Contributors

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 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.

Abigail Walthausen lives in Los Angeles where she writes and teaches.

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.

Aja Haynes is a freelance writer, blogger, and professional toddler wrangler. She is a graduate of UC Riverside and received her Juris Doctor from Phoenix School of Law. Aja resides in Seattle with her husband and their young daughter where she is currently drafting her first novel. Her pastimes include munching on warm chocolate chip cookies, drinking extra large cups of coffee, and dreaming up a series of alternate endings to Game of Thrones.

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).

Alexandria Bolden is a writer working part-time in nonprofit. She lives in Fayetteville, Georgia with her husband and twin son and daughter. When she isn’t “momming” or stringing together words on her laptop, she’s playing mixologist with her husband, reading one of two (or three) unfinished books, or skimming her Sephora app. Alexandria’s currently seeking representation for her completed novel, a domestic drama about three people trying to outrun their pasts, whose lives become inextricably entwined. Find out more at http://alexwbolden.com and follow her on Twitter @alexwbolden.

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 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 Fagan is an associate professor, a mother of three, and a proud former resident of Calumet City, Illinois. She studies and teaches Latinx and African American literatures at James Madison University, and you can find her academic work in journals including MELUS and Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies as well as in her book, From the Edge: Chicana/o Border Literature and the Politics of Print (Rutgers University Press, 2016). She is beginning to share her personal essays in an effort to teach her children to be brave.

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.

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.

Dr. Amanda Montei is the author of Two Memoirs, published by Jaded Ibis Press, and the chapbook The Failure Age, published by Bloof Books. Her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Salon, Ms. Magazine, and elsewhere. She teaches writing in the East Bay. More at amandamontei.com and the gram.

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 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 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 Mattes was born and raised in a secluded mountain town called Kaslo, British Columbia, Canada. Following her high school years there, Amy dropped out of the art school she attended for writing and then spent the next decade in a scrapbook landscape of transient travel and relationship ups and downs, which created a tapestry of pen-worthy experience. Writing is Amy’s most long standing companion. Her writing style saunters through the grit and beauty of human connection and often explores themes of identity, sexuality, grief, and addiction. As a feminist fascinated by society, Amy went on to receive a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Victoria in 2016. Now a new mother and wife, Amy remains on Vancouver Island, continuing to pursue her love of both literary fiction and women’s non-fiction. At present time she is working on her second novel.

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 Appleton writes essays, short stories, and creative nonfiction. Her work has been published in The New England Review, The Fourth River, and Aeon, among others. She was recently shortlisted for a Pen Parentis Writing Fellowship. She lives in Baltimore and you can find more of her work at andreaappleton.com.

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 Lawlor teaches writing at Mount Holyoke College, is the recipient of a 2020 Whiting Award for Fiction, and has been awarded fellowships by Lambda Literary and Radar Labs. Their publications include a chapbook, Position Papers (Factory Hollow Press, 2016), and a novel, Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, a 2018 finalist for the Lambda Literary and CLMP Firecracker Awards. Paul, originally published by Rescue Press in 2017, is out now from Vintage/Knopf (US) and Picador (UK & Ireland).

Angela James’ music brings to mind the rich, deep voices of artists like Patsy Cline and Rosanne Cash with the narrative sensibility of more modern female troubadours like Neko Case and Gillian Welch. Her music has been called “smoldering and gorgeous” by the Chicago Reader and she has been featured in the Chicago Tribune, WBEZ, and Tiny Mix Tapes. Born and raised in TN, with sojourns in Mississippi and Brazil, Angela lives in Chicago with her partner, visual artist and curator Jordan Martins, and daughter Hattie.

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 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.

For forty-one years, Anna Villegas happily taught college English in the San Joaquin Valley.  Her published work includes many short stories, essays, poems, newspaper columns, and three novels.  She lives in Nevada City, California, where five generations of family ghosts inspire her writing.

Anne Bruder's previous work has appeared in The New England Quarterly, The Michigan Historical Review, Kappan, and The Boston Globe. She is an associate professor of English at Berea College.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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 two awesome kids, 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 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 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 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 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.

Brianna Avenia-Tapper lives in New York City with her awesome daughter and patient husband. She is a recovering academic who can typically be found watching for hawks in Riverside Park, getting into fights with her sewing machine, or working on an essay collection tentatively titled Birth Control about mothers and daughters, impermanence and interdependence. Poop is her first popular press publication. You can find her on twitter (@AveniaTapper).

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 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 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 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 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 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 very curious preschooler. Her autobiographical science story comics have recently appeared on Medium’s Spiralbound and at Popula, among other places. See more of her comics on Instagram and at caragormally.com. She’s currently working on a longform comic piece about the science and technology of making babies.

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 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 Sameth’s memoir, One Day on the Gold Line, was published July 2019 and her chapbook, What Is Left is forthcoming (Oct./Nov. 2021) with dancing girl press. Her writing on blended/unblended, queer, biracial and single parent families appears in a variety of literary journals and anthologies including: The Rumpus, MUTHA Magazine, Brain/Child, Narratively, Longreads, Brevity Blog, Entropy, Angels Flight Literary West, Anti-Heroin Chic, Global Poemic, Full Grown People, and The Nervous Breakdown. Carla’s work has been twice named as Notable Essays of the Year in Best American Essays. A Pasadena Rose Poet, a West Hollywood Pride Poet, and a former PEN Teaching Artist, Carla teaches creative writing to high school and university students, and has taught incarcerated youth. She lives in Pasadena with her wife. https://carlasameth.com/

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 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 is an illustrator and artist who lives in Portland, OR with her husband and two daughters. Her children are young and parenting is hard. Drawing and finding the humor in these truths make them easier for her. She has a MA in Food Studies and has written about beer-drinking and pregnancy for Hop Culture. You can see more of her work on Instagram @carolinesouthernart.

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.

Cass Lewis has contributed to 10 books and several other publications, including Broad Street Review, The Belladonna Comedy, Head Stuff, Boston Literary Magazine, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fractured West, and The Village Voice. Her plays have won awards and have been produced in London, Dublin, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and have been included in numerous Best of anthologies. Find her at CassLewis.com or on Twitter @WriterCass.

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 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.

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 Socorro Yovovich lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with her son and husband. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as the Blue Mesa Review, River Styx, and Mothers Always Write. Her nonfiction has appeared in The Hunger and MUTHA Magazine. She is currently working on a memoir about parenting with bipolar disorder.

Cianni Jackson is a mother of three and fashion blogger from San Francisco. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram @TwoPink_OneBlue. 

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 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 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.

Dana Robinson is a writer living and working in the Bayou City, Houston, Texas. Born and raised in the Texas Panhandle, she has been moving farther and farther south her entire adult life, eventually landing quite happily on the Gulf Coast. For work, she is a ghostwriter and copywriter. For play, she writes essays and manages a Houston-centric online magazine called Just Vibe Houston.

Dana’s work has been featured in Prairie Schooner, North American Review, Literary Mama, Water~Stone Review, Red Rock Review, and North Dakota Quarterly, among others. She is the recipient of a Vogelstein Foundation Grant and the recipient of the 2016 Patricia Dobler Poetry Award. She lives with her family in New Mexico.

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 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 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.

Dartinia Hull lives in North Carolina with her husband and daughter. One daughter has moved away. Dartinia isn't sure how she feels about that. She is a graduate of the Queen's University of Charlotte Master of Fine Arts program, and has been published in The Bitter Southerner, QCityMetro.com, and The Charlotte Observer. Her essay, "The Room With the Dying Fan," was chosen as one of the top 12 reader favorites in the 2019 Bitter Southerner's Folklore Project.

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.

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 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

Denise Massar writes about motherhood, adoption, racism, inequality, and anything else she can’t stop thinking about. Her essays have been published in RAISE Magazine, TODAY Parenting, An Injustice! Magazine, and she is a recurring guest blogger on Jane Friedman's Blog. Her essay, "Bad Juju," is an excerpt from her memoir in progress, MATCHED: An Adoptive Mom’s Journey Through the 'Not for Social Media' Side of Adoption. She lives with her three kids in Orange County, California. Follow her on Twitter @denisemassar, Instagram @denisemassar, and visit her website at http://denisemassar.org.

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.

Devorah Heitner is the author of Black Power TV and Screenwise: Helping Kids Thrive and Survive in Their Digital World. Her work has appeared in Long Reads, Washington Post, CNN Opinion, and The New York Times. She lives near Chicago with her family.

Diana Kupershmit holds a Master of Social Work degree and works for the Department of Health in the Early Intervention program, a federal entitlement program servicing children birth to three with developmental delays and disabilities. She has published online in the Manifest Station, Power of Moms, Motherwell Magazine, Still Standing Magazine, Her View From Home, and Huffington Post. On the weekends, she indulges her creative passion working as a portrait photographer specializing in newborn, family, maternity, and event photography. She lives in New York City. Her debut memoir, Emma's Laugh: The Gift of Second Chances, is being released June, 2021. 

Diana Whitney writes across the genres in Vermont with a focus on feminism, motherhood, and sexuality. As the longtime poetry critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, she featured women poets and LGBTQ voices in her column. Her first book, Wanting It, became an indie bestseller and won the Rubery Book Award in poetry. Her essays and criticism have appeared in the New York Times, Glamour, The Washington Post, Longreads, The Rumpus, and many more. Her new poetry anthology for teen girls, You Don’t Have to Be Everything: Poems for Girls Becoming Themselves, was released in April to critical acclaim and became a YA bestseller.

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.

Dodie Davey is mama to a wild and sweet toddler, a writer not yet ready to claim that title, and massage therapist. Her work is in unearthing story, in catharsis via written word. A writer as long as a liver, she is a fledgling in sharing her work. You will be seeing more of her in a forthcoming zine of mama poetry and beyond.

Domenica Ruta is the New York Times Bestselling author of With or Without You, a toxic mother memoir, and Last Day, a speculative novel that celebrates the end of the world every year. She lives in New York City with her family. Follow her @domenicaruta on Instagram or @domenicamary on Twitter.

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.    

Edvige Giunta was born in Sicily and came to the United States in 1984. The author of Writing with an Accent: Contemporary Italian American Women Authors and coeditor of several anthologies, she has published in Creative Nonfiction, River Teeth, Tiny Essays, Literary Mama, Barrow Street, Fictive Dream, Tint Journal, and other publications.  She is Professor of English at New Jersey City University. Her children, Emily and Matteo, are her best teachers.

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 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 is the author of After Birth, The Book of Dahlia, and How This Night is Different.  Her website is elisaalbert.com

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 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 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 Drucker is a writer living in Chicago. She has a bachelors degree in Sociology from the University of Arizona and a master's in education from the University of Wisconsin.

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 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’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 Muller lives in New Jersey with her husband and three children. She is a graduate of Columbia University and a finalist for the Barnhill Prize for Creative Nonfiction. You can find her on Twitter @eawrites

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

Ellie Hudson lives in Kentucky with her best friend/husband and two wonderful sons.  She has no social media, but she does have a ukulele.  She has been previously published in The Rising Phoenix Review, Dying Dahlia Review, Selcouth Station, Prometheus Dreaming, and Santa Fe Writers Project.

Ellie Lobovits is a visual artist, filmmaker, writer, and educator. Her work focuses on land, justice, personal and cultural memory, and feminist stories. Ellie's writing has appeared in The Establishment, Sapiens.org, American Anthropologist, and The New Megaphone. Ellie lives in Brooklyn. More at ellielobovits.com

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 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 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 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 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 Pushman blogs about her oldest child’s battle with a disfiguring disease at  thefaceofbravery.wordpress.com. Her other writing has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Confrontation, Segue, Breastfeeding Today, 1966: a Journal of Creative Nonfiction, Cold Mountain Review, Pangyrus, More New Monologues by Women for Women II (Heinemann), WAVES: a Confluence of Women’s Voices (ARAHO), Boomtown (Press 53), and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a North Carolina Regional Artist Project Grant, a La Leche League Leader, and a working mother of three. Her first textbook, Reading as a Writer: Ten Lessons to Elevate Your Reading and Writing Practice is forthcoming from Bloomsbury Academic. She is currently working on a book about birth choices and the maternal-fetal health crisis in America.

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.

Esther Cohen writes, teaches, and is a cultural activist.  She posts a poem everyday at esthercohen.com.

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 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 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.

Ezra Stone is a writer and social worker 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).

Feminista Jones is a Philadelphia-based social worker, feminist writer, public speaker, and community activist. She is an award-winning blogger and the author of the novel Push the Button and the poetry collection The Secret of Sugar Water. She was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in Philadelphia and one of the Top 100 Black Social Influencers by The Root. Her writing has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Time, Essence, and Ebony magazines.

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 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

Francesca Dalleo has a decade of experience writing and editing for nonprofits. She holds an MFA in creative writing from George Mason University and a bachelor's degree in English and Psychology from Georgetown University. Located outside of Philadelphia, she and her family enjoy wandering around their neighborhood as well as getting to know a new one.

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 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 is the author of Blow Your House Down, Every Kind of Wanting, A Life in Men, Slut Lullabies, and My Sister's Continent. Her short fiction, essays, book reviews, and journalism have been published in Ploughshares, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, HuffPost, Fence, Five Chapters, Prairie Schooner, Chicago Reader, and many other publications. She lives with her family in the Chicago area.

Ginny Wiehardt is the author of Migration, winner of the Gold Line Press Poetry Chapbook Contest. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, including the Harvard Review, PN Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Subtropics, and Willow Springs. She has written about books and creative writing for MUTHA Magazine, the Austin American-Statesman, the Strand Magazine, and Scholastic.com. Her children’s fiction is represented by Tracy Marchini at BookEnds Literary, and she lives in New York City with her husband and son. Learn more about her work at www.ginnywiehardt.com.

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 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 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 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.

Hayley DeRoche is a foster and biological mom, the author of HELLO LOVELIES!, the founder of the Unruly Retreat, and a librarian. She lives outside Richmond, Virginia.

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, 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/ramonegirl?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!

Holly Jean is an environmentalist by trade who turned to writing when the colic of her first born brought her to the brink of collapse. Writing became the buoy she clung to for self-recognition and resulted in her memoir 17 & 17 years: An International Journey of Finding Community and Coming Home. Primarily set in Paris, Portugal and Barcelona, Holly explores the exhausting, thrilling, messy and adventure filled discovery that love, coming of age and motherhood demands. Find her at www.believeinbecause.com

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 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.

Jacqueline Ellis is a writer, editor, and professor of women’s and gender studies. Her work has been published in Feminist Review and WSQ, among others. She lives in Montclair, New Jersey.

Jade Sanchez-Ventura is a writer and radical educator. She works in memoir and her personal essays have been published across an array of online literary journals, and in print with Slice Magazine and Seal Press. She’s been awarded the Slice Literary Conference Bridging the Gap award, a Disquiet Literary Conference fellowship, and she is a Hertog Fellow. As an educator, she is very good at being continually wowed by her students and their words on the page. Though she has ties to many countries, she has always made her home in Brooklyn, New York. Find her on Instagram @jade_m_sv.

Jade is a writer and radical educator. She works in memoir and her personal essays have been published across an array of online literary journals, and in print with Slice Magazine and Seal Press. She’s been awarded the Slice Literary Conference Bridging the Gap award, a Disquiet Literary Conference fellowship, and she is a Hertog Fellow. As an educator, she is very good at being continually wowed by her students and their words on the page. Though she has ties to many countries, she has always made her home in Brooklyn, New York. Find her on Instagram @jade_m_sv. Ro’s passion lies in capturing the strange + the beautiful moments that can be found in everyday experiences. She is a spontaneous shooter, a storyteller inspired by simple moments and movements that can be incredibly revealing and evoking.

Ro's photographs have been featured in VOGUE, NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, BIG, CAPRICIOUS, MARTHA STEWART, NEW YORK MAGAZINE, THECUT, HARPERS BIZARRE, HOUR DETROIT, MASS APPEAL, NYLON, TOKION and more

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.

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 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 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 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 is a writer, perpetual student, 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 an editor at MUTHA Magazine and the founder of the Teen MUTHAs Rise Up collaborative column.

Jenna B. Morgan’s prose has appeared in Just BE Parenting, Teach. Write., Perhappened, Menacing Hedge, Barren Magazine and elsewhere. She has an MFA in Fiction from George Mason University and currently teaches at a community college outside Nashville, Tennessee. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @byjennabmorgan.

Jenna Devany Waters is a queer writer/mother/virtual-school-managing overachiever. She lives in NYC with her two children, twenty-nine houseplants, and a fire escape she pretends is a yard. She is occasionally funny on Twitter (@devanywaters).

Jennifer Baum is a filmmaker turned writer. Her writing has been published in New York Daily News, Guernica, Jacobin, The Village Voice, The Phoenix Jewish News, Canadian Jewish Outlook, The Jewish Observer Los Angeles, MUTHA, Hip Mama, and NewFound, which nominated her essay, A Different Set of Rules, for a Pushcart award. Her full-length memoir, Just City, is based upon her Pushcart-nominated essay. Baum teaches composition at Mesa Community College and occasionally works as a freelance editor, most recently for a series of reports for the World Bank on poverty in Ghana. She graduated from NYU’s Gallatin Division, majoring in film and history, and won “Best Short Documentary” at NYU film school for Mothers in Labor, about single teenage mothers being trained in manual labor jobs. She also holds an MFA in Filmmaking from University of British Columbia. Her short films have screened in Havana, Seattle, Tokyo, San Francisco, Vancouver, New York, Toronto, and Ottawa.

Jennifer Berney’s essays have appeared in Longreads, Cosmonauts Avenue, The Offing, and many other places. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her wife, two children, and many animals. Her debut memoir The Other Mothers, a story of queer family-building, is now available from Sourcebooks.

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'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 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 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 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 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.

Jennifer Samson-Acker is a freelance writer and has spent time during her father’s cancer diagnosis interviewing and writing profiles on patients living with rare blood cancers. She has taught English and yoga and holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and Secondary Education from Moravian College Bethlehem, PA and a Masters in Teaching English from the University of New Hampshire. Jennifer lives in Nazareth, PA with her husband and two daughters. Anne Leibovitz’s quote, “If it makes you cry, it goes in the show.” hangs above her desk. 

Jennifer Young is a writer, editor, and public historian in New York City. She edits nonfiction at Red Lighthouse Communications, and gives feminist history walking tours of New York City. Her work has appeared in Time.com, the Jerusalem Post, Atlas Obscura, Hazlitt, and Lady Science. She is currently writing a book about radical housewives.  

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.

Jenny Traig is the author of Act Natural, Well Enough Alone, and Devil in the Details. She has a PhD in literature, and lives with her family in Michigan.

Jericho Vincent is the author of Cut Me Loose: Sin and Salvation After My Ultra-Orthodox Girlhood and the co-author of Legends of the Talmud, a collection of illustrated children’s stories. They lecture on sexual assault, trauma, and Judaism at colleges, organizations, and synagogues across the country. Their essays have appeared in the New York Times, Salon, the Cut, the Daily Beast, Mask Magazine, the Forward, and the Rumpus. Jericho is currently at work on a book about healing from trauma.

Jess D. 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 Bacal directs The Narratives Project at Smith College and lives with her family in Northampton, MA. Her new book is called The Rejection That Changed My Life (Penguin Random House).

Jessica Carew Kraft is a writer, artist, and naturalist. Her reporting on health, culture, and the environment has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Forbes, KQED, Christian Science Monitor, YOGA Magazine, ARTNews and other publications. She will publish her first book, Wild Skills, in 2021with Seal Press. She lives in Berkeley, CA with her two daughters. See more at www.writingkraft.com

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 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 Perez is a born-and-bred Williamsburg/Bushwick Brooklynite with finca girl roots running through her veins. She is a Madre, Mujer, Hermana, Hija y Nieta. She is a dreamer. A writer. An emerging warrior. A blossoming visionary. A passionate Boricua. She is a carrier of legacies, lineage and love. She is a Writing Our Lives workshop and a Roots. Wounds. Words workshop alum.

Jessica Phillips Lorenz is a writer, educator, and cancer-mom. Her work has appeared in Real Simple, Parents.com, Romper, MUTHA and a theatre festival for babies in Northern Ireland. Jess is a member of the Coalition Against Childhood Cancer, Momcology and Emerging Artists Theatre. She lives in New York City with her husband, two children and pet snail.

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 is a Los Angeles-based psychologist specializing in reproductive and maternal mental health. Jessica's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, New York Magazine, and Vogue, among others. Dr. Zucker is the creator of the #IHadaMiscarriage campaign. Her first book I HAD A MISCARRIAGE: A Memoir, a Movement is now available (Feminist Press + Penguin Random House Audio).

Jill Stukenberg writes and teaches in Central Wisconsin. Her short stories have been published in The Collagist, Midwestern Gothic, and elsewhere, and her novel Labor Day was a recent finalist for the Big Moose Prize from Black Lawrence Press. Find her writing about teaching creative writing online at Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies, and find Jill cross-country skiing, sledding, or pushing her own kid face first into snow drifts.

Jillian Dickson is an internationally exhibited artist and an Arts Educator ,Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States, including: Swarm Gallery in Oakland California, Thinkspace Gallery in Culver City, California, Antler Gallery in Portland, Oregon, and the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, Michigan; and internationally at ArtVenice project and in the Drawing Now Exhibition held at the Louvre in Paris. Jillian's art has been included in publications such as, "The international Drawing Annual", "Hi-Fructos" and "Juxtapoz."

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.

When I am Italian: Quando sono italiana, (2019) Joanna Clapps Herman’s most recent publication explores the question of whether it’s possible to be Italian if you weren’t born in Italy. Other books include, No Longer and Not Yet (2014), and her memoir, The Anarchist Bastard (2011). She also co-edited two anthologies; Wild Dreams (2008) and Our Roots Are Deep with Passion (2006). She has recently had 18 prose poems accepted for publication, including these five at MUTHA. Her website, a literary, cultural, culinary site is at joannaclappsherman.com    

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. 

Joanne Gallant is a pediatric nurse and writer. In 2019 she was selected by the Writer’s Federation of Nova Scotia as an apprentice in the Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program. She lives in Halifax with her husband and son. A Womb in the Shape of a Heart is her debut book.

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.

Judy Sobeloff has led writing activities with people of all ages and in a variety of settings, including schools, sidewalks, libraries, correctional facilities, colleges, arts festivals, and community centers. Her writing awards and residencies include an Idaho Literature Fellowship and the PEN Northwest Fellowship, a six-month residency in a remote wilderness cabin.

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 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…

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 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.

Kaitlin and Kerry met while studying literature at UC Santa Barbara's College of Creative Studies and have been friends ever since. This is their first story project together. Kaitlin homeschools her two kids and blogs at seedlingsong.com about unschooling, neurodiversity, and books. She had her first child while getting a PhD in English. Kerry draws and writes in San Francisco. She's passionate about storytelling, personality theory, and environmental conservation. More of her work can be found at www.causecomics.com.

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 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 Ryan is a bookselller, third year law student, drummer, and writer living in the Hudson Valley. You can find her bookstore on IG at @binnaclebooks

Katherine Arnoldi is the author of the graphic novel, The Amazing True Story of a Teenage Single Mom (Hyperion, 1998, Graymalkin, 2016), named Top Ten Book of the Year by Entertainment Weekly, nominated for an Eisner Award, winner NYFA Award in Drawing, two ALA Awards and All Things Are Labor, Stories (University of Massachusetts Press, 2007), winner of the Juniper Prize.

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.

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 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 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 is a writer, home/unschooling educator, artist and mother. Prior incarnations include radio host and high school teacher. Mothertongue, her limited-run chapbook, was released in 2018 and “Plan X,” her first play, debuted in the fall of 2019. Her work has appeared across a variety of publications in the U.S. and Canada.

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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 Dark is a writer, teacher and storyteller, working to reveal the hidden architecture of everyday life so that we can reclaim our power as social creators. She’s the author of Fat, Pretty and Soon to be Old; The Daddies; and Love and Errors. Kimberly is a sociologist who believes in our responsibility as social creators. Art is one way that we find and re-forge the vast and intricate connections between self and the social world. When personal sovereignty and community accountability connect, beautiful things happen. Kimberly teaches writing at places like Cal State Summer Arts and Corporeal Writing, and she offers workshops and retreats for do-gooders to do better, on topics like unconscious bias and conflict resolution. Learn more at www.kimberlydark.com.

Kira Garcia is a writer living in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, New York Magazine, Lenny Letter, Bon Appetit, the Hairpin, and elsewhere.

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 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.

Kristine Jepsen is a grant/writer and farm business owner in Iowa. Her nonfiction landed a spot in the AWP Writer-to-Writer mentorship program and has won the Diana Woods Memorial Award at Lunch Ticket and the annual competition of Parks & Points. It appears with HuffPost and River Teeth: A Journal of Narrative Nonfiction among others, and has been published or is forthcoming in the anthologies of Blind Faith Books and Proximity Magazine. Her hermit-crab essay, Jaw Wiring: What You Need to Know, won the 2018 Flash Nonfiction Contest at Sweet: A Literary Confection and is available as a chapbook. More at kristinejepsen.com.

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.

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 Eliasieh (she/her) is a mother of two based in San Francisco, California. Her writing has been published by ArtAsiaPacific, La Biennale di Venezia, Museum Villa Stuck, the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, Berkeley Art Center, and Unlikely Journal for Creative Arts. She earned a PhD at Stanford University with a dissertation on how the contemporary avant-garde is exploring the creative potential of critical nomadic thought across many different traditions and ideologies. She advocates strongly for midwifery, women witnessing other women, and women becoming more themselves through the power of birth.

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.

Laura Pierson is a mom and educator in Houston, Texas. Originally from the Seattle area, she is a graduate of the University of Washington and Teachers College, Columbia University. She has had the opportunity to work with students at the elementary, middle, and high school level, and is currently focused on learning from the two little humans in her own home.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

Leonore Wilson is a former professor of English and creative writing from Northern California. Her work has been featured in such magazines as Quarterly West, Third Coast, Prairie Schooner, Iowa Review, etc.

Leslie Lindsay's writing and photography been featured in various online and in-print literary journals, most recently Psychology Today and Brushfire Arts & Literature. Her memoir, focusing on similar themes, is currently on submission with Catalyst Literary Management. She is the author of Speaking of Apraxia: A Parents' Guide to Childhood Apraxia of Speech (Woodbine House, 2020), and interviews bestselling and debut authors weekly at www.leslielindsay.com|Always with a Book.

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 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.

Linda Lee Baird is a freelance writer and educator living in Columbus, Ohio. She is a regular contributor to 614 Magazine where she writes about food, drink, and local events. She studied creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and education at Lesley, University. Linda lives with her husband, two sons, and dog.

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.

Lindsey Campbell is a bipolar single mom living in Canada. Her work has been published in Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Frontlines (PM Press, 2016), Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities (PM Press, 2012), Hip Mama Magazine, Mothering Magazine, Off Our Backs, Stigmama, Literary Kitchen, Synoptique: An Online Journal of Film and Moving Image Studies, Sight on Sound, Ax Wound Zine, and Offscreen. She hosted and produced the podcast This Manic Mama from 2011 - 2013 for HipMama.com, co-hosted In the Motherhood on Montreal’s CKUT 90.3 FM from 2012-2014, and is a current contributor to Moving Radio on Edmonton's CJSR 88.5 FM.

Lindsey is a freelance writer who has recently worked as a waitress in a pizzeria, a stay-at-home mom, and an advocate and educator for adults and children with developmental disabilities. She lives with her family and their pets in a small town outside Austin, TX.

Lisa Lim is a comic storyteller born and raised in Queens, New York. Her work has been featured in Guernica, PANK, The Rumpus, PEN America, and Mutha Magazine. Her short illustrated story, "The Hunger" was featured in an anthology edited by Joyce Carol Oates, Cutting Edge: New Stories of Mystery and Crime by Women Writers. Find more of her storytelling here.

Lisa Nowlain has been a librarian on both coasts for five years, and mother for two. She has published comics in the librarian world in blogs, magazines, and a national advertising campaign. She has shown her fine art at galleries in Oakland and Nevada City, CA, and has taught art to children in the US, Scotland, and Laos as a Fulbright Scholar. She grew up in the Bay Area eating Swedish pancakes and hiking, and now lives in rural California, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, eating Swedish pancakes and hiking.

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 is an artist, writer and teacher. Her graphic book—Yo, Miss: A Graphic Look at High School (Microcosm Publishing, 2015) was called a “notable comic” by Bill Kartalopoulos in Best American Comics. Lisa’s second graphic book, Lacunae, was serialized at Muthamagazine.com in 2016. Her zine, Yo, Miss #6: Changes—Vengeance, Trump and the Eumenides was short-listed for Broken Pencil’s 2018 zine awards. She is a fellow of the Academy for Teachers.

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.

Liz Tichenor has put down roots in the Bay Area but is originally from New Hampshire and the Midwest. An Episcopal priest, she serves as rector at the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection, Pleasant Hill, California. Tichenor and her husband, Jesse, are raising two young children and continuing to explore the adventure of living, parenting, and serving in their community.

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 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 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.

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.

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 (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 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

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 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 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 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/

Margaret Elysia Garcia is the author of the ebook Sad Girls & Other Stories and the audiobook Mary of the Chance Encounters. Graft  will be published by Tolsun Press in 2022. She’s the co-founder and head writer of Pachuca Productions—a Latina theatre troupe producing original and social justice plays. She’s published poetry and essays in Hip Mama Magazine and Brain, Child. She’s published several chapbooks of poetry.

Margaret MacInnis lives and writes in Iowa City. Her recent work appears in Brevity, Diagram, Fifty-Word Stories, Ghost Parachute, The Rye Whiskey Review, and Tiny Molecules. Other work appears in Alaska Quarterly Review, Colorado Review, Gettysburg Review, Gulf Coast Review, Mid-American Review, River Teeth, Tampa Review and elsewhere. Her work has received notable distinction in Best American Essays and Best American Non-Required Reading. Since 2010, MacInnis has worked as assistant to Marilynne Robinson.

Margo Hollingsworth is a high school English teacher and mom living and writing in Sacramento.

Maria J. Kefalas is a professor at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and the author or coauthor of three books, including Hollowing Out the Middle, Working-Class Heroes, and Promises I Can Keep. Dr. Kefalas is also an advocate, a philanthropist, a blogger, and the cofounder of the Calliope Joy Foundation, which in 2015 helped fund the nation’s first Leukodystrophy Center of Excellence at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She lives with her three children, Camille, PJ, and Cal, and her dog, Brody, outside Philadelphia.

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.

Maria Photinakis is an illustrator and comic book artist exploring autobiographical narratives about resilience, alienation, self-discovery, and immigrant experiences. Her professional background is in journalism, and she started making comics in 2014. She has self-published several zines and minicomics including a YA horror in space "Red Flag", and has been published in several successfully crowdfunded anthologies, including "Boundless #1: A Science Education Anthology," "SubCultures," and "Why Faith?"  She is currently developing a graphic novel about generational trauma and the Greek civil war. Maria lives in Waltham, Massachusetts and enjoys traveling with her husband and daughter and sketching their adventures. Her website is https://photinakis.com and her Instagram is @mphotinakis.

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 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.

Marika Lindholm, Ph.D., is the founder of ESME (Empowering Solo Moms Everywhere), a website that aims to redefine single motherhood by providing resources, inspiration, and a point of connection for the underserved community of Solo Moms. Marika is also the co-editor of We Got This: Solo Mom Stories of Grit, Heart, and Humor, a frank, funny, and unflinchingly honest anthology—written by 75 Solo Mom writers, including Amy Poehler, Anne Lamott, and Elizabeth Alexander—that celebrates Solo Moms: their tenacity, courage, and fierce love for their children. Now remarried and living in New York’s Hudson Valley, Marika is the mother of 5 children. She dedicates her days to: writing, ESME, raising her children and running an organic farm with grapes, apples, and over 50 chickens.

Marion Deutsche Cohen is the author of 27 collections of poetry or memoir; her latest poetry collections are “The Project of Being Alive” (New Plains Press, AL) and ^“ “New Heights in Non-Structure” (dancing girl press, IL)., as well as the just-released “The Discontinuity at the Waistline: My #MeToo Poems” (Rhythm and Bones Press, PA) and “The Fuss and the Fury” (Alien Buddha Press, NM). She is also the author of two controversial memoirs about spousal chronic illness, a trilogy diary of late-pregnancy loss, and “Crossing the Equal Sign”, about the experience of mathematics. She teaches a course she developed, Mathematics in Literature, at Arcadia and at Drexel Universities. Other interests are classical piano, singing, Scrabble, thrift-shopping, four grown children, and five grands. Her website is marioncohen.net.

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.

Marisol Cortez is a writer and community-based scholar rooted in San Antonio, Texas. She writes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, scholarship, and political and theoretical critique. She describes herself as what Gloria Anzaldúa calls a nepantlera–a border walker who lives in the difficult terrain between artistic, activist, and academic worlds. Read more at marisolcortez.wordpress.com.

Marlo Mack is a freelance writer who blogs about parenting her transgender daughter at www.gendermom.com.

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 Jacobs is a former lawyer and ESL teacher. She is working on her first novel, and has hoards of unfinished short stories languishing on her laptop. She grew up outside of Washington, DC, and has lived in Virginia, Philadelphia, Italy, Chile, Denver, and California. When she tires of writing, she plans to open a gelato truck. She writes in her closet-cum-office in San Jose, California, where she lives with her family.

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 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 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.  

Mary Welch is a healing practitioner, writer and thought leader in the field of emotional intelligence and personal development; happily living and working with her 2 + 4 legged children in NY's Hudson River Valley. Read more: marywelch.com or @marywelchofficial on IG.

Marylou Fusco grew up in the wilds of New Jersey and knew she was a writer for forever. She has worked as a newspaper reporter, GED instructor, and ghost tour guide. Her fiction has appeared in Carve, Swink, So to Speak, and Philadelphia Stories magazines. She lives with her family in Baltimore, where she is finishing a novel about reluctant saints and resurrections. She is eternally grateful to the doctors at Johns Hopkins hospital for their skill and care.

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 is the Editor-in-Chief of MUTHA. She is also the comics and graphic novels reviews editor at Publishers Weekly. Her past roles include as chair of the comics and graphic novel programming at the Brooklyn Book Festival, series editor at Illustrated PEN and curator of youth and comics programs at the PEN World Voices Festival, and program development for the French Comics Association. She has been 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, 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’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Sun, Best of the Net, and McSweeney’s. She lives in Ohio with her partner, two children, and their Shih Tzu, Ginger. Read more at megthompsonwriter.com.

Megan Hanlon is a work-at-home-mom and former journalist who grew up in Texas. She now resides in Ohio with her husband, two children, and a disobedient Boston terrier. Read more at http://sugar-pig.blogspot.com or follow her on Facebook and Twitter at @sugarpigblog.  

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 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 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'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 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 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.

Meghann Haldeman grew up acting on television and in movies, all of which starred people who went on to become famous. She went on to study at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and then quit acting.  After college, she worked with her mother to open a new-parent resource center in Los Angeles and then later as an elementary school teacher. You can find her work on Scary Mommy as well as on her blog, mothersucked.com. When not writing about parenting, she is working on a pilot about motherhood with her screenwriter sister, Molly. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Los Angeles.

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 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.

Melody Glenn is an MFA candidate at Mills College and an emergency medicine/EMS/addiction medicine physician in Tucson, Arizona. Her work appears primarily in academic journals and medical blogs, with a memoir forthcoming. She can occasionally be found on twitter @MGlennEM.

Michele Bigley is a two-time Lowell Thomas award winning writer. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, AFAR, Outside, and many more. Currently, she is writing a book about taking her sons to meet the people working to protect the planet from, and prepare their communities for, our climate crisis. She teaches writing at UC Santa Cruz.

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, 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.

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 is the author of Bullshit Rodeo (Epic Rites Press). She resides in a travel trailer in San Antonio.

Miun Gleeson is a writer and educator. In addition to teaching college writing and literature, she is an essayist with published bylines in Today Parents, Motherwell, POP Sugar, Her View From Home, Grief Dialogues, and many more.  You can find more of her writing at www.anindeliblelife.com

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 here and on Instagram

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.

Exploring real-life motherhood, from every angle, at every stage.

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 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 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 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.

Nandini Patwardhan is a retired software developer. Her writing has been published in the New York Times, and on Slate.com, Alternet.org, Khabar.com, TheHindu.com, and IndiaCurrents.com. Her biography of Dr. Anandi-bai Joshee, India’s first woman doctor, will be published in November 2019. Nandini is a co-founder of Story Artisan Press (https://storyartisan.com).

Natalie is a Texas native, an attorney, and writer. She is also the lucky mom of two fabulous kids, two dogs, a Beta fish named Sushi, and a large Mason jar of mystery critters from the yard. When not otherwise preoccupied with politics and what Joan Didion is up to, Natalie is busy cooking, jogging, and writing. She is currently working on a collection of personal essays, and her most recent attempt at fiction can be found at the Prompt Magazine.

Neelanjana Banerjee's fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in places like PANK Magazine, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, Chicago Quarterly Review, Teen Vogue and many other places. She is the Managing Editor of Kaya Press, and teaches writing in the Asian American Studies Department at UCLA and with Writing Workshops Los Angeles. She lives in Los Angeles with her family, where she is working on finishing a novel. Follow her @neelanjanab on Twitter and Instagram, and keep up with her work at www.NeelanjanaBanerjee.com.

Author and memoirist, Nefertiti Austin writes about the erasure of diverse voices in motherhood. Her work around this topic has been short-listed for literary awards and appeared in the “Washington Post”, the “Huffington Post”, MUTHA, “The Establishment”, matermea.com, Essence.com, “Adoptive Families” magazine, PBS SoCal’s “To Foster Change” and PBS Parents. She was the subject of an article on race and adoption in “The Atlantic” and appeared on “HuffPost Live” and “One Bad Mother”, where she shared her journey to adoption as a single Black woman. Nefertiti’s expertise stems from firsthand experience and degrees in U.S. History and African-American Studies. Nefertiti is a former Certified PS-MAPP Trainer, where she co-led classes for participants wanting to attain a license to foster and/or adopt children from foster care system. An alumna of Breadloaf Writers’ Conference and VONA, her first two novels, Eternity and Abandon, helped usher in the Black Romance genre in the mid-1990s.

A former teen mother who put herself through the College of William & Mary with her three-month old daughter in tow, Nicole now works every day to change the statistic that less than 2% of teen mothers will earn their degrees before age 30. Generation Hope rallies around teen parents to help them earn college degrees and forge a path to economic opportunity and is now expanding its work nationally to help colleges and universities and policymakers across the country better meet the needs of the nearly 4 million parenting students who are working toward their degrees. Nicole is a member of the board of trustees of Trinity Washington University and a National Advisory Board member of The Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice. Most recently, she was honored with the inaugural Black Voices for Black Justice Award, which “recognizes incredible leaders who have been on the frontlines working to dismantle the deep-rooted, racist systems that have plagued our country for centuries,” and the Boulder Fund award through Education Leaders of Color, which “supports the innovations of leaders of color in education.” She has received various awards, including being honored as a CNN Hero and the national grand prize winner of the Roslyn S. Jaffe Award, and has been featured on major news outlets including “Good Morning America,” CNN, “NBC Nightly News,” and The Washington Post. She is also a nationally known author and speaker with her book, Pregnant Girl, released by Beacon Press in the spring of 2021. Nicole holds a Master’s degree in Social Policy and Communication from George Mason University and a Bachelor’s degree in English from the College of William & Mary. Nicole and her husband, Donté Lewis, live in Maryland with their five children.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

Odeta Xheka is a Brooklyn based artist and debuting picture book creator foraying into creative nonfiction. Her book Here Comes Ingo is IndieReader Approved and winner of Creative Child Magazine 2019 Book of the Year. You can learn more about her work at Odeta Xheka Visuals  and follow her on Twitter   Instagram   Facebook

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.

Born and raised in East Los Angeles, Pat Alderete writes about the beauty and brutality of varrio life, rendering the complex inner worlds and strict social hierarchies of a community seldom observed in literature. Her short stories are published in Joteria and PEN Center Journal, and have been anthologized in Hers 2 and 3; Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Latino Arts Anthology 1988-2000; A Geography of Rage; Afro-Hispanic Review; and Love West Hollywood. She has written two one-act plays, Ghost and the Spirit and Love and Fire. Pat was an inaugural member of PEN Emerging Voices.  She is also a member and current board member of Macondo, a writers homeland founded by author Sandra Cisneros.  Alderete is currently working on her memoir about Chicana life in East L.A.

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

Phoebe Cohen has walked many paths in life including living in 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 that they are not alone in this world. Cohen's work has been featured on Graphic Medicine and BorderX. She regularly posts her work on her website Merry Misandrist. Cohen is a part-time cartoonist and current nursing student. She has been known to go for up to five hours without drinking coffee.

Pooja Makhijani writes children's books, essays, and articles, and also develops educational media and curricula. Find her online at poojamakhijani.com.

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 Berger is a queer fat femme, a parent of twins, a historian of the body, and a lover of walks living and teaching in Montreal, Canada. She is Associate Professor of History and fellow of the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University, where her academic work takes up the history of indigenous medicine in modern South Asia, the history of reproductive rights and technologies in Empire, and is most recently focused on the history of nutrition and the origins processed foods in twentieth century India, as well as a geo-mapping of South Asian foodscapes in Montreal. The rest of her academic work focuses on the changing scope of queer kinship in the time of Assisted Reproductive Technologies, which includes the collection of oral histories of queer family-making across Canada. She writes about these topics, intergenerational trauma and holocaust memories, critical Jewish parenthood and queer life in academic and non-academic venues. Come find her on twitter @slantgirl or on instagram @rachel_of_montreal.

Rachel Deutsch is a writer, social worker, and mother and occasional cartoonist. She lives in Montreal with her partner and two children and is currently working on her first novel. You can find more of her work at @weirdmomart on Instagram.

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 50^th 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 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 is a cartoonist and librarian in Pittsburgh. She teaches and lectures about reading, writing and drawing comics to groups of all ages. Rachel’s work has appeared in literary and comics anthologies online and in print, including The Indiana Review, Aster(ix), PEN International and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She is expanding her work here at Mutha Magazine into a graphic memoir about pregnancy and mothering her son.

Rachel is a queer teacher, writer, organizer, healer, partner, friend, and mama, living in Chicago. Her writing, mostly essays and memoir, is fueled by her commitment to justice and her desire to understand what makes us fully human. Her work has appeared in multiple venues, including Guernica, Yes! Magazine, Pigeon Pages, Schools: Studies in Education, Organizing Upgrade, and the anthology Nasty Women and Bad Hombres: Historical Reflections on the 2016 Presidential Election. She loves living in big cities, is calmest near the water, and thrives when in community with other troublemakers and shapeshifters.

Rachel Penn Hannah is the mother of three kids, a writer, and a clinical psychologist who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is currently working on a book of historical fiction about mothering a troubled child in the 1940’s in Western Oklahoma. You can find Rachel on Instagram @rpennhannah.

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 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.

Ranjani Rao, a scientist by training and a writer by choice, former resident of India and USA, currently lives in Singapore with her blended family who provide inspiration and fodder for her writing.

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 15^th 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 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, 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 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 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 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.  

Music fans around the world have come to know Renee & Jeremy for their hush whisper-folk covers of classic pop and rock songs. Solo artists in their own right, Renee Stahl and Jeremy Toback (also the original bassist of cult grunge band, Brad) combine as R&J to create a flavor of low harmony all their own... But what some don't realize is that the duo actually first came together to make lullabies for kids and families.  Their new record, Whole Lotta Love promises to dive even deeper into their gift for intimate riffs on iconic songs.

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 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 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.

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 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.com

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 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 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 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 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.

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.

Sandie Friedman teaches writing at George Washington University in DC. Her work on teaching has appeared in Composition Forum, Enculturation, WPA: Writing Program Administration, and Writing on the Edge, among others. You can find her personal essays online at Construction literary magazine, The Nervous Breakdown and The Rumpus.

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 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 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 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 Weiss' writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Lilith Magazine, Bustle, Brain Child, Literary Mama, Sammiches and Psych Meds, Raw Data: Living in the Fallout from the Coronavirus, Underwater New York, Outbreath, The Hook Magazine, Nyack News and Views, and other places. She was a selected reader for the Artist Residency in Motherhood, an event organized with generous support from the NYC Artist Corps and Poets & Writers. She holds a BA and MAT from Tufts University, and an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She teaches yoga and creative writing and lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband and two beautiful daughters.

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 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 Dalton is the Managing Editor for Reed Magazine, Issue 153 where she coordinated an oral history project about the aftermath of a mass shooting called “Gilroy Strong: A Community Speaks.” She is a member of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop and a second year graduate student at San José State University.  Her nonfiction has appeared or is forthcoming in River Teeth’s blog, The Sun’s “Readers Write,” and Reed Magazine.

Sarah Jaffe is a former lawyer for kids in the foster care system and a freelance writer. Her work has appeared in Slate, Bklyner, Catapult, and Healthy Women. She is writing a book about how privileged parents can make parenting choices that benefit all children, not just their own. She lives with her husband and two-year-old daughter in Brooklyn.

'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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

Stephanie Sprenger is a music therapist, freelancer writer, Executive Producer of Listen To Your Mother Denver + Boulder, and mother of two daughters. Her work has been published in O Magazine, The Washington Post, Cosmpolitan.com, Redbook.com, and Brain, Child Magazine, among other places.

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 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.

Suzanne O'Brien's most recent writing has been published in the REI Co-op Journal, Dreamers Magazine and Adoptive Families. She is currently writing a collection of essays about finding hope and light in times of crisis and loss.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 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 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.

Theresa is the co-host of the parenting humor podcast One Bad Mother and the co-author of You're Doing a Great Job! 100 Ways You're Winning at Parenting. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Jesse, their three children, and two scruffy dogs. It Feels Good to Be Yourself is her first book for children. Follow Theresa on Twitter: @theresathorn

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.

Tiffany Graham Charkosky lives with her family in Lakewood, Ohio. Since 2003, she has worked with artists, designers, and community members to implement public art and public space projects throughout Cleveland as a project director for LAND studio.

Tiffany spends her early mornings writing and her weekends cheering for her sons on various sports fields and courts throughout Northeast Ohio, or visiting Lake Erie.

In addition to writing essays, she is currently seeking a publisher for her memoir, The Calm and the Storm, which explores how her own family history was reshaped upon learning that life-changing losses were caused by a cancer-causing genetic mutation.

Tiffany can be found on Instagram under the handle carrot_tiff.

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 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 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 (She/They) is a cartoonist who likes to mix autobiography and surrealism. Her book, Primahood: Magenta, won the 2017 Bisexual Book Award for Graphic Memoir. Tyler's work has also appeared online at PEN Illustrated and MuthaMagazine.com, and in print in numerous anthologies, including the Eisner Award-winning Drawing Power and Ignatz Award-winning Qu33r. They are a lecturer in Comic Studies at San Francisco State University.

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.

Wandajune Bishop-Towle is a poet and a licensed psychologist in Massachusetts.  She is the proud stepmother of a young man with autism, who is a frequent subject of her poems.  Her work has appeared in Quiddity, poemmemoirstory, and The Comstock Review, among others.

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 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 is a mother, writer, and former teacher. Her writing has appeared in a number of publications and anthologies, both in print and online. You can read more from Wendy at www.wendykennar.com where she writes about books, boys, and bodies. Find her on Instagram @wendykennar.  

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 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 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.

Zhenya lives in Melbourne with her partner and their daughter Zoya. She is a researcher, occasional writer, feminist and volunteer lawyer. Her hobbies include cross stitching and making vegan versions of her favourite Russian comfort foods. Her film, theatre and book reviews have been published in Right Now.