly book critic for the Los Angeles Times. Her website is Bernadette-Murphy.com.
Beth Mattson →
Beth Mattson is a rabid queer and writer, toiling away in Oregon and Wisconsin, making her bi-coastal, if you count the Mississippi as a major body of water, which you should. She is the parent of two non-verbal tots, who can’t yet read the embarrassing things that she writes about them. They keep her guessing and standing on her head, but can’t stop her from facilitating writing workshops for under-served populations.
Betsy Graziani Fasbinder →
Betsy Graziani Fasbinder became a second wife when she married a widower with a young son. Their family fashioned itself with loss and love as their foundation, and with tenderness and commitment as their guides. She is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Fire & Water and the founder of The Morning Glory Project, which celebrates those who have not only survived tragic loss and trauma, but have turned their heartbreak into heroism and their history into inspiration. Betsy has been a licensed psychotherapist in California since 1992. She lives with her husband in their intermittently empty nest in Marin County, California.
Britni de la Cretaz →
Britni de la Cretaz is a freelance writer, recovered alcoholic, and baseball enthusiast living in Boston. Her work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, and more. Follow her on Twitter at @britnidlc.Bronwyn Davies Glover →
Bronwyn Davies Glover is a white, cisgendered, female, queer, able bodied anarcho-feminist who currently lives in Sydney, Australia. She is the co-founder of the Trigger Festival, a queer survivor-centric performance festival in Toronto and Dot & Dribble Productions, a theatrical clowning company that has been featured in Summerworks Festival, Rhubarb: A Festival of Women and numerous International queer and gay festivals throughout the UK and Europe. Bronwyn is the recipient of Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council and Canada Council Grants for her work as an arts activist and performer. She currently runs R.A.D a private in-home daycare alternative free from gender bias with her gayby, Izry Blue. She is an aspiring writer with many hopes for print publication in the future. She writes at raising_gender.livejournal.com
Bryanna Millis →
Bryanna Millis is a mother, mixed-media collage artist, poet, and international economic development professional with degrees in Communications, Fine Arts, and Development Economics. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband Tim and son Wynn. Her online portfolio can be found at http://www.bryannamilis.com and links to other interests can be found at https://twitter.com/f8baby. In March 2014 she successfully kickstarted a children’s book of adventure, collage, and rhyme, which is available for sale on her website.
Caitlin Millay Krapf →
Caitlin Millay Krapf is a producer working in the worlds of documentary film, feature films, video games and television. Prior to co-producing Sex(Ed): The Movie, she associate produced two other feature documentaries: View From The Bridge: Stories from Kosovo and Refusenik for which she oversaw the national theatrical release. Caitlin's main regret about Sex(Ed): The Movie is that she wasn't able to find the film she watched in fifth grade where a mother makes the uterus and Fallopian tubes out of pancake batter to explain the reproductive system to her daughter's friend.
Caitlin Vestal →
Caitlin Vestal writes prose and poetry in Portland, Oregon, where she lives with her very rad husband, her newly crawling son, and her goofy familiar of a dog. She has an MFA from OSU-Cascades and works as a copywriter to pay the bills. Her creative work has been published in concīs. Currently, she spends most of her time figuring out how to raise a new human.
Camilla Trinchieri →
Camilla Trinchieri has an MFA from the Columbia's Graduate Writing Program. Under the pseudonym Camilla Crespi, she has published seven novels in “The Trouble With” mystery series. The Breakfast Club Murder was published in 2014. As Camilla Trinchieri she has published, The Price of Silence (2007) and Seeking Alice (2016). Both have been translated and published in Italy.
Cara Gormally →Cara Gormally is a biology professor who draws comics to make science relevant to everyday life. She teaches at Gallaudet University. She lives in the DC metro area with her favorite mammals: her partner, poodle, an extra-large cat, and a vigorous toddler. Her autobiographical science story comics have appeared on Medium’s Spiralbound , and Popula. See more of her comics on Instagram and at caragormally.com.
Carla Bruce-Eddings →
Carla Bruce-Eddings is an associate publicist at Riverhead Books and a freelance writer and books editor for Well-Read Black Girl. Her writing has been featured in New York Magazine, Refinery29, The Cut, Romper, Lenny Letter, The Establishment, Literary Hub, and elsewhere.
Carla Grossini-Concha →
Carla Grossini-Concha is a New Yorker, born and raised, transplanted to the West Coast over 10 years ago and embracing her inner hippy ever since. She is a dog-lover, yogi, and most importantly, fierce warrior mama to Luca D’oro, her first-born who transitioned a day after he was born, and Elia D'oro, her rainbow babe. Her hope is to share her journey as mother to both her children, and help to break the silence surrounding infant loss.
Carla Rachel Sameth →
Carla Rachel Sameth is a writer living in Pasadena. Her debut memoir, One Day on the Gold Line, is forthcoming July 2019.
Her work on blended/unblended, queer, biracial and single parenting appears in a variety of literary journals and anthologies including: Collateral Journal, The Nervous Breakdown, Brevity Blog, Brain, Child & Brain, Teen Magazine, Narratively, Longreads, Mutha Magazine, Full Grown People, Angels Flight Literary West, Tikkun, Entropy, Pasadena Weekly, Unlikely Stories Mark V, and La Bloga.
Carla was selected as a fall 2016 PEN In The Community Teaching Artist and has taught creative writing to incarcerated youth through WriteGirl. She teaches at the Los Angeles Writing Project (LAWP) at California State University Los Angeles (CSULA) and with Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU). She is a member of the Pasadena Rose Poets who present “poetry within reach and in unexpected places.” Carla has an MFA in Creative Writing (Latin America) from Queens University. Previously she “brought home the oatmeal” as a single mom, running her PR firm, iMinds PR.
Website: carlasameth.com, Twitter and Instagram: @carlasameth
Carley Moore →
Carley Moore is an essayist, novelist, and poet. Her debut collection of essays, 16 Pills, was published in May of 2018 by Tinderbox Editions. Her debut novel, The Not Wives, is forthcoming from the Feminist Press in the fall of 2019. In 2017, she published her first poetry chapbook, Portal Poem (Dancing Girl Press) and in 2012, she published a young adult novel, The Stalker Chronicles (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux). She lives in New York City. Visit her website or follow her on Twitter.
Carole Symer →
Carole Symer is a practicing psychologist in Ann Arbor, working primarily with parents and children, and teaches at New York University. She has authored more than a thousand neuropsychological evaluations to help struggling learners get their educational rights fulfilled, discover the pleasures of reading, and count as human. Her essays and articles have appeared in Michigan Chronicle and Across the Margin.
Caroline Horwitz →
Caroline Horwitz lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and sons. She has an MFA from Chatham University, and her work has appeared in Animal, bioStories, Brain, Child, Lowestoft Chronicle, and The Summerset Review, among other publications. Essays of hers have been nominated for the 2015 Best of the Net Anthology and listed as a notable entry in The Best American Essays 2014.Caroll Sun Yang →
Caroll Sun Yang holds her BFA in Fine Art from Art Center College of Design, an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University and is a certified Psychosocial Rehabilitation Specialist. Her work appears in The Nervous Breakdown, New World Writing, MUTHA Magazine, The Los Angeles Review of Books, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Necessary Fiction, Word Riot, Psychopomp, Entropy and Juked (forthcoming). She spends scattered hours tinkering with her unborn debut collection while writeressin' and matriarchin' in Eagle Rock, Ca. She can never have enough personality-disordered friends/ lo-fi anything/ human touch/ sarcasm/ cell photo filters/ art films featuring teens/ Latrinalia/ frosting flowers/ bio changes. She spews forth as Caroll Sun Yang on Facebook & www.carollsunyang.com.
Catherine Hernandez →
Catherine Hernandez is the Artistic Director of Sulong Theatre Company, a twice-published playwright, proud queer woman of colour and single mama. On September 21 2012, Catherine immersed herself in a lifeboat filled with filthy water for 24 hours without access to food. The event, named Operation Lifeboat, raised money and awareness for the UN-Natural recurring disasters in the Philippines. It involved more than 45 artists worldwide who performed each hour of the event and resulted in over 30 hours of watched video footage and more than 1100 viewers worldwide. Her newest play, The Femme Playlist, will premiere at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Oct 2014.
Charlie King-MIller →
Charlie M. King-Miller is a butch dad, an avid cook, and an occasional freelance writer. Charlie works in technology for a local museum and lives in Denver, Colorado with a wonderful partner, the world's most marvelous baby, and two supremely spoiled cats.
Charlotte O'Brien →
Charlotte O’Brien is a San Francisco Bay Area writer with essays and interviews most recently published in The Rumpus, Mutha Magazine, and The Manifest-Station. She graduated from Pacific University’s MFA program in 2013. Charlotte lives with her teenager, her five year old, and a scruffy dog. She is currently writing a memoir about living in America as an undocumented immigrant. You can find out more about her at www.charlotteobrien.org.Cheryl Klein →
Cheryl Klein's column, "Hold it Lightly," appears monthly(ish) in MUTHA. She is the author of a story collection, The Commuters (City Works Press), and a novel, Lilac Mines (Manic D Press). Her stories and essays have appeared in Blunderbuss, The Normal School, Razorcake, and several anthologies. Her work has been honored by the MacDowell Colony and the Center for Cultural Innovation. She blogs about the intersection of art, life and carbohydrates at breadandbread.blogspot.com. Follow her on Twitter: @meadowbat.Christa Osborne →
Christa Osborne is the doting and oft-befuddled aunt to (arguably) the most adorable niece in the world, who lives with her full-time and happens to call her mommy. She is a former high school English teacher and current business owner and property manager in Saint Louis. People can follow Christa and Caroline on her blog at www.auntmommy.com or on Facebook.
Christina Yovovich →
Christina Socorro Yovovich lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with her son and husband. Her poetry and nonfiction has appeared in journals such as the Blue Mesa Review, River Styx, Mothers Always Write, and Mutha Magazine. She is currently working on a memoir about parenting with a mental illness.
Cianni Jackson →
Cianni Jackson is a mother of three and fashion blogger from San Francisco. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram @TwoPink_OneBlue.
Colleen Rothman →
Colleen Rothman's writing has appeared in The Atlantic and Chicago Literati. She divides her time between Chicago and New Orleans. You can find more of her writing at colleenrothman.com and her ranting @colleenrothman.
Connie Pertuz-Meza →
Connie writes stories about her life, family, and ancestors. Propelled to action as a New York City public school teacher, and mother of teenaged daughter and middle school aged son. Currently working on a semi autobiographical YA novel. Documenting her life through personal essay on her blog, Conniepertuzmeza.wordpress.com. Staff writer for Hispanedotes.com, a monthly online literary magazine. Creative Nonfiction Essay published by Accentos Review 2018, forthcoming essay in La Pluma y La Tinta in Penate Anthology 2018, forthcoming essay in Latina Outsiders: Remaking Latina Identity Anthology 2018, and 2017 Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize Finalist and Honorable Mention. A two-time VONA/Voices Fiction Alum (2015 and 2017), participant of Christina Garcia's Las Dos Brujas (2017), fellowship at the Cullman Teaching Institute with Salvatore Scibona (2017), and Tin House Craft Intensive participant (2017 and 2018. Member of M. Colleen Cruz writing group for teachers who write based in Brooklyn since 2004.
Craig Pomranz →
Craig Pomranz – Craig is an internationally known singer/song-stylist, actor... and now author! Made By Raffi is his first children’s book with illustrations by award-winning artist Margaret Chamberlain. Craig received New York’s MAC Award for Best Male Vocalist in 2012, and songwriters Amanda McBroom (composer of “The Rose,”Bette Midler’s Golden Globe award winning song) and Michele Brourman (The Land Before Time) have written a song, specifically for the book called "Different." Originally from St. Louis, Craig lives in New York City and travels the world performing in nightclubs and theatres. His popular CDs “More Than A Seasonal Thing” and “My Heart Don’t Skip A Beat” can be heard on radio stations around the world and are available on iTunes and his website www.CraigPomranz.com.
Dane Bauer Hassid →
Dane Kuttler writes poems and cooks food in Northampton, MA. Her first book of poems, And Who By Nobody's Son? was released on Choose the Sword Press in January 2016. She has toured nationally three times, won the Best of Blood and Thunder Award for a poem about hospice care and performed her work in concert halls, libraries and living rooms. When Dane isn't engaged in one of her semiannual 30-poems-in-30-days sprints, she makes mischief with The G!d Wrestlers, with whom she has published two books, The Social Justice Warrior's Guide to the High Holy Days (September 2015) and The Book of Solace (July 2016.)Danie Love →
Danie Love is an idealist, red tent priestess, witch-warrior-mother, and lover of Gaia and all that inhabits her. She spends her days split between inspiring her students to believe in themselves, carrying her baby on her hip, and watching the breeze blow between the leaves. When words grab her and refuse to let go, she writes.
Danielle Leshaw →
Danielle Leshaw is the Rabbi and Executive Director of Hillel at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. She’s been published in The New York Times, Tablet Magazine, The Jewish Daily Forward, Moment Magazine, and The Ilanot Review. She's a Puschart Prize nominee, and is a two-time recipient of the Ohio Arts Council prize, the leading state grant for writers and artists. To see more of her writing, visit www.DanielleLeshaw.com. She’s also on twitter (far too frequently) at @RabbiDanielle.
Danya Ruttenberg →
Danya Ruttenberg is author of Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder and Radical Amazement of Parenting. She was named by Newsweek as one of ten "rabbis to watch" and by the Forward as one of the top 50 women rabbis in America.
Deb Stone →
Deb Stone’s writing has appeared in The New York Times Motherlode, STIR Journal, Foster Focus, The Oregonian, Portland Tribune, and Clackamas Literary Review. Deb has been a birth, foster, step, and adoptive parent to over thirty children, and a Court Appointed Special Advocate for another two dozen abused and neglected kids. You can follow Deb on Twitter or Facebook at @iwritedeb and find more of her work at www.debstone.net.
Debbie Weingarten →
Debbie Weingarten is a writer and single mom based in Tucson, Arizona and a fellow at Community Change. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Guernica, The Guardian, Longreads, and Vela, among many other outlets, including the Best of Food Writing 2016 and 2017 anthologies. She was the nonfiction winner of the 2017 Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest, a 2017 Best of the Net nonfiction winner, and received Honorable Mention for the National Press Foundation’s 2017 Carolyn C. Mattingly Award for Mental Health Reporting. She is nominated for a 2019 James Beard Award for Investigative Reporting.Deesha Philyaw →
Deesha Philyaw hit the mom trifecta: She is a biological, adoptive, and stepmom to 4 girls ages 10, 15, 15, and 17. In collaboration with her ex-husband, she is the co-founder of co-parenting101.org, and co-author of Co-Parenting 101: Helping Your Kids Thrive In Two Households After Divorce. She is also the co-facilitator of “Writing Through Your Divorce,” an online workshop for women.
Dena Moes →
Dena Moes is a Hollywood born, Yale educated midwife with a BA in literature and an MS in Nursing. Dena is a songwriter, storyteller, and the author of The Buddha Sat Right Here: A Family Odyssey Through India and Nepal, forthcoming in April 2019. Her book is a memoir of adventure, motherhood, and love, with a spiritual quest woven in. As a nurse-midwife Dena has provided compassionate healthcare to women, mothers, and babies for twenty years. She lives in Chico, California where she is gestating her next book,Rebel Midwife. Learn more about her at www.denamoes.com
Desiree Cooper →
Devon Rae Hartwig →
Devon Rae Hartwig is a 24 years young mama with degrees from Illinois State University in Philosophy and Women's and Gender Studies. Her 9-month-old Josephine June is a precocious and crazy baby with eyes for toddling soon. Devon works for international non profit organization Avaaz as a member correspondent, and loves to write in the bits of spare time she has. Devon is an avid runner, book devourer, and world changer. She has published pieces on Thought Catalog and in Disfunkshion magazine. She is currently re-starting her life as a recently single mama after the sudden passing of her fiance. She believes in the power of love, that flowers make everything better, and that a warm cup of cocoa is a cure for any ailment physical or emotional. Devon is studying to be a doula and in the process of applying for graduate school.
Dina Fiasconaro →
Dina Fiasconaro has an MFA in film production from Columbia University and a BS in TV, Radio & Film from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Previously, she was post-production coordinator at the Hallmark Channel, and has shot everything from super-8 music videos for indie rock bands to high-definition commercial projects for Panasonic. Her short films and screenplays have been the recipient of multiple grants and have screened at a variety of film festivals nationwide. Dina is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Film & Video at Stevenson University near Baltimore, MD.
Dr. Stacey Patton →
Dr. Stacey Patton is an award-winning journalist, author, and child advocate. Her writing on issues surrounding higher education, child welfare, and race has appeared in the Washington Post, Al Jazeera, BBC News, and The Root. She is also the author of That Mean Old Yesterday and the creator of the anti–corporal punishment organization Spare the Kids.
Egypt Titchenal →
Egypt Titchenal is a reunited adult adoptee activist who often writes about how adoption has shaped her identity as a mother to her biological son. She is employed as community college instructor and adviser, working with at-risk youth who have left high school before completing their high school diploma. As a licensed mental health counselor she writes under her birth name to maintain a semblance of anonymity. In her free time she spends hours Instagramming pictures of her toddler, sweating in hot yoga classes, and drinking lots of Seattle coffee. Check out her website.
Elana R.L. Story →
Elana R.L. Story is a queer parent to a 3 year old and a 5 month old. Clinical social worker by day, parent 24/7, writer by midnight creativity fueled by insomnia, she lives and writes in the homo-coho of Oakland, CA (modern day Lesbian commune = queer Cohousing)
Elisa Albert →
Elisa Albert is the author of After Birth, The Book of Dahlia, and How This Night is Different. Her website is elisaalbert.com
Eliza Moore →
My latest EP, "Everything to Me" marks a courageous and exhilarating step toward a more exposed and authentic sound. All five songs represent different facets of my faith in life, in humanity and in love. Putting these songs out into the world required the perfect collaboration, and I'm infinitely grateful that Jay Nash, a long time friend and musical peer, teamed up with me to produce this EP with such care and sensitivity. Jay has aimed to pare down the extraneous harmonies, effects and solos so that my voice, lyrics and fiddle playing can be wholly revealed, inviting you into a more intimate experience of me and my songs. Taking away the extra vocal and string harmonies made me feel naked at first, but now that the recording is complete, it feels just right. As if Jay teased the song down to its essence. Needless to say, I'm also grateful that I mustered the courage to jump back into music after a few years of being a mom, a yoga teacher, and an explorer of ministry studies (yes, life is rich).
Elizabeth Beauvais →
Elizabeth Beauvais is a writer, sustainability consultant and yoga instructor. She writes on the regular for Amy Poehler's Smart Girls, and her work has appeared in MUTHA Magazine, Dead Housekeeping and Elephant Journal. Currently, Elizabeth is working on a memoir project and blogs at https://ebeauvaisblog.
wordpress.com/. She lives in Shreveport, LA with her husband, three kids and beagle-mix. Elizabeth Brico →
Elizabeth Brico is a writer from the Pacific Northwest who covers life after trauma on her blog, Betty's Battleground. Her writing on mental health, addiction, and other topics can be found on HealthyPlace, Vice, Vox, and The Fix, among others. In her free time she can usually be found reading, writing, or watching speculative fiction.
Elizabeth Earley →
Elizabeth Earley holds a BA in Creative Writing and an MFA in Fiction from Antioch University Los Angeles. Her stories and essays have appeared in Time Out Magazine, The Chicago Reader, Geek Magazine, Outside Magazine, Glimmer Train, and other publications. Her debut novel, A MAP OF EVERYTHING, was published by Jaded Ibis Press in March, 2014.
Elizabeth Garber →
Elizabeth W. Garber is the author of Implosion: A Memoir of an Architect’s Daughter (2018), three books of poetry, True Affections (2012), Listening Inside the Dance(2005) Pierced by the Seasons (2004), and Maine (Island Time) (2013), a collaboration of her poetry with paintings and photographs of Michael Weymouth, Three of her poems have been read on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac. She was awarded writing fellowships at Virginia Center for Creative Arts and Jentel Artist Residency Program in Wyoming. She has maintained a private practice as an acupuncturist for over thirty years in mid-coast Maine, where she raised her family.
Elizabeth Isadora Gold →
Elizabeth Isadora Gold’s writing about motherhood, books, music, and feminism has appeared in The New York Times, The Believer, Tin House, The Rumpus, Time Out New York, and many other publications. Her piece about her postpartum anxiety, “Meltdown in Motherland,” was featured on the New York Times Opinionator blog. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and young daughter. The Mommy Group is her first book. You can follow her on Twitter here @elizisadora.
Elizabeth Newdom →
Elizabeth Newdom teaches writing and literature courses at a community college in Frederick, MD. Her essays have appeared on Sweatpants and Coffee and on Blunt Moms. Elizabeth's personal bog, The Astronaut Wife, details her life as a mother, wife, and educator and of rocketing away from her Southern conservative background: https://elizabethnewdom.wordpress.com/.Ellen Baxt →
Ellen Baxt has published one book, Analfabeto/An Alphabet (Shearsman) and several chapbooks, Tender Chemistry, Since I Last Wrote and Enumeration of colonies is not EPA approved (Sona Books). Her poems and reviews have appeared in Aufgabe, ActionYes Quarterly, Cross-Cultural Poetics Streetnotes, How2, and Boog City. She has worked in adult literacy for the City University of New York since 2005. She lives in her hometown of Brooklyn, NY. Little Rainbows Storytime
Emily Flake →
Emily Flake's new memoir is Mama Tried: Dispatches from the Seamy Underbelly of Modern Parenting. She regularly cartoons for The New Yorker, and writes and draws a weekly strip called Lulu Eightball (Atomic Books), which has been assembled into two collections. In 2007, she wrote and illustrated These Things Ain't Gonna Smoke Themselves (Bloomsbury USA). Her illustrations and cartoons appear in publications all over the world, including the New York Times, Newsweek, the Globe and Mail, The Onion, The New Statesman, and Forbes
Emily James →
Emily James is a teacher and writer in NYC. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in The Rumpus, Hippocampus, The Atticus Review, Pigeon Pages, and Firewords, among others. You can tweet her at @missg3rd.Emily Kramer →
Emily lives in Los Angeles with her boyfriend, their daughter and their cat. She has, since the publication of this essay, received her hospital records. https://medium.com/@Emikra / https://www.instagram.com/emikra/
Emily Tobey →
Emily Tobey is a writer and documentary filmmaker living in Brooklyn, NY. She is a recent Master’s degree graduate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the Graduate Center at CUNY. Her writing has appeared in Zeteo Journal and Popcorn Zine. Her most recent film, “A Handful of Chopsticks,” is in post-production. She is the mother of two daughters.
Erika Kleinman →
Erika Kleinman is a writer who lives in Costa Rica with her family. She has work published or forthcoming on The Rumpus, Salon.com, Good Men Project, and Apple Valley Review.
Erika Martinez →
Erika M. Martínez is the editor of the forthcoming anthology, Daring to Write: Contemporary Narratives by Dominican Women. Recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship and a Hedgebrook Writing Residency, she holds an MFA in English and Creative Writing from Mills College in Oakland, CA where she currently resides. Her writing was adapted for the stage and has been featured in several publications including the anthologies, Homelands: Women’s Journeys Across Race, Place and Time (Seal Press) and Wise Latinas: Writers on Higher Education (University of Nebraska Press). She has taught creative writing in the Dominican Republic and is the editor of the annual Middle & High School Voices for the National Writing Project in New Hampshire. She is working on a memoir and her first poetry collection, One Day My Hand Will Touch the Ceiling. To find out more about her work visit www.erikammartinez.com.
Erin Wilkins →
Erin Wilkins grew up in Kansas City, MO and currently resides in Minneapolis. She is a queer single mama of a 2 1/2 year old. She likes to write about reproductive justice and parenting, and she works at a community sexual health clinic called Family Tree Clinic.
Ethan Somerman →
Ethan Somerman is a blogger, parent, monster hugger, and firm believer that broken hearts are beautiful. You can follow her blog and sign up for her emails at www.HuggingMonsters.com. She teaches yoga, bakes a lot of popovers, and goes on many adventures with her daughter in Southern Maine.
Ev Petgrave →
Ev Petgrave is an up-and-coming filmmaker and is the founder and creative director of Citrine Studios, a multimedia house for Black women and femmes. Ev is passionate about the arts, film, literature, and tech and strives to center Black femmes in all of her work. Ev currently lives in Houston with her daughter.
Eve →
Eve is a poet, fiction writer, and playwright whose work has appeared in Lilith, Poetica, New Vilina Review, Concho River Review, as well as many other literary magazines and several anthologies. She is also a mother and lives in Boston with her spouse and her son.
Fiona Smart →
Fiona was born and raised in London. She studied Art History at university and now resides in Brooklyn, New York. Previously, she lived in Sydney, Australia. Fiona is a children's book author, singer/songwriter who enjoys turning her stories into songs. Her recently released picturebook, I Can Be A Super Hero, celebrates the power of imagination. She also loves to travel.
Frances Badalamenti →
Frances was born and raised in Queens, New York and suburban New Jersey, but currently lives on the left coast in Portland, Oregon with her husband and son. She has completed a full-length memoir and a collection of essays. You can find her at: francesbadalamenti.com
Gabriella Belfiglio →
Gabriella M. Belfiglio lives in Brooklyn, NY with her partner and four cats. She teaches self-defense, conflict resolution, karate, and tai chi to people of all ages throughout the five boroughs. Gabriella won second place in the 2014 W.B. Yeats Poetry Contest. Gabriella’s work has been published in many anthologies and journals including Radius, The Centrifugal Eye, Avanti Popolo, Poetic Voices without Borders, Literary Mama, The Avocet, The Potomac Review, Lambda Literary Review, and The Monterey Poetry Review. Her website is www.gabriellabelfiglio.info
Gayle Brandeis →
Gayle Brandeis grew up in the Chicago area and has been writing poems and stories since she was four years old. She is the author of Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write (HarperOne), Dictionary Poems (Pudding House Publications), the novels The Book of Dead Birds (HarperCollins), which won Barbara Kingsolver’s Bellwether Prize for Fiction of Social Engagement, Self Storage (Ballantine) and Delta Girls (Ballantine), and her first novel for young readers, My Life with the Lincolns (Holt), which won a Silver Nautilus Book Award and was chosen as a state-wide read in Wisconsin. She released The Book of Live Wires, the sequel to The Book of Dead Birds, as an e-book in 2011. 2017 brings the release of two new books: in June, a collection of poetry, The Selfless Bliss of the Body (Finishing Line Press) and in November, a memoir, The Art of Misdiagnosis: Surviving My Mother’s Suicide (Beacon Press.) Winner of several other awards for writing, Gayle currently teaches in the low residency MFA programs at Antioch University Los Angeles and Sierra Nevada College, where she was named Distinguished Visiting Professor/Writer in Residence 2014-2015. She served as Inlandia Literary Laureate from 2012-2014, acting as literary ambassador to and for the Inland Empire region of Southern California. During her tenure, she worked extensively with the community, including at-risk youth, and edited the anthology ORANGELANDIA: The Literature of Inland Citrus. Gayle is currently editor in chief of Tiferet Journal and founding editor of Lady/Liberty/Lit. She is also mom to kids born in 1990, 1993 and 2009.
Gina Frangello →
Gina Frangello is the author of four books of fiction, most recently EVERY KIND OF WANTING (Counterpoint), included in Chicago Magazine’s “Best Books of 2016, and A LIFE IN MEN (Algonquin), which is currently under development with Netflix. A longtime editor at Other Voices Books, The Rumpus and The Nervous Breakdown, she is now a visiting lecturer at the University of Illinois Chicago, teaches at the School of the Art Institute Chicago, and is the faculty editor for The Coachella Review. More at www.ginafrangello.org
Ginny Wiehardt →
Ginny Wiehardt's chapbook Migration won the 2015 Gold Line Press Poetry Chapbook Contest and was published in August 2016. Her poems have appeared in literary journals including Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Bellingham Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Subtropics, and Willow Springs. She has written about books and creative writing for the Austin American-Statesman, the Strand Magazine, Scholastic.com, and About.com. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the Michener Center for Writers. Originally from Texas, she now lives in Brooklyn, NY with her family. Read more about her work at ginnywiehardt.com.
Glynnis Fawkes →
Glynnis Fawkes is a cartoonist and archaeological illustrator. Her comics for MuthaMagazine were nominated for an Ignatz Award at the Small Press Expo in 2016. Recently her work has appeared on The New Yorker.com and in the magazine. Here latest book, Reign of Crumbs, is available from Kilgore Books. Her Greek Diary was shortlisted webcomics for the Slate Cartoonist Studio Prize and won a silver medal at the Society of Illustrators MoCCA Arts Festival in 2017. In April 2016, her book (in progress) Alle Ego also won the MoCCA Arts Festival Award for Excellence. She has illustrated several academic books (Three Stones Make a Wall, Kinyras the Divine Lyre) and worked extensively as illustrator on archaeological projects in Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Lebanon, and Israel. A Fulbright Fellowship to Cyprus allowed her to publish Archaeology Lives in Cyprus (Hellenic Bank, Nicosia 2001), a book of paintings, and Cartoons of Cyprus (Moufflon Publications, Nicosia, 2001). She was named among the Best American Comics Notables in 2012 and 2013 and she won a Sequential Artists Workshop grant in 2013. She lives in Burlington with her music archaeologist/classics professor husband and two children. Her work may be seen at GlynnisFawkes.com.
Grace Farris →
Grace Farris is a physician, cartoonist and mom living in New York with her husband and two young sons. She is an assistant professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Hospital Medicine at Mount Sinai West hospital. Her medical cartoons have appeared in the Annals of Internal Medicine's pioneering Graphic Medicine section. Find more of her comics on instagram.
Haley Jude →
Haley Jude is a San Francisco-based storyteller and a queer femme mama. She writes for Autostraddle and other online publications, vlogs regularly on her YouTube channel, and runs a video production company with the love of her life, Simone. They are working on a podcast. When she’s not creating content, she can usually be found in the garden.
Hannah Baker Saltmarsh →
Hannah Baker Saltmarsh has published in The New Republic, The Yale Review, Feminist Studies, American Poetry Review, Literary Mama, and other journals. She earned an MFA at the University of Maryland and her PhD in English from the University of York (UK). She is working on a book about mother-son relationships in poetry, as well as a book of poems.
Hazel Kight Witham →
Hazel Kight Witham is a writer, teacher, activist, and artist whose work can be found in Bellevue Literary Review, Two Hawks Quarterly, Rising Phoenix Review, Angels Flight, Zoetic Press’s NonBinary Review, Lunch Ticket and Lady/Liberty/Lit. She lives and breathes in Los Angeles with her husband and two young sons.
Heather Jackson →
Heather, a former teen mom, is now a 30-something single mom of a teen. She is often mistaken as her daughter’s friend or sister! She is a former site producer of girl-mom.com. Currently, she works as a birth doula and an early childhood counselor in New England. She recently published a chapter in The Bakken Goes Boom regarding the change of maternal health related to the oil boom in North Dakota (where she grew up!) and finished co-editing, Feminist Parenting, an anthology through Demeter Press (http://demeterpress.org/). She is now co-editing Motherhood and Abortion and Motherhood and Social Exclusion, both also through Demeter Press. Her writing has also been published on thepushback.org, hipmama.com, girl-mom.com, books, and zines. She loves bike riding, going to the beach, doing crafts, reading, going to shows, making zines (find her zines here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ramo
negirl?ref=hdr_shop_menu), guacamole, and writing. She recently took up guitar and started an all-female queer punk band. She could talk all day about abortion access, anarchism, and cute animals. Perhaps someday she will have an anarchist-y farm with a lot of animals and a huge garden! Find her on twitter: @heatherjoyj or email her: heatherjoyj@gmail.com! Hila Ratzabi →
Hila Ratzabi is a poet and freelance editor living in Philadelphia. Her poetry has been published in Narrative, Alaska Quarterly Review, Drunken Boat, and other journals. Her essays have appeared in Kveller, the Jewish Daily Forward, Freerange Nonfiction, and others. She is the founder of the Red Sofa Salon & Poetry Workshop and editor-in-chief of Storyscape.Ieishah Clelland →
Ieishah Clelland is a writer, traveler, and serial expat, currently based in Berlin, Germany, originally a New Yorker of Caribbean descent. A mom of two young girls of mixed heritage, Ieishah (pronounced "Aisha") spends most days nursing, playing pretend something or other, and conjuring catchy names for a style of parenting that foregrounds equality, anti-racism, and unpacking privilege, lovingly, suitcase by suitcase.
Ingrid Jendrzejewski →
Ingrid Jendrzejewski has been published in places like Passages North, The Los Angeles Review, The Conium Review, Jellyfish Review, and Rattle, and her novella-in-flash, "Things I Dream About When I’m Not Sleeping," is available in the anthology How to Make a Window Snake, published by Ad Hoc Fiction.
Jacqui Morton →
Jacqui Morton is a writer and full spectrum doula in Massachusetts. Her essays and poetry have appeared in places such as Salon, The Rumpus, The Guardian, Drunk Monkeys, RoleReboot, MUTHA Magazine, and The Mom Egg. She is the author of a chapbook of poems, Turning Cozy Dark, published by Finishing Line Press in 2013. Contact her via Twitter @Morton919 and at jacquimorton.com. Please also visit Holding Our Space, and feel invited to join in honoring your reproductive loss - loss of any kind.Jade Sanchez-Ventura →
Jade Sanchez-Ventura is a writer and teacher of writing. She has studied at Hunter College, where she received her MFA, with the VONA writer’s workshop, and with Disquiet International Literary Program. Her work has been published by Huffington Post, The Establishment, Seal Press, Kweli Journal, Duende Literary Magazine, wherever mag, MUTHA, and on the covers of small town daily newspapers. She is the creator of The Secret Pregnancy, an accounting of the year that began with that first positive pregnancy test. She is completing her first manuscript; a memoir that crosses borders and generations. It's also a love story. She is presently raising her son and teaching at Brooklyn Free School. Though she has ties to many far-flung countries, she has always made her home in Brooklyn, NY. You can find her on instagram at jade_sanchez-ventura.Jamie Asaye FitzGerald →
Jamie Asaye FitzGerald is a Los Angeles-based poet from Hawaii. Her poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, Works & Days, Poetry Daily, Mom Egg Review, and elsewhere. She earned an MFA in poetry from San Diego State University and a BA in English/Creative Writing from the University of Southern California where she received an Academy of American Poets College Prize and the Edward Moses Poetry Prize. She is also the mother of two young daughters and enjoys playing piano in the evenings as they run in circles around the couch.
Jamie Wagman →
Jamie Wagman is an Associate Professor of Gender Studies and History at Saint Mary's College in South Bend, Indiana. Her creative work has also appeared in Hip Mama, The Mom Egg Review, Burningword Literary Journal, and Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues.Jane Lyn Lamb →
Jayne Lyn Lamb lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her very patient husband and now 9-month-old son. She's a dye-hard redhead, an Aries with Taurus rising, and is usually off with the faeries in the nicest possible way. Some of her favourite things include feminist activism, Supernatural (the TV show, not the phenomena), the riot grrrl aesthetic, horror movies, art journaling and all things Hello Kitty. She always wants more tattoos and jasmine ice tea.
Jane V. Blunschi →
Jane V. Blunschi holds an MFA in Fiction Writing from the University of Arkansas. Her collection of stories, Understand Me, Sugar, was published in 2017 by Yellow Flag press, and her Pushcart Prize-nominated work has appeared in from Cactus Heart Literary Review, Catahoula Zine, Paper Darts, SmokeLong Quarterly, SunStar Review, and Boudin. Originally from Lafayette, Louisiana, Jane lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Janet Stickmon →
Janet C. Mendoza Stickmon is an educator, author, and performer. Prof. Stickmon is the founder and facilitator of Broken Shackle Developmental Training and the Black Leaders and Mentorship Program. Stickmon's Crushing Soft Rubies—A Memoir and Midnight Peaches, Two O’clock Patience—A Collection of Essays, Poems, and Short Stories on Womanhood and the Spirit have been used in courses at several colleges and universities across the country; she is also known for her latest blog series, To Black Parents Visiting Earth: A Love Letter-Life Guide to Raising Black Children in the 21st Century. Janet Stickmon is currently a professor of Humanities at Napa Valley College, teaching Africana Studies and Filipina(o)-American Heritage.
Jeanine DeHoney →
Jeanine DeHoney is a mother of three and grandmother of three. She is a former Family Services Coordinator and art enrichment teacher. Now a freelance writer, her writing has been published in several magazines, anthologies and blogs including Essence, Mused-Bella Online, Mothering.com., Grand Magazine, The Write Place At The Write Time, Literary Mama, The Mom Egg, True Stories Well Told, Metro Fiction, My Brown Baby, and Wow: Woman on Writing- The Muffin's Friday Speak-out, Devozine and The Ark. She also has also contributed essays to Esteem Yourself E-Magazine, and Dream Teen Magazine.
Jen Bryant →
Jen Bryant is a writer, coffee drinker, and stray cat whisperer. Her work has appeared in Ms., BUST, The Sun Magazine, Hipmama, and elsewhere. A native of the South, she currently resides in the Midwest. Jen is the editor of the Teen MUTHAs Rise Up collaborative column at MUTHA Magazine.
Jenna Fox →
Jenna Fox is described by her community college students as “sympathetic, but with a blunt sense of humor.” She writes from her home in Seattle, where she’s raising two boys, and a co-existing with a twitchy dog. She has been published in Mutha Magazine, Hip Mama Magazine, and Yours Truly. She also writes under her birth name, Egypt Titchenal.Jennifer Baum →
Jennifer Baum has a MFA in Filmmaking from the University of British Columbia, a certificate in Master Novel Writing from University of California Los Angeles, and a MTESOL from Arizona State University. Currently, she teaches composition to international students at Arizona State University. She has been published in the Village Voice, Canadian Jewish Outlook, The Jewish Observer, Mutha Magazine, Guernica Daily and NewFound, which nominated her creative nonfiction essay, A Different Set of Rules, for a Pushcart award. She is working on a full-length memoir about growing up in subsidized housing on the Upper West Side of Manhattan based upon her essay A Different Set of Rules. In addition, she is writing a novel about a cynical, damaged city girl who escapes to a summer job in a zealous Yellowstone church community, where she befriends a pious girl struggling with her own demons, and together they find what’s been missing in their lives. Her short films have screened in Havana, Seattle, Tokyo, San Francisco, Vancouver, New York, Toronto, and Ottawa.
Jennifer Berney →
Jennifer Berney lives in Olympia, Washington with her partner and two sons. Her essays have appeared in Brain, Child, Hip Mama, The Raven Chronicles, and the anthology Hunger and Thirst. She is currently working on a memoir, Somehow, which details the years she spent trying to build a family out of donor sperm, mason jars, and needleless syringes. She blogs at goodnightalready.com . @JennBerney
Jennifer Gregory →
Jennifer Gregory is a former teacher and school librarian who lives in rural Texas. She is the proud mother of two adult children and the grandmother of one perfect grandson. She now shares her home with her beloved, but neurotic Dogue de Bordeaux.
Jennifer Hayden →
Jennifer Hayden's new memoir is The Story of My Tits, now available from Top Shelf. came to comics from fiction-writing and children’s book illustration. Her first Top Shelf book, the autobiographical collection Underwire, was excerpted in Best American Comics 2013 and named one of “the best comics by women” by DoubleX. She is a member of ACT-I-VATE (the premier webcomics collective in New York City), her webcomic S’crapbook earned a Notable listing in Best American Comics 2012, and she continues to update the diary strip Rushes at thegoddessrushes.blogspot.com. Her comics have appeared in print anthologies such as The ACT-I-VATE Primer, Cousin Corinne’s Reminder, and The Strumpet. She lives in central New Jersey with her husband, pets, and sometimes two college-age children. You can visit her online at www.jenniferhayden.com and goddesscomix.blogspot.com.
Jennifer Jordán Schaller →
Jennifer Jordán Schaller is a writer and teacher from Albuquerque. Her work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction; Sonora Review; Brain, Child; Ascent; New Mexico English Journal; and NPR’s This American Life. She also has a forthcoming essay in the next issue of Cutbank. She is working on a longer manuscript, from which she take breaks to develop chapters as stand-alone pieces (like this essay in Mutha Magazine).
Jennifer Lewis →
Jennifer Lewis is the editor of Red Light Lit. Her fiction has been published in in Eleven Eleven, Fourteen Hills Press, Midnight Breakfast, Transfer Magazine, and Sparkle and Blink. She received her MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State University in May 2015 and was the recipient of the Leo Litwak award for creative non-fiction in 2012 and for fiction in 2015.
Jennifer Natalya Fink →
Jennifer Natalya Fink is a mutha of a hilarious and brilliant six-year-old girl, a professor of English at Georgetown University, a literacy activist, and an all-around hell-raiser. She is the author of three award-winning novels, The MIKVAH QUEEN, BURN, and V, and a short-story collection, THIRTEEN FUGUES. Find more about her here http://www.jennifernfink.com/About.html
Jennifer Pastiloff →
Jennifer Pastiloff is the founder of The Manifest-Station blog. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including, most recently, The Rumpus. She can be found drinking coffee (or wine), reading books, writing or downward-dogging. She leads yoga/writing retreats and workshops around the world. Jen has another writing retreat with author Emily Rapp in October in Vermont. All information at www.jenniferpastiloff.com. She tweets at @jenpastiloff.
Jenny Heineman →
Jenny lives in Las Vegas and Omaha with her geriatric poodle and lovely partner. She's a doctoral student in sociology and a kind-of-former sex worker. She (very) infrequently blogs for Sheri's Ranch, a brothel in Nevada, and has written for Tits and Sass, Nerve, and some academic journals here and there. She's also a preggo lady who is very much looking forward to her kid's angsty teenage years.
Jessica Carew Kraft →
Jessica Carew Kraft is a writer, artist, and editorial director at a digital communications firm. Her reporting on health, culture, and education has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Forbes, KQED, Christian Science Monitor, YOGA Magazine, ARTNews and other publications. She designs Jewish wedding documents, paints murals, and sews quite shabbily. Her upcoming graphic novel about the art, science, and mysteries of motherhood is also called Motherwhelmed. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two daughters. See more at www.writingkraft.com.
Jessica Dewberry →
Jessica Dewberry is a mother to three children and writes creative nonfiction and fiction. She has many interests and is therefore spreading herself thin over multiple projects - a short story collection, a prose poem/memoir collection, and a conceptual essay and photograph collection on landscapes. Her work appears or is forthcoming in the LA Post Examiner and other magazines and journals. Jessica is completing an MFA in writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts, is a nonfiction reader for Pithead Chapel, and an editor for an online literary magazine, which will be released later this year. Connect with her on Twitter @msjdew where literary quotes, retweets from brilliant people, and introspective thoughts (turned the occasional micro prose poem) run rampant.
Jessica Dur Taylor →
Jessica Dur Taylor teaches college composition in Santa Rosa, California, where she lives with her guitar-picking husband and her two year-old daughter, Mallory. Her writing has appeared in Prick of the Spindle, Cobalt Review, Mothering.com, Recess Magazine, Brain, Child Magazine online and others.
Jessica Patton Pellegrino →
Jessica Patton Pellegrino is an IT research editor who blogs on occasion at lavidasuburbia.blogspot.com. She lives in southern Connecticut with her husband, their two kids — one step and one from scratch — two ornery cats and some freeloading chickens.
Jessica Phillips Lorenz →
Jessica Phillips Lorenz has been teaching yoga and creative drama classes to children and families in NYC for well over a decade. Also a playwright and lyricist, she has performed many original solo works and her songs appear on the award-winning children’s record Come Play Yoga. Her writing has appeared in Mutha magazine, the Park Slope Reader, and a theatre festival for babies in Northern Ireland. Jess is earning her Masters in Educational Theatre from City College of New York and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two small kids, who sometimes co-teach family yoga classes with her.
Jessica Shortall →
Jessica Shortall is an advocate for working parents and the author of Work. Pump. Repeat: The New Mom’s Survival Guide to Breastfeeding and Going Back to Work
Jessica Zucker →
Jessica Zucker, Ph.D. is a Los Angeles based clinical psychologist. She specializes in women’s reproductive and maternal mental health. With a background in international public health and an advanced degree from Harvard University, Dr. Zucker writes about the motherhood continuum for The New York Times, Medium, Modern Loss, and Every Mother Counts. Find her atwww.drjessicazucker.com and follow her on Twitter @drzucker.
Jill Clark →
Jill Clark is director of public engagement at Eden Theological Seminary and owner/writer of JDC Communications Management. She lives in St. Louis with her husband and twins.JLWL →
JLWL is a mother in career transition whose resume includes Office Manager and Nanny. A constant crafter with woodworking aspirations, her wares are available at colourjunkie.etsy.com. She shares an urban condo in Boston with her spouse, son and two cats.
Joanna Clapps Herman →
Joanna Clapps Herman most recent book No Longer and Not Yet (2014) is a collection of short stories, about raising children on The Upper West Side of Manhattan. A memoir, The Anarchist Bastard (2011) which begins, “I often say that I was born in 1944 but raised in the 15th Century because although I was born in Waterbury, CT, in a New England factory town, in post-WWII, I grew up in a large southern Italian family where the rules were absolute, and customs antiquated.” She is co-editor of two anthologies, Our Roots are Deep with Passion (2006) and Wild Dreams (2008). She has a forthcoming publication of non-fiction essays called Creature Life, SUNY Press, Spring 2017. More at her website www.Joannaclappsherman.com
Joanna Stein →
Joanna McNaney Stein is a proud lesbian mama, thrift store scavenger, and lecturer of English at CUNY Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific Lutheran University (2008), and a MA in English from SUNY Brockport (2004). Her previous work appears in Brooklyn Rail, Bitch Magazine, Upstreet Review, and Short Takes: Brief Encounters with Contemporary Nonfiction.
Juanita E. Mantz →
Juanita E. Mantz grew up in the Inland Empire. She is a writer, performer and deputy public defender in Riverside specializing in mental health law. Her stories and essays have been published in numerous literary journals and magazines including The Acentos Review, The James Franco Review, As/Us, Inlandia Journal, and Bitch magazine. She is a four-time participant in VONA's Summer Writing Workshop and is hard at work on her memoir in progress, "My Inland Empire: Hometown Stories". You can read her blog at http://wwwlifeofjemcom-jemmantz.blogspot.com. She is a proud resident of San Bernardino and loves punk rock music.
Julia Whitehouse →
Julia Whitehouse is a writer and performer in New York City. She hosts a weekly storytelling open mic at The Duplex Cabaret in the West Village as well as the podcast The Whole Story. Other credits include NAKED PEOPLE at The Upright Citizens Brigade and Women in Comedy Festival, The Moth Story Slam winner, multiple appearances on the Risk! Podcast, as well as a variety of internet commercials.
Julie Simmons →
Julie Simmons is a Chicago-based, American music journalist. In addition to writing for her blog, MusicMakesYouThink, Simmons has been published in the Chicago Tribune, UTNE Reader, Paste, Harp, Reverb and Tom-Tom magazine. Both of her kids love The Beatles and twenty one pilots. Mom’s musical tastes keep changing every time she evolves…
Julie Sparenberg →
Julie Sparenberg is a freelance photographer and occasional writer, and now a newly minted stepmom. Her photography has been seen in San Francisco Magazine, 7x7, the San Francisco Chronicle, SF Weekly, the SF Bay Guardian, the Huffington Post, and SHOTS Magazine. Her work has appeared in juried shows and galleries in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Minneapolis and Washington DC. Her website is juliemichellephotography.com.
Juniper Fitzgerald →
Juniper is the author of How Mamas Love Their Babies, the first children's book with a sex-working parent, out soon by The Feminist Press. She is also a regular contributor to Tits and Sass and has written for Pacific Standard, Jezebel, SeaFoam Magazine, and others.
K. E. Leong →
K.E. Leong is a single mom and middle school teacher.She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College. Her blog is The Unwed Mother Agenda. You can follow her at facebook.com/unwedmom and @kristinleong.
Kat Rohn →
Kat Rohn is a transgender parent living with their partner and two kids in Minnesota. Kat works in higher education and authors the blog Transparenting.
Kate Joranson →
Kate Joranson studied art at the University of Wisconsin, earned her MFA at Ohio State University, and an MLIS at the University of Pittsburgh. As both a librarian and an artist, she enjoys the accidental nature of looking for one thing, and finding something else. Since becoming a parent, much of her work has grown from the activities she shares with her 2 year old daughter. Evidence of their work can be found on their front steps, kitchen floor, studio desk, her lap, a large ottoman, and other horizontal surfaces. Blog: katejoranson.com
Kate Lacour →
Kate Lacour is a cartoonist, art therapist and behavior therapist. She works with kids with autism and raises reptiles with her husband and son in New Orleans. She draws comics about bodies, science and transcendence.Kate Lynch →
Kate Lynch has been teaching yoga and meditation since 2002. She lives and practices in Brooklyn, NY. When her son Ocean was born in 2010, Kate’s focus shifted to mindfully parenting her unique child. He was sensitive and quirky, like his parents. When he was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome, Kate joined a vibrant community of families with differently wired kids. She continues to learn about advocacy, patience and neurodiversity. Her greatest teacher has been Ocean himself. Everything that informs Kate’s life inspires her yoga practice and teaching. She offers accessible variations and encourages nonjudgmental awareness. One word sums up her intention in all facets: Inclusion. Kate offers the workshop series “Mindfully Parenting Differently Wired Kids with Self Care and Empathy.” Her teaching schedule includes small groups, private sessions and retreats. On her podcast, she talks about the intersection of yoga and meditation with everyday life, offering you the tools that help her get through the day. Find her: Healthy Happy Yoga On itunes! Instagram Facebook
Kate Ryan →
Kate Ryan is a musician, writer, and woman-about-town from Brooklyn, NY. A lifelong child of the city, she enjoys long walks in the garbage-scented air of August, swimming with the sharks in the Rockaways, and banging the drums in psych metal and post-punk bands. She works with Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls, writes for Tom Tom Magazine, and is working on a collection of essays, poems, and short fiction, to be unleashed upon the world in 2015. She and her partner and their dog are excitedly expecting their first human child in September.
Katherine Clover →
Katherine is a painter, writer, activist, queer, sometimes interfaith-lay-preacher, always animal-lover, and full-time mama. She lives in beautiful Detroit, Michigan, with her wife, their baby, and three cats. Her favorite food is graham-cracker pie crust, and yes, that does count as a favorite food.
Katherine Thome →
Kate Thome is thrilled to have her debut essay in MUTHA. She grew up with her mother in New York City and Westhampton Beach. After majoring in philosophy at the College of the Holy Cross, Kate pursued a career in banking and payments. She holds an MBA from the A.B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University. A member of the National Alliance for Grieving Children, she blogs about her memoir in process at http://irememberthatnight.blogspot.com. Kate lives with her family in Northern California.
Kathi Valeii →
Kathi is a reproductive justice and birth advocate living in Kalamazoo, MI. She writes about gender-based oppression as it pertains to the full spectrum of reproductive health issues at her blog, birthanarchy.com. She has been published in numerous online and print publications. Kathi has been called “a true artist,” and “one of the brightest minds in this movement.” Poetry has been a form of self-soothing ever since she tumbled into it with trepidation following her divorce. She is the mother to three children.
Kathleen Furin →
Kathleen Furin is a writer, professor, and social worker. Her work has been published in Permafrost, Apiary, Philadelphia Stories, The Mother's Movement Online, Literary Mama, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Midwifery Today, the anthologies Operation Homecoming and Prompted, and other journals. She earned her MFA in Fiction at NYU and recently completed her first novel.
Katie Hoogendam →
Katie Hoogendam lives in a small town on a Great Lake. Domestic, not domesticated, she is currently at work on her first chapbook, a collection of poems exploring motherhood and identity.
Katie Knecht →
I'm a native Kentuckian living in Brooklyn, NY. I earned my MFA in creative writing from Manhattanville College in 2016. I have been published in "Foliate Oak Literary Magazine" and "The Nerd League", and will be featured in Upper Hand Press' upcoming anthology, "She Will Find Her Way: Women Travelers At Their Best". I particularly enjoy hanging out with my cat Margot and eating mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Katie Rose Alexander →
Katie Rose-Alexander is an outdoor wanderer turned middle school teacher turned mini-van mom. She cares for her three children in her home in Portland, OR. Her writing has been featured in Squat Birth Journal and as part of the local exhibit Bearing Witness: The Art of Pregnancy Loss and Infertility.Katie Tastrom →
Katie Tastrom-Fenton is a queer disabled fat femme mama who lives in upstate NY with her four kids, perfect dog, and almost perfect partner. She spends her time as a freelance writer-lawyer-crisis line worker-consultant-hyphenate enthusiast. You should read her mostly book review blog at askkatie.tumblr.com and feel free to ask her for advice because she is great at giving it. Contact her at katie.tastrom@gmail.com.
Katrina Alcorn →
Katrina Alcorn a writer and user experience designer. Her writing has appeared many places including The New York Times (Motherlode), TIME.com, and The Huffington Post. Maxed Out is her first book. She lives in Oakland, CA with her husband and three children. Find her at her blog, Facebook, her professional site, or Twitter (@kalcorn).
Keiler Roberts →
Keiler Roberts teaches comics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and lives in Evanston, Illinois with her husband, daughter and dog. The Comics Journal said of her third book, Miseryland, that she “captures human nature in all its quirky contradiction.” Her Ignatz-award winning autobiographical series Powdered Milk can be seen at www.keilerroberts.com. Her new book, Sunburning, has just been released by Koyama Press. Author photo by Glitter Guts.
Kendal Esquerre →
Kendal is a wife, mother, blogger, and spiritual student. She and her wife have a YouTube channel where they showcase our lives as two moms raising two daughters. The channel has a series called Fearless Love where Kendal discusses all things mental health, spirituality, and self-care.
Kendra Lubalin →
Kendra Lubalin is a mother of two, a coach, a teacher, and a writer/blogger. She is a queer parent and a parent of an autistic child, thereby belonging to two parenting communities that are frequently in direct conflict with each other. She writes a coaching blog at gettherecoaching.com and can empower you to change your life if your life needs changing. Currently she has just completed a children’s chapter book in which, while there are queer parents, that fact is completely incidental to the plot. She also writes stories about childhood for adults. You can follow her @kendralubalin on Twitter or @kendralubalin on Medium.
Kezia Willingham →
Kezia Willingham, also known as The Breadwinning Laundry Queen, currently lives in the Sonoran Desert with her family, which includes a pack of rescued cats and dogs. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Seattle Times, and MUTHA. You can follow her on Twitter @KeziaWillingham.
Kim Hoffman →
Kim Hoffman lives in Oakland, California with her husband and three children. In her previous life, she worked a retail buyer, clothing designer, fair trade importer, and in green business sales. These days, she strives for a balance of sanity and humor, while continuously feeding, schlepping, and nurturing her family of 5.
Kimberley Lipschus →
Kimberley Lipschus is an Australian based psychotherapist, counsellor, writer and the founder of Fertile Minds - a reproductive and maternal health centre. She has written and directed radio and television documentaries for the Australian Broadcasting Commission and SBSi and is currently writing a book on fertility. She lives with her family and a small pod of chickens in the hinterland of Byron Bay. Find out more:http://www.fertileminds.com.au or on Twitter @_fertileminds_
Kimberly Kimble →
Kimberly Kimble is a wife, mother and birth story photographer in the greater Portland area. As a trained labor & postpartum doula, she combines her love for birth and babies with her skill of photography to document genuine human moments. With this new vision, she started her business Rushes & Waves early this year. She is passionate about current political issues and is excited to use her gifts to bring light to what is happening in the world. Her work can be found at www.rushesandwaves.comKJ Dell’Antonia →
KJ Dell’Antonia (@KJDellAntonia) is the lead writer and editor of the New York Times’ Motherlode blog. She is the co-author of Reading with Babies, Toddlers and Twos (Sourcebooks 2013). Her work has also appeared on Slate’s DoubleX and its XXFactor blog, on Babble, and in Parents, Parenting, Kiwi, and the still regretted Wondertime (and other publications). She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and an assortment of kids and animals.Kris Willcox →
Kris Willcox lives in Arlington, Massachusetts with her family. When she is not attending to energetic children, she is a development writer and fundraiser for Boston-area nonprofits. She recently published a feature article in UU World magazine, and was a finalist in the Massachusetts Cultural Council's 2016 Artist Fellowship awards. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, Literary Mama, Cleaver Magazine, Beloit Fiction Journal, and Cimarron Review. She blogs at www.rhapsodyincool.com and is at work on far too many different projects.
Kristen Forbes →
Kristen Forbes is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Verily Magazine, Role/Reboot, The Rumpus, Brave on the Page: Oregon Writers on Craft and the Creative Life, Crack the Spine Literary Magazine, Bartleby Snopes, and other publications. She lives with her husband Mike and daughter Greta in Portland, Oregon. You can find her online at kristenforbes.net.
Kristen Stone →
Kristen Stone is a writer, educator, and trauma therapist living in Gainesville, Florida. They are the author of THAT WHICH GIRLS CONJURE WILL HELP THEM SURVIVE (Guillotine, 2018), Domestication Handbook (Rogue Factorial, 2012) and self/help/work/book//The Story of Ruth and Eliza (Birds of Lace, 2014). Their work has appeared in Women's Studies Quarterly, finery, Adrienne: a poetry journal of queer women, Necessary Fiction, and elsewhere on Mutha. Read their love letters 4 psychic survival at kristenstone.com
Kuo Zhang →
Kuo Zhang is a Ph.D. candidate and graduate teaching assistant in TESOL & World Language Education at the University of Georgia. She has a book of poetry in both Chinese and English, Broadleaves (Shenyang Press). Her poem “One Child Policy” was awarded second place in the 2012 Society for Humanistic Anthropology [SHA] Poetry Competition held by the American Anthropology Association. She served as poetry & arts editor for the Journal of Language & Literacy Education in 2016-2017 and also one of the judges for 2015 & 2016 SHA Poetry Competition.
Lakshmi Iyer →
Lakshmi Iyer is an alumnus of the Yale Writers’ Workshop. She holds a certificate in creative writing from The Writer’s Studio (Simon Fraser University). Iyer has her work published in Adoptive Families, The Huffington Post and Chicago Now. She and her family are the subject of a documentary feature film due to premiere in 2020 (@ourdaughtersdoc). She blogs at lgiyer.com and is on Twitter as @lakshgiriLaura Crossett →
Laura Crossett is a librarian and the author of Night Sweats: An Unexpected Pregnancy. Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, the New York Times, some journals, and some zines. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa, where she is still trying to get some sleep. Find her online at newrambler.net.
Laura Larson →
Based in Columbus, OH, Laura Larson is a photographer who’s exhibited her work both nationally and internationally including Art in General, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, SFCamerawork, Susanne Vielmetter/L.A. Projects, and Wexner Center for the Arts. Hidden Mother, her first book, was shortlisted for the Aperture/Paris Photo First Book Award. Her work is represented by Lennon, Weinberg Gallery in New York City.Laura Morgan →
Laura lives in Melbourne with her partner and their baby, Miller. She is a recovering chef, occasional writer, and full time mother who spends most of her time being angry about the lack of baby friendly spaces in the city.
Lauren Weinstein →
Lauren Weinstein is a cartoonist, illustrator and painter. She has published three books: Girl Stories, Inside Vineyland and Goddess of War. Her work has been included in The Best American Comics, An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Kramer's Ergot, and The Graphic Canon. She has won and been nominated for an Ignatz. Her comic "Carriers" was also nominated for Slate's studio prize for Cartoonists and won a gold medal from The Society of Illustrators. Clients include Nautil.us, The New York Times, Glamour, and The Paris Review. She is currently working on a teenage memoir tentatively entitled, How To Draw A Nose.
Laurian Rhodes →
Laurian Rhodes is a small business owner, sometime doula and erstwhile rock 'n' roll singer originally from Portland, OR. She has a BA in English from San Francisco State University that she's not doing much at all with. Laurian has toured the US and Germany with her and her husbands band Ain't and released four albums independently. She lives in Oakland, CA with her rock star husband and two awesome little boys and is thrilled to be included in MUTHA magazine.
Lea Grover →
Lea Grover is a writer and speaker in Chicago. Her first publication came when she was nine years old, a poem inspired by Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain.” She began studying prose after her admission to college at fourteen. While following polymath interests through seven universities and several years of national service, she continued to publish poetry. In 2010 she began a blog, Becoming SuperMommy, and is featured in ten anthologies, including Listen To Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We're Saying Now, and Mothering Through the Darkness: Women Open Up About the Postpartum Experience. She contributes to publications ranging from Cosmopolitan to AlterNet, and speaks about sex positivity parenting and on behalf of the RAINN Speakers Bureau.Leela Corman →
Leela Corman studied painting, printmaking and illustration at Massachusetts College of Art. Her book Queen’s Day earned her a Xeric Award in 1999 and was called “music to my eyes” by Scott McCloud. She has created two more graphic novels including her latest, Unterzakhn, published by Schocken/Pantheon. She has illustrated books for major publishers on crafts, fashion, gardening, dating and other topics, and for clients such as The New York Times, New York Press, BUST Magazine, Thirteen/WNET, and many more. She is also an accomplished bellydancer and bellydance instructor. Corman and her husband, Tom Hart, are the founders of The Sequential Artists Workshop, a non-profit organization dedicated to the prosperity and promotion of comic art and artists, offering instruction in comic art, graphic novels and visual storytelling in vibrant Gainesville, Florida, where she is also an adjunct instructor at University of Florida.
Leesa Cross-Smith →
Leesa Cross-Smith is a homemaker and has been a finalist for both the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction and the Iowa Short Fiction Award. She is the author of Every Kiss A War (Mojave River Press, 2014) and the forthcoming novel Whiskey & Ribbons (Hub City Press, March 2018). She lives and writes in Kentucky.
Leila Sinclaire →
Leila Sinclaire is a mother, writer, teacher, and educational consultant in the Bay Area. She is also quite good at hula hooping. Follow her on Facebook (Leila Sinclaire, Writer) or Twitter @leilasinclaire.Lenore Eklund →
Lenore Eklund is a filmmaker. Along with directing documentaries, she collaborates with other filmmakers and artists, co-owns a restaurant with her husband, and advocates for her daughter. Lenore is currently exploring drawing and writing as a creative release. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Leticia Del Toro →
Leticia Del Toro is a California essayist and short story writer with roots in Jalisco, Mexico. Her work has appeared in Huizache, Zyzzyva, Cipactli and Mutha Magazine, among others. She earned an M.A. in English from the University of California Davis and has attended the Voices of Our Nations Arts workshops. Her awards and honors include a Hedgebrook Residency for Women Authoring Change, first-runner up for the Maurice Prize for fiction in 2015, and a 2016 Rona Jaffe Scholars Award to Bread Loaf. Her story, Café Colima, received the Short Fiction Award from Kore Press and will be published as a chapbook in 2017. [author photo by Caroline Dahlberg]
Lia Langworthy →
Lia is a writer, filmmaker, essayist and an overall raconteur. Before finding her voice as a writer, Lia worked as a legal car thief in Los Angeles, a rape crisis advocate in Chicago and an Esprit model in San Francisco. After meeting her first female director at age 23, she embarked on writing and directing short films and hasn't stopped. Lia is a passionate social justice activist and a writing instructor at UCLA's Writer's Program.
Lilly Bright →
Born and raised in rural West Virginia, Lilly wears many hats, which makes the question, What do you do?, a particularly lengthy one to answer. Writer, teacher, poet, mother, business owner, and performer, Lilly has spent the past 13 years in Los Angeles, where she created, amongst other things, Arthouse Films and Curiously Bright Entertainment (www.arthousefilms.com, www.curiouslybright.com), and a humbling, vigorous life with two children (ages 7 & 3) and one outrageously supportive husband. In addition, Lilly teaches a weekly movement awareness practice called The Feldenkrais Method to anyone who wants to move and breathe and feel a wee bit better in their own skin. Last but definitely not least, Lilly is currently developing her own solo-show and companion memoir scheduled for release in Fall 2017.Lindsay King-MIller →
Lindsay King-Miller studied creative writing at the University of Arizona, received her MFA in Writing & Poetics from Naropa University, and does not really have an indoor voice. Her poetry has been published in various places in print and online, including The Nervous Breakdown, decomP and Union Station. She is a book reviewer for Muzzle Magazine, an advice columnist for The Hairpin, and teaches writing at Pikes Peak Community College. She lives in Denver with her partner, an unreasonable number of books, and a very spoiled cat.
Lines Drawn: Parents and Teachers Who’ve Had Enough →
We are parents and teachers using comics to illustrate how we feel as adults responsible for the care and safety of children and youth in an age of continued school shootings. We hope our comics add momentum to the groundswell of students demanding solutions to end gun violence, not only in schools, but as related to police shootings of people of color, and the criminalization of African Americans. The collective includes Emilie Bess, Adam Bessie, Amy Camber, Sarah Romano Diehl, Ellen Forney, Robyn Jordan, David Lasky, Meredith Li-Vollmer, Mita Mahato, Rachel Masilamani, Annie Murphy, Amy Abugo Ongiri, Marc Parenteau, and Rachel Scheer.Lisa Brown →
LISA BROWN is an illustrator, author and cartoonist. Her books include: How to Be, The Airport Book, The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming by Lemony Snicket, Emily’s Blue Period by Cathleen Daly, and Mummy Cat by Marcus Ewert. She created the “Baby Be of Use” series of board books, including Baby Mix Me a Drink, for McSweeney’s, and the 3 Panel Book Review comics for the San Francisco Chronicle. She teaches illustration at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, but can mostly be found wasting time on the internets: www.americanchickens.com; @lisabrowndraws.Author photo © Kristen SardLisa Lim →
Lisa Lim is both an artist and a writer. Her art and fiction have appeared in Guernica Magazine, Kill Author, InDigest Magazine, Nashville Review, and Pank Magazine. Find more of her storytelling here.
Lisa Sinnett →
Lisa Sinnett is an immigrant to the middle class and was dismayed to discover shortly after her arrival that it was being dismantled. She enjoys life on her severely curtailed teacher’s salary, because she’s remembered that she has more friends when she’s broke, and is considering moving to Canada with her family and anyone she can convince to go with her. She admires writers, Dreamers, activists and fellow teachers who are hanging in there for public education. She works on her writing in Ariel Gore’s School for Wayward Writers. Selections of her in progress Detroit memoir have been published in and/or recognized by Hipmamazine, Penduline Press, Glimmer Train, Stealing Time Magazine and Friends Journal. Learn more at http://www.lisasinnett.com
Lisa Wilde →
Lisa Wilde is a mother, an artist, and a New York City public high school teacher. Her first book, Yo, Miss: A Graphic Look at High School (www.yomiss.com) was called one of 2015's “20 Notable Nonfiction Books You Might Have Missed This Year” by the Huffington Post. She is a Fellow of the New York Academy for Teachers. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and sometimes her college-age son.
Liz Asch →
Liz Asch is a visual artist, poet, and nonfiction writer. She is also an acupuncturist who help artists edit their bodies and redesign their lives. Her writing has been published in various journals and collections including The Rumpus, The Manifest Station, Atticus Review,The Dream Closet, and the poetry anthology Step Lightly. Her stop-motion animation film, 'The Love Seat,' traveled through the US and Canada in gay and lesbian indie film festivals. She has also published under the name Liz Fischer Greenhill and other secret pseudonyms. She lives with her son in Portland, Oregon.
Lucinda Cummings →
Lucinda Cummings is a mother, writer, and clinical psychologist who lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her work has appeared in mamazine, and is forthcoming in the anthology, She’s Got This. She is seeking a publisher for her book length memoir about finding home.
Lucy Knisley →
Lucy Knisley is the author and illustrator of beloved graphic novels about memory, identity, food, and family. Her Alex Award-winning graphic novel, Relish: My Life in the Kitchen, tells the story of her childhood steeped in the food industry. It was a New York Times bestseller and has been translated into five languages. Her travelogues (French Milk, An Age of License, and Displacement) and web comic series (Stop Paying Attention) have been lauded by critics, and her combined work has built her a devoted readership for her honest and thoughtful true-life stories. Her graphic memoirs include Something New: Tales from a Makeshift Bride and Kid Gloves.Lucy Scott →
Lucy Scott has drawn every day for as long as she can remember. She studied drawing and painting at Edinburgh College of Art. In 2005, Lucy together with her partner Tom founded Treehouse24, a storyboard and animatic company. After giving birth to her first child, Lucy used the experience as the basis for her new book, Doodle Diary of a New Mom. Excerpts from the book appeared in many online magazines and newspapers including The Huffington Post. Within a week the images had gone viral, notching up 2.5 million views on Buzzfeed alone. Her second book is Busy Busy (a book for children), which was inspired by her 2 year old daughter’s boundless imaginative play and relentless energy. Lucy Lives in Edinburgh with her partner Tom and daughter Lois (now 3 and a half).
Lux Alptraum →
Lux Alptraum is a writer, sex educator, and consultant. Past projects have included gigs as the editor, publisher, and CEO of Fleshbot, the web’s foremost blog about sexuality and adult entertainment; editor-at-large for Nerve.com and How About We Media; a sex educator at an adolescent pregnancy prevention program; an HIV pretest counselor; and the founder of Boinkology, a blog about sex and culture. Her writing has appeared in Cosmopolitan, Hustler, FastCompany.com, Salon.com, TheAtlantic.com, Time Out New York, Jezebel.com, SundanceChannel.com, Bizarre Magazine, Jalopnik.com, BlackbookMag.com, GOOD Magazine, and more. She has spoken about sexuality, the internet, and adult entertainment at Harvard University, Brown University, Yale University, NYU, Columbia University, Ohio State University, SXSW, and New York City’s Museum of Sex.
Lyndsay Knowles →
Lyndsay Knowles is a writer and English teacher. She lives in Western North Carolina with her husband, son, and daughter. Her work has been featured in You&Me Magazine and is forthcoming in Literary Mama.
Lynne Nugent →
Lynne Nugent is managing editor of The Iowa Review. Her essays have appeared in the North American Review, Brevity, the Modern Love column of the New York Times, and Full Grown People.
M. Joy Rose →
Joy Rose is a modern Media Mom – Currently teaching Mother Studies classes at the Museum Of Motherhood online. Founder & President of Mamapalooza, Joy is a rock and roll mama advocating for women, mothers and families with radio, tv and events– advocating for education through a vast network of blogs, mom events and media platforms. Joy is a nationally recognized, award winning producer, writer and activist. A feminist mom with four children, she is a NOW awards recipient, who works with the M.O.M. Conference annually in NYC. She is also the publisher of Mamazina, formally known as Mom Writers Literary Magazine and founder of The Mom Egg. Housewives On Prozac band and the Mom Rock movement she is an activist for women in the arts and beyond. Author photo is by Peter Freed, for the PRIME Book
Mad Kate →
Mad Kate (www.alfabus.us) is a performance artist, musician, writer and sex worker based in Berlin. Her explorations of borders between bodies and performance as praxis of radical imaginings have brought her to theaters, communes, technomansions, prisons, dungeons, squats and galleries around the world. She is one of three parents of a five year old mermaid unicorn kid.
Madison Young →
MADISON YOUNG is an artist, author, certified sex educator, feminist pornographer, and mother. Young grew up in the suburban landscape of Southern Ohio before moving to San Francisco, California, in 2000. Young frequently teaches workshops and gives lectures on the topics of sexuality, feminist porn studies, motherhood and sexuality, and the politics of BDSM. She speaks around the world, including at academic institutions such as Yale University, Hampshire College, Northwestern University, the University of Toronto, the University of Minnesota, and the University of California, Berkeley. Young has been featured for her expertise in sex-positive culture in numerous documentaries and in television and media outlets such as Bravo, the Huffington Post, the New York Times, and HBO. Her writings have been published in books such as The Ultimate Guide to Kink, Best Sex Writing 2013, Subversive Motherhood, andComing Out Like a Porn Star. Her memoir, Daddy, was published in February 2014 through Rare Bird/Barnacle Books, followed by the publication of The Ultimate Guide to Sex Through Pregnancy and Motherhood (Cleis Press/ July 2016) and The DIY Porn Handbook: Documenting Our Own Sexual Revolution(Greenery Press/August 2016). Madison Young lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband James and child Em. Find out more about Madison Young at www.GreatMomSex.com and http://www.MadisonYoung.org
Maggie Downs →
Maggie Downs is a journalist and essayist in Palm Springs, California. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Lonely Planet's True Stories From the World's Best Writers, and The Best Women's Travel Writing anthology, among other publications. When she isn't spending time with her baby or vermin, she is at work on a memoir.Malaina Poore →
Malaina Poore is a mama, writer and creator of altered books. Her work has been published in “The Journal for Participatory Medicine”, “Social Work in Education” and “My Hearts First Steps” and a few other odd places. Currently she works as a freelance flim flam woman.
Malin James →
Malin James is an essayist, blogger, and short story writer. Her work has appeared in Bust Magazine, MUTHA, Queen Mob’s Tea House, and Medium, as well as in anthologies for Cleis, Sweetmeats Press, and others. You can find more of her work at malinjames.com.
Malina Saval →
Malina Saval is an associate features editor at Variety where she pens articles and essays about TV, film and music. Her book "The Secret Lives of Boys: Inside the Raw Emotional World of Male Teens" earned her the title "boy whisperer" in the Boston Globe. Her novel "Jewish Summer Camp Mafia" includes myriad references to Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and, for good measure, Kelly Clarkson. She lives in Los Angeles way too far from the beach.
Mallory McDuff →
Mallory McDuff teaches environmental education at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, NC, where she lives on campus with her two daughters. She is the author of Natural Saints (OUP, 2010), Sacred Acts (New Society Publishers, 2012), and co-author of Conservation Education and Outreach Techniques(OUP, 2015). Her essays have appeared in The Rumpus, BuzzFeed, Full Grown People, Literary Mama, Sojourners, and more. Find her at: https://mallorymcduff.com/
Margo Hollingsworth →
Margo Hollingsworth is a high school English teacher and mom living and writing in Sacramento.
Maria Massei-Rosato →
Maria Massei-Rosato holds an M.F.A in creative non-fiction from The New School and a B.S. from New York University. She has taught poetry workshops for adults and children with developmental disabilities and currently teaches a yoga/writing workshop at Sewall House in Maine. Her most recent work has appeared in Poets & Writers Magazine, Brain, Child Magazine, Boomer Lit Mag, and Tell Us A Story. She has completed a memoir, which was selected as a semi-finalist in the William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition and she completed a screenplay, a tale of two journeys: cycling across the country and caring for her mom through a debilitating illness. It conveys what she learned along the way: Life requires strength in the face of adversity, patience when confronted with a challenge, and faith when all seems lost.
Marianna Marlowe →
Marianna Marlowe lives and writes in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has a Ph.D. in English. After years of academic writing, she now focuses on creative non-fiction that explores, among other things, gender identity, motherhood and feminist issues. She and her family currently reside in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her hobbies include reading, hiking and binge watching British crime series. Connect with her at mariannamarlowe@gmail.com.
Marie Curran →
Marie Curran lives with her husband, daughter, and dog in Marquette, Michigan, where she is an MFA student studying fiction at Northern Michigan University. She spends much of her time perfecting the art of typing while breastfeeding, and has composed more than one essay on her phone.
Marion Ruybalid →
Marion Ruybalid's work had also appeared in The Manifest-Station, PANK, Portrait of an Adoption-ChicagoNow, and BLUNTmoms. She also received her MFA from UCR Palm Desert.
Marissa Korbel →
Marissa Korbel's writing has been published by Harper's Bazaar, The Manifest-Station, and The Rumpus, where she writes essays monthly for her column, The Thread. She works as a staff attorney for a nonprofit in Portland, Oregon, where she lives with her partner and their toddler.Marlo Mack →
Marlo Mack is a freelance writer who blogs about parenting her transgender daughter at www.gendermom.com.
Marnie Galloway →
Marnie Galloway is a Xeric Award winning cartoonist & illustrator who lives in Chicago with her husband and toddler son. The collected edition of her award-winning wordless comic In the Sounds and Seas was published by One Peace Books in 2016. It made the Notable Comics list in Best American Comics 2016, and was mentioned in the Best Comics of 2016 round-up by the AV Club. Other comics of note include Burrow and Particle/Wave. For more information, visit www.marniegalloway.com
Mary Doyle →
Mary Doyle is the author of two zines, Hatch! Mister Sister, and Dear Queers. Formerly a midwife, she currently makes her living as a massage therapist and childbirth educator. Since her teenager left for boarding school 3 years ago, she's been spending her time writing, reading, and exploring the wonders of the outdoor world near her home in Gainesville, FL.Mary Margaret Alvarado →
Mary Margaret Alvarado is the author of Hey Folly (Dos Madres), a book of poems. Her nonfiction has been published recently in The Kenyon Review, VQR, Outside and Off Assignment.
Mary Rowen →
Mary Rowen is a writer, music lover, and Boston area mom to teenagers. All of her novels focus on women of various ages growing up, or at least becoming comfortable with themselves. She grew up in the Massachusetts Merrimack Valley, and is a graduate of Providence College. Get to know Mary better on her blog, where she writes often about life and literature, or on her author page.
Mary Volmer →
Mary Volmer is the author of two novels: Crown of Dust (Soho Press, 2010) and Reliance, Illinois (Soho Press, 2016). Her essays, reviews, and short stories have appeared in various publications, including MUTHA Magazine, the Farallon Review, Women’s Basketball Magazine, Fiction Writers Review, Historical Novel Society Review, The New Orleans Review, Brevity, and Ploughshares. She has been awarded residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and Hedgebrook and was the spring 2015 Distinguished Visiting Writer in Residence at Saint Mary’s College (CA) where she now teaches.
Maryam A. Ansari →
Maryam A. Ansari is a writer and artist who received her MFA from New York University and lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two daughters. Follow her on instagram @momodrawsstuffMeg Barnette →
Meg Barnette is the Chief of Staff at Planned Parenthood of New York City. She is the proud mother of two. Follow her at @BarnetteM and @PPNYCAction.
Meg Lemke →
Meg Lemke is the Editor-in-Chief of MUTHA. She also programs the comics and graphic novels at the Brooklyn Book Festival, acts as a guest editor at Illustrated PEN, and takes on miscellaneous freelance projects in-between. She has worked as a book editor at Teachers College Press at Columbia University, Seven Stories Press and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, The Seattle Review, The Atlanta Review, The Good Mother Myth blog, and Seleni, among other publications. She lives with her family in the dense mother-zone of Park Slope, Brooklyn. Find her @meglemke and meglemke.tumblr.com or read up on her formative years at Lady Collective.
Meg Thompson →
Meg Thompson’s work has appeared in McSweeney’s, This Land Press, and Modern Farmer. Her chapbook, Farmer, was published by Kattywompus Press. She teaches in a prison outreach program for Ashland University.
Meg Weber →
Meg Weber is a queer writer, mother, and mental health therapist. Her writing waits for her with surprising patience while other elements of life demand time and attention. Writing is one more thing pulling her focus, but it is also the thing that allows her to show up in all the other areas of life with authentic integrity.Megan Kennedy →
Megan Kennedy is working on a collection of essays about her evolution as a daughter and mother. She is an elementary school counselor and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two year old daughter.
Megan Moodie →
Megan Moodie is a feminist, writer, and mother who lives in Santa Cruz, CA. She is also Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she teaches cultural anthropology and feminist theory courses to undergrad and graduate students. Her main topics of research are gender politics and indigeneity in South Asia – her academic book, We Were Adivasis: Aspiration in an Indian Scheduled Tribe, about the Indian affirmative action system known as “reservations,” came out last summer from the University of Chicago Press. She's currently at work on a novel set in India. Author photo by Shannon Brown.
Megan Pillow Davis →
Megan Pillow Davis is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop in fiction and is currently a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the University of Kentucky’s English Department. Her work has appeared, among other places, in Brain, Child Magazine; Still: The Journal; and The Huffington Post. She is the 2017-2018 Pen Parentis Writing Fellow and is currently at work on her first novel.
Megan Stolz →
Megan Stolz's work has recently appeared in The Fourth River, Noble/Gas Qtrly, and the Journal of Court Reporting (under Megan Rogers). A California native, she has an MFA from the University of Baltimore. She works in nonprofit communications in Washington DC where she lives with her husband, son, and furbaby. She tweets semi-regularly @megan_stolz.
Meghan LeBorious →
Meghan LeBorious is a writer, visual artist, designer, educator and mother who resides in Brooklyn. She writes extensively about the 5Rhythms® dance and movement meditation practice and about spiritual practice in the context of daily life.
Meghan Ward →
MEGHAN WARD is the author of Runway, a memoir based on the six years she spent working as a high fashion model in Europe and Japan, available at Shebooks.net/Runway. Her work has appeared in San Francisco Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, and the anthology It’s So You: 35 Women Write About Personal Expression Through Fashion and Style. Meghan is a book editor, book reviewer, and blogger who writes about writing, publishing, and social media at Writerland.com. She lives in Berkeley, CA, with her husband and two children. Follow her on Twitter @meghancward, on Facebook @meghanwardauthor.
Meilan Carter-Gilkey →
Meilan Carter-Gilkey is a wife, and mother of two sons sixteen years apart. She became a poet and writer at seven, a single mother at twenty, a college graduate at thirty-two, a caretaker of her dying father at thirty-three, a recipient of an MFA at thirty-four, a wife at thirty-five, a mother again at thirty-six and a caretaker of her mother at thirty-eight. She very recently turned forty and renewed her goal to make writing a true priority and created a blog, 2nd Life: Balancing Motherhood, Writing and Sanity. Her work has been published in the anthology Who's Your Mama?: The Voices of Unsung Women and Mothers, the Womanist and Shield Magazine. To read more of Meilan's work please visit mcartgilk.tumblr.com.
Melissa Chandler →
Melissa Chandler holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work can be seen at The Hairpin, The Toast, and The Bold Italic. She's working on a novel, which is coming along slowly with the help of mochas from all over San Francisco. She tweets @melchandler.
Melissa Stephenson →
Melissa Stephenson’s fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in journals such as New South, Memoir (and), The Mid American Review, Passages North, The Barrelhouse Blog, The Washington Post, and New Letters. Her first book—a memoir about cars and her brother—is forthcoming from Harcourt. She lives in Missoula, Montana.
Michelle Mirsky →
Michelle Mirsky is a writer who works an earnest nine-to-five job and sometimes tells stories on stage. Her work has been featured on McSweeney's Internet Tendency and in Best American Essays. She hates looking for parking, jerks, and being told no. She likes whiskey, reading, saying yes, and knee-high boots/classic modernist chairs (tie). She lives in Austin, TX with her son.
Michelle Tea →
Michelle Tea, Founder of Mutha Magazine, is the author of a novel, four memoirs, including How to Grow Up, a collection of poetry and a Young Adult Fantasy trilogy beginning with A Mermaid in Chelsea Creek, published by McSweeney's. She is founder of RADAR Productions, a literary non-profit that runs the international Sister Spit performance tours, among other things.
Mimi Van Ausdall →
Mimi Iimuro Van Ausdall, Ph.D., is a Minneapolis-based writer and teacher. Her scholarly work appears in The Journal of Lesbian Studies, Feminist Formations, Sinister Wisdom, and The Gay and Lesbian Review. She has been the recipient of the National Women’s Studies Association Graduate Scholarship in Lesbian Studies and of the Consortium of Institutional Cooperation (CIC) Fellowship at Purdue University. However, she describes herself as a “recovering academic” and is now beginning her creative writing career.Minna Dubin →
Minna Dubin is a writer, performer, and educator in Berkeley, CA. She writes essays, monologues, and lists about motherhood and identity. Minna is the founder of #MomLists, a Bay Area literary public art project about early motherhood. Her work has been featured in The Forward, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Story Club Magazine, GAMBA Magazine, and *82 Review. She was a 2016 Artist in Residence at Lacawac Sanctuary and Field Station. When not chasing her toddler in circles around the dining room table, she is eating chocolate in the bathroom while texting. Author photo (c) Andria Lo.Mira Jacob →
Mira Jacob is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing, which was a Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers pick, shortlisted for India’s Tata First Literature Award, and longlisted for the Brooklyn Literary Eagles Prize. In addition, it was received an honor from the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association, and was named one of the best books of 2014 by Kirkus Reviews, the Boston Globe, Goodreads, Bustle, and The Millions. She is the co-founder of much-loved Pete’s Reading Series in Brooklyn, where she spent 13 years bringing literary fiction, non-fiction, and poetry to the city’s sweetest stage. Her recent writing and short stories have appeared in The New York Times, Guernica, Vogue, the Telegraph, Buzzfeed, and Bookanista, and earlier work has appeared in various magazines, books, on television, and across the web. She has appeared on national and local television and radio, and has taught writing to students of all ages in New York, New Mexico, and Barcelona. She currently teaches fiction at NYU. In September 2014, Mira was named the Emerging Novelist Honoree at Hudson Valley Writer’s Center, where she received a commendation from the U.S. Congress. She is currently drawing and writing her graphic memoir, Good Talk: Conversations I’m Still Confused About (Dial Press, 2018).She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, documentary filmmaker Jed Rothstein, and their son.
Misti Rainwater-Lites →
Misti Rainwater-Lites is the author of Bullshit Rodeo (Epic Rites Press). She resides in a travel trailer in San Antonio.
Molly McIntyre →
Molly McIntyre is an illustrator and comic artist living in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and young son. Her work has been featured in Bitch Magazine, Everyday Feminism, Scary Mommy, Psychology Today, and more. She is currently working on a collection of comics about new motherhood, titled Momzines. Find her on Instagram.
Molly Westerman →
Molly Westerman is a writer, book nerd, literature PhD, and parent of two. Her current projects include a book for feminist parents and the blog First the Egg. A former Southerner and forever bourbon-drinker, Molly now lives in and loves the fine state of Minnesota.
Mutha Magazine →Exploring real-life motherhood, from every angle, at every stage.
Nadine Kenney Johnstone →
Nadine Kenney Johnstone is author of Of This Much I’m Sure (She Writes Press, 2017), a memoir of her experiences struggling with IVF and illness, and the healing power of hope and love. Her work has been featured in Chicago Magazine, The Month, PANK, and various anthologies, including The Magic of Memoir. Nadine, who received her MFA from Columbia College in Chicago, teaches English at Loyola University and doubles as a writing coach, presenting at conferences internationally. She lives near Chicago with her family.
Nalini Jones →
NALINI JONES is the author of What You Call Winter, a story collection set in a Catholic neighborhood of Mumbai. She is a recipient of an NEA fellowship, Pushcart Prize, and O. Henry Prize. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, One Story and Ninth Letter, among others, and she has contributed to anthologies about siblings and HIV in India. She is currently at work on a novel.
Nancy Arroyo Ruffin →
Nancy Arroyo Ruffin is a writer, mama, wife, and motivational speaker. Her work has been cited and published in various online magazines and literary journals such as Duende Literary Journal, Poets & Writers, For Harriet, Elephant Journal, CentroVOICES, Moms Magazine, and MUTHA Magazine, among others. She is a 2014 VONA fellow and a 2014 International Latino Book Award recipient for her sophomore collection of poetry Letters to My Daughter (CreativeInk Press, 2013). She chronicles her work, which primarily centers around culture, feminism, and motherhood on her personal blog at www.nancyruffin.net. You can find Nancy on Twitter @IAmNancyRuffin
Nancy Méndez-Booth →
Nancy Méndez-Booth is a fiction writer. She teaches writing and Latina/o literature and culture at colleges and universities in New York and New Jersey. Nancy’s work has appeared in print and online, including Latina, Poets & Writers, Salon, OZY Media, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, KGB Bar Literary Magazine, Philadelphia Stories, and Wordrunner eBooks. Nancy has read at various Northeast venues including Cornelia Street Cafe and The Moth. She posts regularly on nancymendezbooth.com/blog/. Nancy is seeking representation, and is currently working on a fiction manuscript and a one-person show. Author photo is (c) Denver David Robinson.
Nefertiti Austin →
Nefertiti Austin is a U.S. History college instructor and a certified PS-MAPP trainer who co-leads classes for adoptive and foster parents. She blogs about adoption at mommiejonesing.com, and is currently working on a memoir about adopting as a single woman of color. Austin lives with her children in Los Angeles.
Nicole Rudick →
Nicole Rudick is managing editor of The Paris Review. She lives in New Jersey, where she is helping to raise a voracious reader and comics nerd. Her writing on art, books, and comics has appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, The New Yorker, Bookforum, and elsewhere. Her essay on the Los Angeles artist collective Destroy All Monsters was published in Return of the Repressed: Destroy All Monsters 1973–1977 (PictureBox, 2011), and she has recently written introductions to the work of artists Ben Jones and C.F.
Nidhi Chanani →
Nidhi Chanani was born in Calcutta and raised in California. Her debut graphic novel, Pashmina, was released in 2017. She lives in the San Francisco bay area. You can find out more about her at everydayloveart.com
Nina Aron →
Nina Renata Aron is an Oakland-based writer. She holds a BA in Russian History from Columbia University, an MA in Russian & Eurasian Studies from Harvard University, and is 5 years into a PhD in Anthropology and Gender Studies at UC Berkeley. She currently works for a global health nonprofit on efforts to strengthen blood safety policy and maternal and child health in the former Soviet Union and beyond. Nina is a compulsive reader of book reviews, and enjoys collecting records, recipes and dollhouse decor. She is at work on a novel.
Nina Capelli Oppenheim →
Nina Capelli Oppenheim is the Director of Cultural Programming at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City. Nina lives with her husband, son and daughter in utter chaos. Visit her online here or connect on Twitter @NinaCapelli
Nina Kabal →
Nina Kabal is a designer and writer currently based in Berlin, Germany. She designs apps and websites, and has a passion for illustration and typography. She works as a freelancer for various clients and holds a BA in Interaction Design. She has been writing for various publications in Germany and has been blogging consistently for the last ten years about a broad range of issues such as expat culture, literature and art, politics and history, traveling, as well as gay and transgender rights and feminism. She is currently working on a young adult novel about a young woman slowly descending into depression and her obsession with crows in the absence of her well-travelled father. She loves traveling near and far, reading, cycling and considers herself a 'foodie'.
Nina Packebush →
Nina Packebush is a grown-up queer teen mama and young adult writer. Her writing has appeared in a variety of alternative publications including Mutha Magazine, Hip Mama Magazine, Waging Non Violence, and The Icarus Project. Check out her teen mama blog at wehaveraisedpresidents.org.
Noriko Nakada →
Noriko Nakada writes, blogs, tweets, parents, and teaches middle school in Los Angeles. She is committed to writing thought-provoking creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry. Publications include two book-length memoirs: Through Eyes Like Mine and Overdue Apologies.Excerpts, essays, and poetry have appeared in Catapult, Meridian, Compose, Kartika, Hippocampus, The Rising Phoenix Review, and Linden Avenue.
Paige Schilt →
Dr. Paige Schilt is a writer, mother, teacher, activist and band wife. Her stories have appeared on The Bilerico Project, Offbeat Families, and Brain, Child. She is a frequent speaker and facilitator at conferences, including Gender Odyssey, Contemporary Relationships, Creating Change and Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Summit. Paige is married to Katy Koonce, frontman for the band Butch County. They live in Austin, Texas, with their son.
Pam Wye →
Pam Wye draws, mothers, teaches, protests and yells less at her TV since she became the "resident political cartoonist" for her local Indivisible group - NJ 11th for Change. She has a cartoon published in this summer's Volume Two of "RESIST!" Magazine published by RAW Books & Graphics and edited by Françoise Mouly and Nadja Spiegelman.Patricia Lawler Kenet →
Patricia Lawler Kenet turned her sights to writing after practicing law for 15 years as a litigation attorney. Her writing has appeared in Salon.com, Everup.com, Van Winkles.com, The New York Times, New York Newsday and most recently, The Fiction Pool. She is the co-author of How to Wash Your Face and Saving Your Skin. For more about her, go to Patricialawlerkenet.com
Paula Knight →
Phoebe Cohen →
Phoebe Cohen has walked many paths in life including living in the middle of the Gobi desert as a Peace Corps volunteer and working as a paramedic in several states. Her hardest job by far, however, is being a single mother to her beautiful son. She is hoping, through her comic strips, to send a message to other single parents and parents with autistic children that they are not alone in this world. Not by a long shot. Cohen's work has been featured on Graphic Medicine and she regularly posts her work about being a paramedic on her website "The Overcaffeinated Medic." Cohen is also developing a webcomic about her experiences as a single mother, tentatively titled "So Very Tired," which is due to come out this summer in 2019.
Pooja Makhijani →
Pooja Makhijani writes children's books, essays, and articles, and also develops educational media and curricula. Find her online at poojamakhijani.com.
Rachael Inciarte →
Rachael Inciarte is a writer and young mother. She holds a MFA from Emerson College. Her fiction has been published in Post Road Magazine and is forthcoming in others. She spends her time writing, chasing after a toddler, haunting library stacks, and working on her own children’s book review blog, babybookish.com. She lives in MA with her family.
Rachel Aimee →
Rachel Aimee is a writer, editor, and the executive director of Drag Queen Story Hour NYC. Find more of her writing at RachelAimee.net. Follow her on Instagram at Rachel_Aimee_NYC.Rachel Kessler →
Rachel Kessler is cofounder of poetry performance collaborations The Typing Explosion and Vis-à-Vis Society. Her work appears in The Stranger, Narrative Magazine, Tin House, Poetry Northwest, The Open Daybook, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Frye Art Museum, and concurrent with the 50th Venice Bienale. Her Public Health Poems can be found in public restrooms throughout Washington State. She teaches creative writing in public schools and lives with her partner and their two kickass teenage daughters in Seattle. Author photo by Kelly O.
Rachel Levin →
Rachel Levin is a San Francisco-based writer/editor. Her work appears the New York Times, Outside, Slate, Sunset, where she was a senior travel editor, and Ozy, where she is a contributing writer. She is thankful for her husband’s persistence and a faulty pill, because now she has two kids who she loves a lot.
Rachel Masilamani →
Rachel Masilamani is a cartoonist and librarian in Pittsburgh. Her first comics collection, RPM Comics #1, received a grant from the Xeric Foundation and was named “Best Comic Book” by the Baltimore City Paper. Since then, her comics have appeared in Meathaus, Street Runoff, Graphics Classics, The Indiana Review and other anthologies. She was a featured guest and panelist at the 2015 Pittsburgh Indy Comix Festival. Find more of her work at rpmcomics.com and Zcomx.
Rachel Penn Hannah →
Rachel Penn Hannah is a clinical psychologist who works in an intensive eating disorders program. Rachel lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her wonderful husband and three kids, ages 15, 18, and 21. She has two essays in the book Easy to Love, but Hard to Raise; Real Parents, Challenging Kids, True Stories. Rachel also has been a contributor to the book's sister blog and is working on a memoir about growing up in Berkeley, California in the 1960's and 70's. When not mothering, working, driving or losing her mind, Rachel tries desperately to find time to write and do yoga.
Rachel Pepper →
Rachel Pepper is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who specializes in the therapeutic treatment of foster youth, lesbian and gay youth, and providing affirming care for transgender and gender non-conforming youth and adults. She is the author of four books, including the IPPY award winning Transitions of the Heart: Stories of Love, Struggle and Acceptance by Mothers of Transgender and Gender Variant Children (Cleis Press, 2012) and The Transgender Child. You can contact her directly or read her blog.
Ramiza Koya →
Ramiza Koya has both a BA and an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, and has taught in Spain, the Czech Republic, and Morocco. She has published both fiction and nonfiction in publications such as Lumina, Washington Square Review, and Catamaran, and has just finished a novel, The Royal Abduls, about the affects of 9/11 on an Indian-American family. She has been a fellow at both MacDowell Colony and Blue Mountain Center. Currently, she is an instructor in composition and creative writing at Portland Community College as well as a program specialist for Literary Arts’ Writers in the Schools program.
Raquel Cool →
Raquel Cool is a writer, artist, activist, and former egg donor. She co-founded We Are Egg Donors, an international self-advocacy group for egg donors, which was recently featured on HuffPostLive and NBC Today. She has written for the Social Justice Journal, The Bold Italic, and Our Bodies Ourselves. Look out for updates on her forthcoming book, photo essay collaboration with photographer Damien Maloney, at www.raquelcool.com.
Rebecca Brams →
Rebecca Brams is a writer and mother to two young boys in Berkeley, California. Her older son had persistent sleep apnea and didn’t sleep much until he turned six years old. Rebecca grew up in California’s Mojave Desert and has traveled extensively in Latin America. She is writing a historical novel set during the Inca Empire in 15th century South America, for which she received a Fulbright Fellowship. She has a B.A. in Anthropology from Stanford University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from St. Mary’s College of California. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been published in Literary Mama, Carve Magazine, Dark Matter: Women Witnessing and on blogs, including her own, www.thismamawrites.com.
Rebecca Finkel →
Rebecca Finkel is a Philadelphia-area mom and copywriter. Her work has appeared in Slate, Metro Newspapers, and a long-deleted baking blog full of faked results.
Rebecca Fish Ewan →
Rebecca Fish Ewan, founder of Plankton Press (where small is big enough), creates Tiny Joys & GRAPH(feeties) zines. Rebecca has degrees in math, landscape architecture and creative writing and is a writer/poet/cartoonist. She teaches in The Design School at Arizona State University and lives with her family in Tempe. Her work has appeared in Brevity, Femme Fotale, Punctuate, Survivor Zine, Under the Gum Tree and Hip Mama. She has two CNF books, A Land Between and By the Forces of Gravity, a memoir (forthcoming June 2018 Books by Hippocampus) of cartoons and verse. Find Rebecca on social media: @rfishewan
Rebecca Smolen →
Rebecca is a Portland-based writer, transplanted here in 2014 with a deep love for short story, poetry and animals. She grew up on a dead end road in NH exploring drainage pipes and pond life. She uses the written word to help release a little of the intense darkness few know is there. Having a BA in Creative Writing and a minor in Philosophy, it only made sense for Rebecca to pursue a beloved career as a Veterinary Technician where she has learned to serve as a mediator between the furry and not.
Rebekah Olson →
Rebekah Olson is a creative writing student and stay-at-home mother. Her work has been published on websites like Recovering Yogi and the Huffington Post. She has written two novels and is working on a memoir about the aftermath following her father’s sudden death when she was twelve. She lives in Austin, TX with her husband, two children, and their Boxer Nash.
Renee Macalino Rutledge →
Renee Macalino Rutledge is a journalist and book editor who loves travel, parenting, and sea turtles. Her debut novel, The Hour of Daydreams, is forthcoming from Forest Avenue Press in 2017. Find her at www.ReneeRutledge.com.
Rhea St. Julien →
Rhea St. Julien is an arts-based psychotherapist who lives and works in San Francisco's Mission District. She and her husband are a part of the Stay Woke Families Collective, a group of parents and caregivers working for racial justice, one Story Hour and Mini-March at a time. Twitter/Insta: @rheabetteRhea Wolf →
Rhea Wolf, writer, astrologer, witch, and mom, is the author of The Light That Changes: The Moon in Astrology, Stories, and Time. Her writing has appeared in hipMama, The Mountain Astrologer, We’Moon, and Perspectives. Her self-published chapbook, Children of Medusa, is available for purchase from her website.
Rica Lewis →
Rica Lewis is a senior staff writer for an award-winning magazine in Florida. Her essays have appeared on Huffington Post, Elephant Journal, Motherwell, The Sunlight Press, Open Thought Vortex and more. She's currently penning a memoir on single motherhood post-divorce. Find her online at RicaWrites.com.
Rina Ayuyang →
Rina Ayuyang is a cartoonist and illustrator based in Oakland, California. Her stories have been collected in the Ignatz-nominated book "Whirlwind Wonderland" co-published by Sparkplug Comic Books and Tugboat Press. She has contributed to various anthologies like Runner, Runner, Unicorn Mountain, Stripburger, and the SPX anthology. She plays the "nice" co-host on the comics podcast, The Comix Claptrap and just recently started her own small press publishing company called Yam Books. You can view more of her work at www.rinaayuyang.com.
Rivka Galchen →
Robin Silbergleid →
Robin Silbergleid is the author of the memoir *Texas Girl* and the collection of poems *The Baby Book* both of which explore infertility and becoming a single mother via assisted reproductive technology. She is associate professor of English at Michigan State University, and collaborates with the international art, oral history, and portraiture project The ART of Infertility.
Robyn Jordan →
Robyn Jordan is a cartoonist and illustrator who makes mini-comics and journalistic comics essays. She lives in Seattle with her partner, and is a member of the (mostly) queer art/comics collective THE HAND. She leads all-ages workshops, and teaches art in a public school. She serves on the board of Short Run, a comics and arts festival founded and organized by women. robynjordan.comRumbi Görgens →
Rumbi Görgens is a Zimbabwean-born South African-based aspiring feminist author. Her writing has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, and on FeministsSA.com and MyFirstTimeSA.com. She has worked with various South African civil society organisations, including Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust. In her spare time, Rumbi enjoys blogging, watching mind-numbing reality TV, and, occasionally, tweeting. You can find more of her musings at inherfootstepsblog.com.
Ruxandra Guidi →
Ruxandra Guidi has over twelve years of experience working in public radio, magazines, and multimedia, and has reported throughout the United States, the Caribbean, South and Central America, as well as Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico border region. She collaborates often with her husband, Bear Guerra, under the name Fonografia Collective (http://fonografiacollective.
com/). She’s originally from Venezuela, and is currently living in Quito, Ecuador Ryane Granados →
Ryane Nicole Granados is a Los Angeles native and she earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles. Her work has been featured in various publications including The Manifest-Station, Specter Magazine, The Nervous Breakdown, Scary Mommy, The Atticus Review and LA Parent Magazine. She is also a two-time cast member of the stage production Expressing Motherhood. Ryane is best described as a wife, writer, professor and devoted mom who laughs loud and hard, even in the most difficult of circumstances. When not managing her house full of sons, she can be found working on her novel, grading student essays, or binge watching reality TV shows while eating her children’s leftover Halloween candy.
S. Lynn Alderman →
S. Lynn Alderman lives in North Carolina with her husband and two daughters. She works as a mental health clinician, so must maintain a modicum of anonymity. She has a background in news reporting, publishing, design, fine art and surly bartending. MUTHA is the first place her personal writing has appeared.
Sabrina Jones →
SABRINA JONES is a comic book artist, writer, and editor who began her career with activist art collective Carnival Knowledge and alternative comics World War 3 Illustrated and Girltalk. Her books Race to Incarcerate: A Graphic Retelling and Isadora Duncan: A Graphic Biography were named “Great Graphic Novels” by the Young Adult Library Services Association. She received a BFA in painting from Pratt Institute and an MFA in illustration from School of Visual Arts. She lives in New York City.
Sacha Mardou →
Mardou was born in Manchester, England and now makes a home in St Louis, MO. The sequel to her graphic novel Sky in Stereo will be published in Spring 2019.Samantha Barrow →
Samantha Barrow writes poems and some prose while directing the Humanities in Medicine at the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education at The City College of New York, and teaching in the Program of Narrative Medicine at Columbia. She is the author of GRIT and tender membrane (Plan B Press), Jelly (a chapbook, Tiger / Monkey Alliance), and Chap (self published). Her poetry, prose, reviews and interviews have been published in The Ledge Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Philadelphia City Paper, Off Our Backs, Lesbian Nation, Feminist Review, The Intima, Cleaver, Helmet Hair and two Uphook Press Anthologies: “you say. say.” and “Hell Strung and Crooked.
Sara Dutilly →
Sara Dutilly is a homeschooling mother to three children. Years ago, she studied writing in college and today tries to stick with it, encouraging every aspect of her homeschool toward literary merit. She can often be found in the kitchen or behind the closed door of her bedroom penning what she believes are beautiful, true words. She has been published in Mothers Always Write, PopSugar, and r.k.v.r.y. Quarterly Journal, and every once in a while she adds a post to her blog www.haikuthedayaway.com.
Sara Finnerty →
Sara Finnerty is a writer and teacher from Queens, living in Los Angeles, where she is the co-curator of the Griffith Park Storytelling Series. She has essays and stories in Frequencies, Black Warrior Review, htmlgiant, The Rumpus, Role/Reboot, The Weeklings, Jersey Devil Press, and others. She is working on her third novel.
Sara Petersen →
Sara lives in Portsmouth, NH, where she writes about parenthood, feminism, pop culture, and other miscellany. Her work has been published in Catapult, Brain, Child, Entropy, Bust, Neutrons Protons, Motherwell, and elsewhere. She blogs about kids, pretty wallpaper, IPA, and friendship here.
Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar →
Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar is an Indian American. She was born in a middle-class family in India and will forever be indebted to her parents for educating her beyond their means. She is an Informational Technology professional, wife, and mother of a teenager. Her thoughts find clarity on her usual Fitbit-powered solitary walks, which she pens down on her blog Puny Fingers. Her work has been published in Ms. Magazine blog, The Same, The Aerogram, The Haiku Journal, Columbus Moms Blog and other journals.
Sara Zia Ebrahimi →
Sara is a curator of film, visual art and new media and for over a decade has produced film screenings and exhibits in the Philadelphia area. She has worked as a consultant with Independent Television Service (ITVS) and with individual independent filmmakers on their engagement and outreach campaigns. Currently, she works as a Social Media Specialist at American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). A MFA graduate of Temple University, her own short films have screened internationally and been awarded grants from Chicken & Egg Pictures, Rooftop Films and the Leeway Foundation. In Spring of 2015 she released her first webseries, Bailout, which she wrote and directed.
Sarah Bernstein →
Sarah Bernstein is a teacher, a sorta writer, a wanna be stand up comedian, and she runs an adventure club called Dream League in which women who join each commit to making a secret, long-held dream come true over the better part of a year. It's terrifying; you shouldn't look it up unless you're some kind of renegade optimist, star-gazing badass, epic lollygagging daydreamer with a penchant for discomfort and a crush on infinite possibility.Sarah Bregel →
Sarah Bregel is a mother, a writer, a yoga teacher, a feminist, a red wino-holic and a wellness junkie. Her work has appeared on Babble, SheKnows, Mommyish, MindBodyGreen and more. She is a contributor at 9Bliss and SheKnows Parenting Experts. She lives in Baltimore, MD with her husband, Marshall and their daughter, Piper and is expecting her second baby in May 2014. Her personal blog can be found at SarahBregel.com. Find her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/
themediocremama and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ SarahBregel. Sarah Maguire →
'Sarah Maguire is a neo-post-beat feminist vegan poet who has won no prizes, entered no competitions, and whose head is as far out of the asses of the academy & pseudo-straightforward-confessional-prize-winning-pastoral poets who populate this country's poetry ghettos as a giraffe's is from the perfectly-formed hyena stools that blow in formation across the West Country literary savannah’ - Tim Atkins www.thisisuptight.com
Sarah Maria Medina →
Sarah Maria Medina is a poet and a fiction/creative non-fiction writer from the American Northwest. Her writing has been published in Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Midnight Breakfast, Educe Journal, Winter Tangerine Review, Raspa Literary Journal, Codex Journal, Semicolon Journal, Luna Luna Magazine, and elsewhere. She’s also the author of a chapbook of poetry titled Girl Turnin’ Queen and Other (Broken) Havana Love Stories. She lives in Mexico with her daughter, and is at work on her memoir, A House by the Sea in Havana. www.sarahmariamedina.com
Sarah Mirk →
Sarah Mirk is a social justice-focused writer and editor based in Portland, Oregon. Beginning her career as a reporter for alternative weekly newspapers The Stranger and The Portland Mercury, from 2013 to 2017, she was been as the online editor of national feminism and pop culture nonprofit Bitch Media. In that role, she edited and published critical work from dozens of writers, ran social media pages with a reach of 1.5 million readers, and hosted the engaging feminist podcast Popaganda, whose 10,000 listeners tune into episodes on topics ranging from environmental justice to reproductive rights. Starting in January 2017, she transitioned to becoming a contributing editor at Bitch Media and also became a contributing editor at graphic journalism website The Nib. She is the author of Sex from Scratch: Making Your Own Relationship Rules (Microcosm, 2014) an open-minded guide to dating that is heading into its second edition. Sarah also writes, draws, and edits nonfiction comics, including the popular series Oregon History Comics, which tells little known and marginalized stories from Oregon’s past. She is a frequent political commentator on Oregon Public Broadcasting and has given lectures on feminism, media, and activism at colleges around the country, including Yale, Skidmore, Grinnell, University of California-San Diego, and University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is an adjunct professor in Portland State University’s MFA program in Art and Social Practice, teaching a graduate seminar on writing and research.
Sarah Pape →
Sarah Pape teaches English and works as the Managing Editor of Watershed Review at California State University, Chico. Her poetry and prose has recently been published in The Rumpus, The Adirondack Review, The California Prose Directory, California Northern, The Superstition Review, The Southeast Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and others. She is currently working on a full-length poetry manuscript and collection of essays.
Sarah Stuteville →
Sarah Stuteville is a media director at a civil rights organization in Seattle. A former journalist, she traveled and worked from over a dozen countries and taught journalism at the University of Washington. She’s a mother of two and is currently working on a memoir about journalism, mental health and motherhood.
Sari Wilson →
SARI WILSON is author of the novel Girl Through Glass, which was Long Listed for the 2016 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and on The Millions and Buzzfeed’s most anticipated 2016 booklists. Her short fiction has appeared in Agni, Slice, and Third Coast has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband, the cartoonist Josh Neufeld, and her daughter. Photo credit: Elena Seibert.
Shannon Brescher Shea →
Shannon Brescher Shea is a mom of two children, ages two and five, and lives in the Washington D.C. suburbs. She's previously written for Romper, the Washington Post's On Parenting, and Ravishly as well as for her own blog, We'll Eat You Up, We Love You So. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Shannon Greene →
Shannon is a librarian and writer living with her husband, dogs, cats, chickens, and three snakes, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of South Carolina. An MFA dropout, she’s recently had a piece published in Folk Rebellion’s The Dispatch, and is currently working on a novel. Her baby girl, Juniper Petra Velma, is due March 2019.
Shannon Keough →
Shannon Keough makes her living writing about heat pumps, cheese and prenatal care. She has a column for Minnesota Parent and occasionally writes something on her blog, Don't Knock it Till You Try It. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband Nick and their two little kids, Lydia and Felix
Shannon Mowdy →
Shannon Mowdy has traveled most of the country, including Alaska, where she lived for a time. She is currently seeking an MFA at Stony Brook Southampton. She has curated a reading series at the Stony Brook Poetry Center and reads her work frequently at various venues. He non-fiction has won several awards, including the Harry Crook award and the Dan’s Paper Literary Prize. She teaches creative writing at Stony Brook University and tutors for the Longwood School District. She lives in East Moriches with her husband and four children.
Shannon Reed →
Shannon Reed taught preschool in Western Pennsylvania and Brooklyn, New York and high school in Queens and Brooklyn. She now teaches writing at the University of Pittsburgh. Her work has recently appeared in Vela Magazine, McSweeney's Internet Tendency and the Billfold, among others. She blogs at www.shannonreed.org
Shanthi Sekaran →
Shanthi Sekaran teaches writing at California College of the Arts and is a member of the SAN Francisco Writers Grotto. Lucky Boy, her new novel about motherhood, detention and immigration, comes out in January 2017.
Sharline Chiang →
Sharline Chiang is a writer based in Berkeley, originally from New Jersey. She is a proud, long-time member of VONA (http://www.voicesatvona.org/Welcome.html), an amazing community of writers of color.
Sherisa de Groot →
Sherisa de Groot is a mother and writer specializing in personal narratives. Being a woman and mother of color, first generation American and living in a culture and country alien to her own, she enjoys writing about these social intersections. She is the founding editor of Raising Mothers. Originally from Brooklyn, NY she currently lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands with her husband and toddler son.
Shirley Salemy Meyer →
Shirley Salemy Meyer teaches part-time in the College Writing Program of Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, N.J. She spent most of her career, however, on the staff of the Associated Press, The Des Moines Register, the Chicago Tribune, the Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.) and the Great Falls Tribune (Great Falls, Mont.). Her features have appeared in publications across the country via The Associated Press as well as in the “Motherlode” and “The Local” blogs of The New York Times, Inside Jersey magazine of The Star-Ledger (Newark, N.J.), U.S. Catholic, and Mothers Always Write, among other publications. Her poetry has appeared in Wilderness House Literary Review. She earned a master’s degree from the Columbia University School of Journalism and a bachelor’s degree from Lafayette College.
Shoshana von Blanckensee →
Shoshana von Blanckensee has been published randomly over the last 12 years but is too busy changing diapers to go into it. She lives with her partner, toddler, newborn and a fluffy little mutt named Fritzi in San Francisco.
Sophia Wiedeman Glock →
Sophia Wiedeman Glock is a Xeric winning comic book artist and educator currently working and misplacing pencils in Morgantown, West Virginia. She received her MFA in Illustration as Visual Essay from the School of Visual Arts and her comics have been published in Time Out New York, Buzzfeed as well as various anthologies. You can find more of her work at sophiadraws.com.
Sophie Wyndam →
Sophie Wyndham is a writer and marketing consultant based in Spain, where she spends her days soaking up history and sun with her magical daughter, conceived after years of infertility and loss, which she writes about in her first book, Fragile and Perfectly Cracked: A Memoir of Loss and Infertility. When you tell people you're pregnant, nobody ever says, "congratulations, but you could lose it." A recent NPR survey showed that the majority of Americans believe that miscarriage is very uncommon, happening in only 6% of pregnancies. But nearly 25% of pregnancies end in miscarriage or fetal demise. When it happens to you, there is always a period of shock where, in addition to her grief, a woman can often feel as if she is alone, a freak of nature, and that her body failed her. Eventually people come out of the woodwork and share their own stories, and you start to feel not-so-alone, but those first few days can be crippling. Sophie talks openly about her losses, and wrote this book because she imagines a world where no woman ever feels like she is the only one who has had this happen. Where, when a woman goes through a miscarriage, she knows that, as tragic as it is, she is part of a huge tribe of women, and this happens all too often. Then she can focus on her grief, without feeling like a freak of nature on top of it.
Sosha Lewis →
Sosha Lewis is a former high-strung corporate executive turned slightly less high-strung writer and mama. Her column, Soshally Awkward, is featured in The Charlotte Observer. Her writing has also appeared in Charlotte Magazine and Charlotte 5. Her essay, "And the Damage Done," was the featured memoir selection in Robocup Compendium 2013, and other essays have been taught in high school English classes as accompaniments to The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls and S.E. Hinton’s That Was Then, This Is Now. Lewis is writing her first memoir which dives into the gritty and humorous details of growing up in Appalachia with her wild, felonious, drug-addicted parents, a chain-smoking, occasional Jehovah’s Witness grandmother and her grandfather, the town bookie.
Summer Pierre →
Summer Pierre is an illustrator and writer and the author of The Artist in the Office: How to Creatively Survive and Thrive Seven Days a Week. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her family. Find more of her work at www.summerpierre.com
Suzanne Cope →
Suzanne Cope has published essays, stories, and articles in Blue Lyra Review, New Plains Review, Danke, Foliate Oak, Edible Boston, among others. Her upcoming book Small Batch: Pickles, Cheese, Chocolate, Spirits and the Return of Artisanal Food is publishing in October 2014 (Rowman & Littlefield). She earned a PhD in Creative Nonfiction Pedagogy and an MFA in Creative Writing, both from Lesley University. Suzanne teaches writing at Manhattan College and the University of Arkansas, Monticello MFA Program and is at work on her next book project.
Syd V. →
Syd V. works with young adults around issues of gender, race, class, and sexuality through the use of social media, advocacy, teaching, and youth/adult partnerships to promote healthy pleasurable sexual lives and social change. She is a photographer, writer, feminist, educator, activist, daughter, femme, lesbian, Latina, sister, and lover interested in youth-led research, photography, sexuality education, media, female empowerment, and all things that come from the ocean. Find her current work at Taintedlenzphotography.com.
Tabitha Carvan →
When she was living in Vietnam, Tabitha Carvan was a regular columnist and opinion writer for AsiaLIFE magazine, Crikey,East+West Traveller, and the Vietnamese newspaper Dân Trí. She now lives in Canberra where she is Senior Writer in the sciences for the Australian National University. Since being liberated by Benedict Cumberbatch, her freelance writing has appeared Ravishly, Overland, a nd Offbeat Home. Tamika Thompson →
Tamika Thompson is a Los Angeles-based writer, producer, and journalist. Her fiction is forthcoming in or has been published by Kweli, Huizache, Black Heart Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Hazardous Press. Her non-fiction has been published by The New York Times, The Huffington Post, PBS.org, Tavis Smiley, and Tavis Smiley Reports on PBS. She's attended the VONA/Voices Writing Workshop and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers.
Tara Calihman →
Tara Dorabji →
Tara Dorabji is a writer, strategist at Youth Speaks, mother, and radio journalist at KPFA. You can read Her Single Mom Secret in the bestselling new release about motherhood, So Glad They Told Me. Additional work is published in Al Jazeera, Jaggery, Tayo Literary Magazine, Huizache, Good Girls Marry Doctors (Aunt Lute 2016), Center for Asian American Media, Mutha, Censored 2016, and Midwifery Today. Tara is working on novels, set in Kashmir and Livermore. Her projects can be viewed at dorabji.com.
Tayla Jankovits →
Talya Jankovits earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University. Her work has appeared in The Citron Review, Recovering the Self: A Journal of Hope and Healing, and her short story “Undone” in Lunch Ticket was nominated for the 2013 Pushcart Prize. She lives in Chicago with her husband and two daughters and is working on her second novel while seeking representation for her first.
The Post Partum Stress Center →
Karen Kleiman is Founder and Executive Director of The Postpartum Stress Center, a premier treatment and professional training center for postpartum depression and anxiety, since 1988. Karen is the author of several groundbreaking books on perinatal distress and continues to advocate for better trainings and access to treatment for all maternal mental health issues. Find The Postpartum Stress Center on Instagram.
Molly McIntyre is an illustrator and comic artist living in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and young son. Her work has been featured in Bitch Magazine, Everyday Feminism, Scary Mommy, Psychology Today, and more. She is currently working on a collection of comics about new motherhood, titled Momzines.
Thea Hillman →
Thea Hillman is a mama, activist, and senior writer at Tipping Point Community. She is the author of two books: Depending on the Light and the Lambda Award-winning Intersex: For Lack of a Better Word. Find her at theahillman.com, @theadhillman.
Thelma Adams →
THELMA ADAMS is the Contributing Editor at Yahoo! Movies. St. Martin’s Press published her debut novel PLAYDATE, an O magazine pick. She was the film critic at Us Weekly from 2000 - 2011, following six years at the New York Post. She has twice chaired the New York Film Critics Circle, where she has been a member since 1995. She has also written for The New York Times Magazine, O: The Oprah Magazine, The New York Observer, Parade, Variety, Marie Claire, The Huffington Post, More, Interview Magazine, The New York Times, The international Herald Tribune, Cosmopolitan and Self. In 1993, she earned an MFA in fiction from Columbia University. She lives in Hyde Park, New York, with her husband, son, daughter, three cats, one spaniel and a flock of wild turkeys.
Thi Bui →
Thi Bui was born in Vietnam and immigrated to the United States as a child. She studied art and law and thought about becoming a civil rights lawyer, but became a public school teacher instead. Bui lives in Berkeley, California, with her son, her husband, and her mother. The Best We Could Do is her debut graphic novel.
Tina Mortimer →
Tina Mortimer is an essayist and short story writer. Her work has been featured in Minnesota Parent and on the websites The Purple Fig, Hippocampus and Cleaver. She lives with her husband and two children in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. (Go Bears!) In her spare time, Tina enjoys drinking wine, listening to old-school rap and complaining. Follow her blog at TinaTwoTimes.com.
Tom Hart →
Tom Hart is a cartoonist and the Executive Director of The Sequential Artists Workshop, a school and arts organization in Gainesville, Florida. He is the creator of the Hutch Owen series of graphic novels and books, and has been nominated for all the major industry awards. His The Collected Hutch Owen was nominated for best graphic novel in 2000. He was an early recipient of a Xeric Grant for self-publishing cartoonists, and has been on many best-of lists in the Comics Journal and other comix publications. He has been called "One of the great underrated cartoonists of our time" by Eddie Campbell and "One of my favorite cartoonists of the decade" by Scott McCloud. His daily Hutch Owen comic strip ran for 2 years in newspapers in New York and Boston, and his "Ali's House", co-created with Margo Dabaie was picked up by King Features Syndicate.
Tomas Moniz →
TOMAS MONIZ is the founder, editor, and writer for the award winning zine, book and now magazine: Rad Dad. He just released a novella Bellies and Buffalos which is a tender, chaotic road trip about friendship, family and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. He is co-founder and co-host of the successful monthly reading series Lyrics and Dirges as well as the more rambunctious open mic, Saturday Night Special. He’s been making zines since the late nineties, and his most current zines Dirty and The Body is a Wild Wild Thing are available, but you have to write him a postcard: PO Box 3555, Berkeley CA 94703.
Tyler Cohen →
Tyler Cohen is a cartoonist who uses autobiography and surrealism to explore gender, parenthood, race, and female experience in her book Primahood: Magenta--out now from Stacked Deck Press! Her work has appeared in the Ignatz Award-winning anthology, Qu33r,Alphabet, The Feminist Utopia Project, What’s Your Sign, Girl? and online at MUTHA Magazine. Tyler also illustrated her sister Kerry’s memoir, Girl Trouble, available Oct. 2016, Hawthorne Press.Victoria Petron →
Victoria Petron is a student, single mother, and a C.I.S. volunteer. Her daughter is her best friend, and they reside in coastal North Carolina. She’s interested in hybrid literary genres, conceptual art, and pedagogy.
Viktoria Valenzuela →
Viktoria Valenzuela is a member of the Macondo Writers Workshop and has been published in AMP: The Literary Journal of Hofstra University and I Only Wanted One Time To See You Laughing: A Prince Tribute Anthology. Her current work in progress is a hybrid poetry book focused on romance and family bonding, postpartum of two cesarean section births in back to back years. Valenzuela and poet Vincent Cooper have six children and live on the Westside of San Antonio, TX. I am open to any and all feedback on these poems.Wendy C. Ortiz →
Wendy C. Ortiz is a writer and marriage and family therapist intern. She is a columnist for McSweeney's Internet Tendency. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, The Nervous Breakdown, The Rumpus, PANK, The Coachella Review, and many other journals both online and print. She is co-founder, curator and host of the Rhapsodomancy Reading Series (www.rhapsodomancy.org), recently named a finalist for Best Reading Series in the L.A. Weekly's 2013 Best of L.A. Readers Choice Awards. Her first book, Hollywood Notebook, is forthcoming from Writ Large Press (2014). Wendy can be found at www.wendyortiz.com.
Wendy Fontaine →
Wendy Fontaine is a writer, editor and adjunct professor in southern California. She holds a masters degree in creative writing from Antioch University in Los Angeles and teaches journalism at Pepperdine University in Malibu. Her work has appeared in Readers Digest, Brain Child, Literary Mama, Role/Reboot, the Huffington Post, and other international publications. You can find Wendy on Twitter (@wendymfontaine), Facebook or on her website at www.wendyfontaine.com.
Wendy Kennar →
Wendy Kennar is a freelance writer who finds inspiration in her son as well as from her experiences from her twelve-year teaching career. Her writing has appeared in several publications and anthologies, both in print and online, including: the Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, United Teacher, RoleReboot.org, Mamalode.com, MomsLA.com, and Lessons From My Parents among others. You can find her online at https://wendykennar.com/.
Whit Taylor →
Whit Taylor is an Ignatz-nominated cartoonist, writer, and editor from New Jersey. In addition to self-publishing, her comics have been published by Sparkplug Books, Ninth Art Press, The Nib, Fusion, and others. www.whittaylorcomics.com
Yamani Hernandez and Sharon Rimann →
Yamani Hernandez is the Executive Director of the National Network of Abortion Funds, an organization that builds the capacity and power of 70 member organizations across 38 states. Together these grassroots organizations work to remove the financial, logistical, political and cultural barriers to abortion access for up to 100,000 people a year. Yamani is a staunch advocate for bringing marginalized populations of people to center and she has built her career in reproductive justice through state based work on behalf of the sexual health, rights and identities of youth. Sharon Rimann was born in Missouri in 1993, and started drawing as soon as they persuaded the hospital staff to let them out. They are mostly self-taught, but when pressed, will concede some credit to Bob Ross, Mike Mignola, and the devil.
Yelz Gochez →
Yelz Gochez was San Francisco’s most passed around nanny for the last several years where he was dubbed “The Baby Whisperer.” He now lives in sunny Los Angeles and works in the kid’s fashion industry. He hopes if his nanny babies remember anything from their Yelzie childhood, it’s to be thoughtful humans and accessorize, accessorize, accessorize.
Zach Ellis →
Zach Ellis writes lives in Portland, Oregon and writes creative nonfiction. He is the dad of two eight year-old girls, which keeps him very busy and provides endless story material. He is the author of "Being," a memoir published by Instant Future. His work has appeared in Rad Dad, The Gravity of the Thing, The Nervous Breakdown, Nailed, as well as the new anthology "Rad Familes: A Celebration," published by PM Press.Zoe Zolbrod →
Zoe Zolbrod is the author of the memoir The Telling and the novel Currency. Her writing has appeared in places such as Lit Hub, Salon, The Guardian, and The Rumpus, where she is currently the Sunday co-editor.
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