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.

Adam Bessie is the author of the graphic memoir Going Remote: A Teacher's Journey, illustrated by Peter Glanting (The Censored Press/Seven Stories Press).  Adam writes comics in collaboration with artists which have appeared in many outlets including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and more.  By day, Adam is a community college English professor in Northern California, where he lives with his partner and son.  See more of his work at: adambessie.com

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 with a novel currently on submission. The story follows three people whose lives become inextricably entwined as they strive to reconcile their pasts. She is also working on her second novel. Alexandria lives in Fayetteville, Georgia with her husband and twin son and daughter. Find out more at http://alexwbolden.com and follow her on Instagram @alexwboldenwriter.

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

Allie Falender Rubinstein is the General Manager for Biotechnology at Shell. Allie earned her BA from Oberlin College with a double major in Biology and Sociology. She earned her PhD from Baylor College of Medicine in Molecular and Cellular Biology. Allie is a United States Patent and Trademark Office Patent Agent. Allie served on the Board of Directors of Collaborative for Children, a Houston area non- profit organization that is the leading resource for early childhood education in the region from 2015-2023 serving as the Board Chair and Vice Chair from 2020-2023. She is an American Leadership Forum Senior Fellow, a graduate of the Center for Houston’s Future Leadership Forum and the IMD High Performance Leadership Program. She and her husband have three sons aged 16, 13 and 9. Allie has recently begun taking writing classes and is working on a memoir on her experiences as a senior leader in the Oil & Gas industry.

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 Grace Myers received her MFA in Fiction from Texas State University. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Crazyhorse, Image, The Rumpus, Gulf Coast, and Witness. She is also the winner of the John Steinbeck Award for Fiction, and received notable mention in 2017 Best American Essays. She lives in Houston with her family and is working on her first novel.

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.

Altaf Saadi is a Harvard physician with expertise in refugee health and trauma. Her work has been published in the Boston Globe, Boston Globe Magazine, LA Times, Washington Post, and STAT News, among others. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. Her research and advocacy has focused on health disparities, police violence, and immigrant/forcibly displaced populations. She was named a 2021 National Minority Quality Forum "40 under 40 Leader in Minority Health" and received the 2023 Bernard Lown Award for Social Responsibility, a national award for health justice leadership. She is a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Medical School.

Alyssa Sinclair lives in Dallas, Texas, with her husband and two daughters, ages three and five. They are expecting a third girl in February of 2022. She has a master’s degree in Creative Writing from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Lately, she writes essays and poetry that are reflections on motherhood, marriage, and the day-to-day rhythms of caring for young children. Her work has been featured on BOMB Magazine online, Fiction Attic Press and Herkind.com.

Ms. Yawson is co-founder of Joojos, an artisanal children's shoe company that aims to inject love, fun and play into the children's shoe making business. Additionally, Ms. Yawson hopes to publish her first children's book, Sunne's Gift, with funds generated through a Kickstarter campaign. Sunne's Gift is about a magical creature with spirally hair that grows toward the sun named Sunne. Sunne's three straight-haired siblings, who also have magical powers, poke fun of Sunne's hair. Sunne starts beating the spirals of hair to fit in, but as a result... With this story, she hopes to promote a culture of acceptance in which we see that celebrating diversity is not just "nice to do," it is essential for our survival. Ms. Yawson earned a BA from Harvard University, an MBA from the Wharton School and a JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She works as a securities lawyer and lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and two sons.

Amanda Fields is an assistant professor of English, writing center director, and editor-in-chief of Literary Mama. Fields co-edited My Caesarean: Twenty-One Mothers on the C-Section Experience and After (The Experiment Press), a Silver winner of the 2019 Foreword INDIES. Fields’s writing and research have been published in Brevity, Indiana Review, So to Speak, Nashville Review, Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, The Writing Center Journal, Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, The Peer Review, Sexuality Research and Social Policy, Journal of Adolescent Research, and others.

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 Boyd is an adoptive mama and a professor of botany, ecology, and evolutionary biology at Warren Wilson College.  Scientist by training, educator by profession, and artist by nature, she lives in Swannanoa, North Carolina.

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.

Anahita Vieira graduated from the University of California, Davis with a Ph.D. in neuroscience. Currently she works as Senior Science Writer at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Her words appear or are forthcoming in The Art of Everyone and 433 Magazine. She resides in Boston, Massachusetts with her wife, rambunctious twin girls and their dog who has the heart of a saint and face of a seal.

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.

Angela Tucker is the author of “You Should Be Grateful”: Stories of Race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption. Angela is one of the country’s foremost voices in transracial adoption. Her book debut focuses on highlighting the journey of the adoptee, rather than focusing on the perspective of the adoptive parent, which can erase the often nuanced and complicated internal experience of adoptees.

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 Laura Reeve is a poet living and gardening near the Tennessee Overhill region, historic land of the Eastern Cherokee. Previous work of hers has appeared or is forthcoming in West Trade Review, Jet Fuel Review, Humana Obscura, Fourteen Hills, and others. Her chapbook Re / Wilding was recently a semifinalist for the Wolfson Chapbook Prize. Read more: www.annalaurareeve.com

Anna Rollins's forthcoming memoir Famished (Eerdmans) discusses the importance of women listening to their own bodies. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, Salon, Electric Literature, and other outlets. She directs the writing center at Marshall University. Follow her writing on Substack and Instagram @annajrollins.

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.

Asha Dore is writer and visual artist living in Seattle. She is the editor in chief of Parley Lit and the associate director of art and marketing for Parley Productions. Her work has won Best of the Net and has appeared in Gulf Coast, River Teeth, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Her publications and art can be found at AshaDore.net and her CNF craft newsletter can be found at writingtruth.substack.com.

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.

Ashley MacLure is a mixed media artist who works with charcoal, drawing, collage, and painting. Her work explores motherhood, grief, mental illness, and trauma. She is trained in traditional and digital 2D illustration methods. She graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 2009 with a BFA in Illustration and from Framingham State University in 2023 with an M.Ed concentration in Visual Arts. She currently works as a high school art instructor and is especially passionate about teaching young people to think like artists and use their skills to improve their communities. Ashley lives with her daughter and husband in Massachusetts.

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.

Bethany Bruno is a South Florida author. She holds a BA in English from Flagler College and an MA from The University of North Florida. Her work has been previously published in numerous publications, such as The MacGuffin, Ruminate, Lunch Ticket Magazine, Litro Magazine, and DASH. She recently earned a 2021 Best of the Net nomination. When not working as a Technical Writer for the Army or as a Priority Editor for Flash Fiction Magazine, she’s writing her first novel. She currently resides in North Alabama with her husband and baby girl, Frankie.

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.

Brett Ann Stanciu is the author of Unstitched: My Journey to Understand Opioid Addiction and How People and Communities Can Heal (Steerforth Press, 2021). A recipient of a 2020 Vermont Arts Council Creation Grant and a Vermont Humanities Foundation Grant, Stanciu’s essays and fiction have appeared in The Rumpus, Memoir Monday, Taproot, Hippocampus, Vermont Literary Review, The Sunlight Press, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Long Story, Parent Co., and Green Mountains Review, among other publications. Her novel Hidden View (Green Writers Press, 2015) portrays the challenges of a hardscrabble family farm. She lives in a small village in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom and blogs at stonysoilvermont.com.

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).

Bridey Thelen-Heidel is an educator and TEDx speaker who's performed in Listen to Your Mother NYC and has published in MUTHA Magazine. She's a fierce LGBT+ youth advocate who's been voted Best of Tahoe Teacher several times by her community.

Brittani Sonnenberg is the author of the novel Home Leave, which was selected as a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Her short fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, The O’Henry Prize Stories Series and elsewhere. Her comics and creative nonfiction have been featured or are forthcoming in Electric Lit, Texas Monthly, Lit Hub, Travel and Leisure, and The Second Serve. She is based in Austin, Texas.

Brittany Ackerman is a writer from Riverdale, New York. She earned her BA in English from Indiana University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Florida Atlantic University. She has led workshops for UCLA’s Extension, The Porch, Catapult, HerStry, Write or Die, and Lighthouse Writers. She currently teaches writing at Vanderbilt University in the English Department. She is a 3x Pushcart Prize Nominee and her work has been featured in Electric Literature, Jewish Book Council, Lit Hub, The Los Angeles Review, No Tokens, Joyland, and more. Her first collection of essays entitled The Perpetual Motion Machine was published with Red Hen Press in 2018, and her debut novel The Brittanys is out now with Vintage. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Brittany Sirlin is an educator living in New York, New York. She has a Bachelor of Science in secondary education for English Language Arts from Penn State University and a Masters in Literacy from Hofstra University. She teaches English Language Arts at a local middle school and facilitates after school book clubs. Brittany is an aspiring writer who, at odd hours between teaching and being with her three kids, works on a YA novel and other shorter works of fiction and creative nonfiction. Her first published work, Playing Dead, was released in March 2023 in an anthology titled Our Magical Pandemic.

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.

Caite McNeil is a writer and illustrator. Her work is place-based and often humorous, pulling inspiration from a childhood spent in rural Maine. Caite is a graduate of the Stonecoast MFA program, is a Middle and High School English teacher and serves on the editorial team of Stonecoast Review. She lives in Mid-Coast Maine with her husband, daughter and little dog. Her work has been published in The Tahoma Review, Flyway Literary Magazine, Carte Blanche (forthcoming), The Dewdrop, Speculative Nonfiction, and the Stonecoast Review. See more of her work at www.caitemcneil.com

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. Their autobiographical science story comics have appeared on Medium’s Spiralbound and at Popula, among other places. See more on Instagram and at caragormally.com. Their debut book, REBOOT, will be published by Street Noise Books in 2025.

Cara Howard lives near Indianapolis, Indiana with her husband, two children, and quirky three-year-old cavapoo. When she's not shuttling kids to their activities, she spends her time reading, writing, walking, and knitting. Her work has been featured in The Windhover and the anthology The Order of Us. Her essay, "Contraction," is excerpted from her upcoming memoir about her search for meaning and her lost self in the midst of motherhood.

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 Rachel Sameth was the 2022-2024 Co-Poet Laureate for Altadena, CA and a 2023 Poet Laureate Fellow with the Academy of American Poets. Her books include the memoir, One Day on the Gold Line, the chapbook, What Is Left, and her full-length poetry collection, Secondary Inspections. Carla’s writing on blended/unblended, queer, multiracial and single parent families appears in a variety of publications and has been selected three times as Notable Essays of the Year in Best American Essays. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. a Pasadena Rose Poet, a West Hollywood Pride Poet, and a former PEN Teaching Artist, Carla teaches creative writing to high school and college students, incarcerated youth and other diverse communities.

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 M. Grant has published personal essays in the New York Times, Washington Post, Ozy, Salon, and a number of other outlets. She is the co-editor of two anthologies: The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage: True Tales of Food, Family, and How We Learn to Eat (Roost Books, 2013) and Mama, PhD: Women Write About Motherhood and Academic Life (Rutgers University Press, 2008). She is the co-founder and co-director of the Sustainable Arts Foundation; prior to this, she was editor-in-chief of Literary Mama for five years. She has taught writing, women’s studies, and film at UC Berkeley, The San Francisco Art Institute, and Stanford University. Caroline lives in San Francisco with her husband and two children. Read more at http://carolinemgrant.com.

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.

Cassy Lee is a librarian and comics creator from California currently living in Taipei with her husband, teenage son, and rescue dog. This year she is taking a break from working in schools to complete her MFA in Comics at California College of the Arts. You can follow her journey using visual narrative as a means to heal from intergenerational trauma @readfreedrawfree on Instagram.

Catherine Alene has a MA in teaching and earned her MFA in writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is a middle school reading teacher in Central Oregon where she lives with her daughter and their menagerie of animals. Catherine is the author of numerous articles and the author of the contemporary young adult novel, The Sky Between You and Me. The Sky Between You and Me was a Junior Library Guild Selection and was named one of the Best Children’s Books to Read and Share by the Washington Post.

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.

Cathy Humikowski is a pediatric intensive care physician who trained at The University of Chicago and Harvard hospitals. She practiced in a Level I pediatric trauma center on Chicago’s south side for nearly a decade before she recognized the cumulative emotional costs of her work. In healing from burnout and secondary trauma, Cathy turned more attention toward family and creative pursuits, especially writing.  Her essays have been published in JAMA and Chicago Tribune and quoted by Senator Durbin on Capitol Hill.  She presents nationally on physician burnout and resilience, and is currently pitching her first book. In addition to writing and speaking, she is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University and continues to practice clinical medicine, leaving more space between shifts for the healing such work requires. Inside this space, she raises my daughters, fusses over houseplants and a needy mutt, and makes tiny things like miniature loaves of bread for her [daughters’] dollhouse.

Chanel Brenner is the winner of the 2021 Press 53 Award for Poetry for Smile or Else. She is the author of Vanilla Milk: a memoir told in poems (Silver Birch Press, 2014), which was a finalist for the 2016 Independent Book Awards and honorable mention in the 2014 Eric Hoffer awards. Her work has appeared in HerStry, Modern Loss, The Good Men Project, The Coachella Review, New Ohio Review, Poet Lore, Rattle, Barrow Street, Salamander, Spoon River Poetry Review, Literary Mama, and others. Her poem “July 28th” won first prize in The Write Place At the Write Time’s contest, judged by Ellen Bass, and her poem “Apology” won first place in the Smartish Pace Beullah Rose Poetry Prize. In 2018, she was nominated for Best of the Net.

Charise Alexander Adams lives in Omaha, Nebraska, with her husband and daughter, along with their cats and dog. She has a BA in English from the University of Wyoming and a master’s degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

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.

Charmaine Arjoonlal is a writer and social worker from Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. Her writing has appeared in Macleans, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Ocotillo Review, Cloud Lake Literary, Brown Sugar Literary, Yukon North of Ordinary and elsewhere. You may find her on Twitter (@arjoonlal).

Chital was born and raised in India. ​She completed her MFA in creative writing with fiction emphasis from Lindenwood University in 2019. Her short stories have appeared in Landlocked literary magazine, Sangam magazine, The Noyo Review, and Oyez Review. Her essay about her experience with miscarriage has appeared in a parenting anthology series, Keeping Under the Wraps. Her story "The Weight of Happiness" emerged as a finalist for the Pinch Literary Awards 2022 - Fiction.

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.

Born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin, Christina Socorro Yovovich has lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico since 1998. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as the Blue Mesa Review, River Styx, and elsewhere. Her nonfiction has appeared in The Hunger, Cagibi, MUTHA Magazine, and is forthcoming in the Atticus Review. She can be found at https://christinasocorroyovovich.com/

Christy Tending (she/they) is an activist, writer, and mama living in Oakland, California. Her work has been published in Catapult, HuffPost, Electric Literature, Ms., and Scary Mommy, among many others. You can learn more about her work at www.christytending.com or follow her on Twitter @christytending. Author photo by Molly Kate Photography.

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

Coley Gallagher has written about women's soccer for US Soccer and the site Playing for 90. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Green Mountains Review and The Evanston Roundtable. She is currently at work on an essay collection. She lives between Illinois and Florida with her husband and children, and Tyson, the 10-year-old Covid dog of their dreams

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.

Crystal Ramos lives in Georgia with her husband and two children. She is an award-winning author with an MA in Professional Writing. Some of her shorter works have appeared in Rescued Hearts: A Hidden Acres Anthology, Black Hare Press: Year Four, and Stygian Lepus: Issue Five.

Cynthia is a woman in her late sixties who is finding her voice as a poet after many years of silence. A long-time classroom teacher and a spiritual mentor, she lives and writes on a hill overlooking the ocean about 20 miles south of San Francisco.

Cynthia DiTiberio is a writer, collaborator, and editor who has worked in publishing for twenty years. She writes the Substack newsletter The Mother Lode and is the publisher of Literary Mama. Her writing has appeared in The Lily, Isele Magazine, Literary Mama, Scary Mommy, The Voices Project, and the Brevity blog and she is the collaborator on eleven books. Before her writing career, she worked nine years as an editor at a division of HarperCollins. Visit her website for more.

D'Ann Drennan has been a lawyer, a stay-at-home mom, a yoga teacher, earned a black belt, and survived motherhood. She attended Kenyon Review Writers Workshop and Juniper Summer Writing Institute in 2024, and is the Profiles Editor for Literary Mama. D'Ann is an emerging writer from a rural area with work forthcoming in The Ilanot Review and Texas Co-Op Power Magazine. She lives in Grandview, Texas.

Dana Perry spent most of her childhood constructing elaborate homes for fairies and other small woodland creatures in rural north Idaho. In adulthood, she is a freelance writer and clinical herbalist who holds an MA in sociology from the New School for Social Research and a certificate from ArborVitae. She lives with her perfect daughter, somewhat flawed husband, and verging on senile cat in Brooklyn, NY, and will probably remain there for the rest of her life (thanks to her rent-stabilized apartment). Plant-based musings can be found here.

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 Huggins is a writer and former math teacher from northern New Jersey. She is a contributor to Writing Class Radio and has written for the Washington Post and GOMAG.com.

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.

Dawn Colclasure is a writer who lives with her husband and children in Oregon. Her parenting essays have appeared in Mutha Magazine and Mothering Magazine. She has also written about deaf parenting for the national newspaper, SIGNews, and she is a former member of the Editorial Advisory Board for Disability, Pregnancy and Parenting international. She is also the author of Parenting Pauses: Life as a Deaf Parent. Find out more about her work here: https://dawnsbooks.com/ and https://www.dmcwriter.com/

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 Moore is a television screenwriter with credits on over 150 episodes of kids’ television, mostly animated series. She is best known for YouTube animated shorts "Denis and Me" and her work on “True and the Rainbow Kingdom,” “Dino Ranch,” and “Stella and Sam.” She is currently writing and producing a new animated preschool series for Peacock and finishing up her MFA in Creative Writing at UBC.

Diana Whitney writes across the genres in Vermont with a focus on feminism, motherhood, and sexuality. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Glamour, The Kenyon Review, and many more. Her poetry debut, Wanting It, won the Rubery Book Award, and her inclusive anthology, You Don’t Have to Be Everything: Poems for Girls Becoming Themselves, was released to critical acclaim, became a YA bestseller, and won the 2022 Claudia Lewis Award. Diana received a Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council for her new project, Girl Trouble. She works as an editor and writing coach. Find out more: www.diana-whitney.com .

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.    

DW McKinney is a Black American writer based in Nevada. She serves as an editor for Shenandoah and editor-at-large for Raising Mothers. Her writing has appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books, The McNeese Review, Hippocampus Magazine, Narratively, PANK, and the anthology I’m Speaking Now (Chicken Soup for the Soul, 2021). Say hello at dwmckinney.com.

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.

Eileen Nittler retired from a long career in social work in 2016. She has found joy and healing in connecting with other bereaved parents, gardening, exploring the world, doing art, and learning languages. She has been published in Oregon Humanities (2023, 2024). She, along with her husband, is in the process of moving from Oregon to Montana to be closer to their daughter who, luckily, wants them to be closer to her, which is greatest of all compliments.

Elisabeth Carbrey is a writer, birth doula, and homeschool mom of both foster/adoptive and biological daughters in Buffalo, NY.  With degrees in English Literature and Adolescent ELA Education from the University of Toledo, words and writing have always been precious commodities to Elisabeth. For the past several years, most of Elisabeth's writing has been on the pages of journals as a means of inner survival through the grief of multiple miscarriages and the rollercoaster of foster care life. She shares her thoughts on these topics on her blog between homeschool math lessons, working in her garden, and family rock climbing excursions. You can read more of her writing at www.onlyascribe.wordpress.com.

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

This is Elisa Sinnett's second contribution to MUTHA Magazine. She's a former public school teacher and writes with her mentor Ariel Gore and the Wayward Writers Workshop. She's also the author of Detroit Fairy Tales (Flexible Press, 2021). Connect with Elisa on Instagram: elisasinnett

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.

A retired Professor of Anthropology, Elizabeth Bird has published seven books (most recently Surviving Biafra: A Nigerwife's Story), and now focuses on creative non-fiction. Her work appears in Under the Sun (winner, Readers' Choice Award 2022), Tangled Locks, Biostories, Streetlight, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, Ariel’s Dream, The Guardian, 50-Word Stories, and elsewhere. She placed third in the 2022 International Human Rights Art Festival's Creators of Justice Literary Awards.

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.

The memoir House of Fire: A Story of Love, Courage, and Transformation was published March 2016 by North Star Press. Elizabeth di Grazia is a recipient of a Jerome Travel and Study Grant, a mentor participant in the Minnesota Loft Mentor Series, and a recipient of a Next Step Grant from the McKnight Foundation. She is a founding member of the blog WordSisters. Her work has been anthologized in Illness & Grace: Terror & Transformation and Families: The Front Line of Pluralism, both published by Wising Up Press. Di Grazia has also widely published prose in a number of journals, including Marrow Magazine, Adoptive Families Magazine, SLAB, Minnesota Literature, The Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine, Minnesota Parent, Adagio Verse Quarterly, Edge Life, and many others.

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 Jarrett Andrew is the author of Swinging on the Garden Gate: A Memoir of Bisexuality and Spirit, and two books on writing: Living Revision and Writing the Sacred Journey. You can find her at www.elizabethjarrettandrew.com and The Eye of the Heart Center, where she hosts an online writing community.

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

Elizabeth Tannen is a writer based in Minneapolis. Her poems and essays have appeared in a range of publications including Willow Springs, Front Porch, PANK, Southern Humanities Review, NPR.org, the Rumpus, Salon and elsewhere.

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

Ellenora Cage is a filmmaker, poet, and photographer who has turned her lens on fiction and memoir in  the last few years. She's published three chapbooks of poetry, performing in the New York City poetry scene at St. Mark’s Church, La Mama, and Nuyorican Cafe. Her short story,  “The Sound of Snow,” was  published and made into a podcast by The Strange Recital in summer of 2019. A short memoir piece, “Tangier,” was recently published by Narrative Magazine. She holds a BA from the University of Colorado in film, theater, and photography and was the recipient of a MacDowell residency for film. She lives nestled at the foot of Overlook Mountain in Woodstock, New York.

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

Eloísa Pérez-Lozano writes poems and essays about Mexican-American identity, women’s issues and motherhood. She graduated from Iowa State University with a B.S. in psychology and an M.S. in journalism and mass communications. A Best of the Net-nominated writer, her work has been featured in The Texas Observer, Houston Chronicle, Houston Public Media, and Poets Reading the News, among others. She lives with her family in Houston, Texas.

Elsa Valmidiano, an Ilocana-American essayist and poet, is the author of We Are No Longer Babaylan, her award-winning debut essay collection from New Rivers Press. Her work appears in Mud Season Review, Cosmonauts Avenue, Anomaly, Cherry Tree, Canthius, Hairstreak Butterfly Review, among many others. Her work is also widely anthologized. She holds a JD from Syracuse Law and an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. While Elsa writes on a variety of topics, her focal points are issues affecting women—from her discussion of worker conditions, fertility, reproductive rights, sexual assault, to just about anything that affects every woman on this planet. For more information, please visit her website at slicingtomatoes.com, where she also curates a directory of Pinay visual artists and their work from the Philippines and Diaspora.

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.

Emily Wittenhagen is a writer living in Maine, fascinated by the natural and the supernatural. She practices nutrition, herbal medicine, and hypnotherapy. She is currently pursuing a course in miscarriage doula work and focusing a portion of her business, Breeze Holistic, toward offering support to people going through this experience. She embraces herself as queer and lives with her sweetheart and their daughter who asks compelling questions like, do butterflies sit in chairs to eat lunch? Most recently, she has been published in Anodyne Magazine and the Champagne Room, and is honored to be included in the MUTHA community.

Emily Zilber is a cartoonist, illustrator, and writer. Her comics and visual essays focus on care, artistic and curatorial labor, living in a body, nurturing creativity, parenting, and mental health. See more of her work at www.emilyzilber.com or https://www.instagram.com/emilyzilberdraws/. When she’s not drawing, Emily works as a museum curator, educator, and consultant for artists and creative workers. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, identical twin daughters, and two obscenely furry cats.

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 Lyons lives in the Boston area. Her work has appeared in Lilith, Literary Mama, Hip Mama, PIF, Welter, Prospectus, Barbaric Yawp, WordRiot, and Dead Mule of Southern Literature, as well as several anthologies. Her first book, Tikkun Olam: Repairing the World, was published in May of 2020 by WordTech Communications.

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.

Finn Schubert (he/him) is the author of Even the Cemeteries Have Space Here, an essay collection exploring his move from NYC to a small town to grieve his infertility. (In a weird twist, he got pregnant as soon as the book came out.)  He is a Moth StorySlam-winning storyteller, and his writing has appeared in TheBody, Lit Star Review, and the anthologies Transcending: Trans Buddhist Voices and Places Like Home. His weekly essays on being a pregnant trans man, plus other reflections on finding home in body and place, can be found here: https://finnschubert.substack.com/

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.

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.

Guilaine Kinouani is a UK-based French radical and critical psychologist of Congolese descent. She is a feminist, a therapist, and an equality consultant, as well as the founder, leader, and award-nominated writer for RaceReflections.co.uk. Kinouani is a senior psychologist and an adjunct professor of Black and Africana studies at Syracuse University, London. Kinouani heads Race Reflections and its academy, providing workshops on anti-racism, racial trauma, and self-care. She tweets as @KGuilaine.

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.

HANNAH SILVA is a writer and performer working in sound poetry, radio and experimental non-fiction. An Artificially Intelligent Guide to Love (BBC Radio 4) starred Fiona Shaw and was the starting point for My Child, the Algorithm. Silva has authored seven other plays for BBC Radio 3 and 4, winning the Tinniswood Award and numerous placements in the BBC Audio Drama Awards. Her debut poetry collection Forms of Protest was Highly Commended in the Forward Prizes. Talk in a bit, a record of sound poetry and music was in the Wire’s Top 25 albums of 2018. She lives in London with her child.

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

Hope Elizabeth was born in Texas but lived in rural Zimbabwe for 12 years with her family of origin. Back in the States, she received a B.A. in English education in 2002, taught public school in Texas for three years, then took a hiatus to raise a family. She has five children and has (mostly) been a stay-at-home mom since 2006. She and her family moved to New York City in 2015. Their current Manhattan home houses herself, her husband, her five children, a nine-year old rescue pit bull/lab, two Siberian cats, and two rescue guinea pigs. Hope is working on her MFA in creative writing at City College. She enjoys writing about motherhood, mental health, body image, and her childhood in Zimbabwe. Her favorite genre to read is memoir, and she also enjoys a good fiction novel. She loves listening to true crime podcasts and watching true crime documentaries. This is her first publication.

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.

As a stay-at-home mom, India Akua Mendonca enjoys motherhood, wifehood, writing, reading, exploring new places, going to the beach, eating at restaurants, and listening to bossa nova music. India earned her A.A. in Liberal Arts from Chabot Community College and her B.A. in Black Studies from University of California, Santa Barbara. Prior to becoming a wife and mother, she worked at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University as a Document Specialist. India is currently a homeschool teacher to her six-year-old daughter and enjoys witnessing and cultivating her education. She lives with her husband Marco, their daughter, and their three birds in Clearlake Oaks, CA.

India Garms (she/her) is a 30-year-old, Texas-based high school English teacher. She can usually be found among the stacks at her local library. Find her on Instagram @LearningWithGarms.

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.

Irena Smith is a college admissions counselor, former Stanford admissions officer, writer, and mother of three extraordinary children. She emigrated from the former Soviet Union with her parents when she was nine years old, and in spite of her fierce insistence that she would never, not ever, learn English, she went on to earn a PhD in Comparative Literature and taught literature and composition at UCLA and Stanford before transitioning to college admissions and writing. Her recently published memoir, The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays, explores the duality between the ambitions of the tightly-wound students she counsels and her efforts to help her own children as they struggle with developmental delays, depression, and anxiety.

Irmina Walczak and Sávio Freire are a Polish-Brazilian couple of photographers, researchers and educators. Parents of three; digital nomads. Irmina is a PhD in Social Sciences by University of Brasilia and brings to the photography practice of both a visual anthropology approach. Since 2011, they have dedicated themselves to investigation of intimacy, daily life aspects and family relationships. They had developed a body of work about childhood free of technology and close to nature which was published in 2016 in a monograph entitled “Retratos pra Yayá” (Portraits for Yayá). In 2020 they launched Clan Photo Magazine - an international publication dedicated to the familial and small communities’ photography. Irmina is a member of TiT Collective and Women Photograph.

Jaclyn Moyer grew up in northern California’s Sierra Foothills. Her nonfiction has appeared in The Atlantic, High Country News, Salon, Guernica, Orion, Ninth Letter, and other publications. She has been a Fishtrap Fellow, a Sozopol Literary Seminars Fellow, and a finalist for the PEN/Fusion Emerging Writers Prize. She has worked as a vegetable farmer, bread baker, teacher, and native seed collector. Moyer lives with her partner and 2 young children in Corvallis, Oregon.

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 Sanchez-Ventura is a writer and radical educator and though she has ties to many far flung countries, she has always made her home in Brooklyn, New York. She works in memoir, and her personal essays have drawn the attention of Bitch Media’s Popaganda podcast, in which she was featured, as well as earning her the Slice Literary Conference “Bridging the Gap” award. She has been published across an array of online literary journals, and in print with Seal Press. Her work has been awarded by the Disquiet Literary Conference, and she was named a Hertog Fellow. She is a columnist at MUTHA Magazine, where she champions a fiery re-imagining of parenting. As an educator, she is very good at being continually wowed by her students and their words on the page. She does this, and other work, with the Brooklyn Free School.

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 and mother of two. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Works & Days, Mom Egg Review, and elsewhere. She can be found at www.jamiefitz.com or on her IG haiku page @jamiefitzwrites.

Jamie Passaro's articles, interviews, and essays have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post parenting blog, The Atlantic.com, Oregon Humanities, The Sun, Full Grown People, Utne Reader, and other publications. She lives in Eugene, Oregon, where she runs an obituary business called dear person, works in an independent bookstore, mothers two teenage daughters, and officiates an occasional wedding.

Jane C. Marks is a professor in the Department of Biology and Center for Ecosystem Science and Society at Northern Arizona University.  She has published extensively in the scientific literature, including articles in Scientific American, Nature Genetics, and Ecology. Her research has been featured in two PBS documentaries (A River Reborn, narrated by Ted Danson, and A Thousand Visible Cords).

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.

All Janna King ever wanted was to be a mom and writer. She is lucky to have reached both those goals, with two kids, two novels, produced TV and film and most recently, plays. Her daughter is often her co-writer and her son has come up with a very funny screenplay idea, so there’s that. Janna wishes she had writers block because there is not enough time in the day to play with everything and everyone in her head. She also teaches, is a volunteer at 826LA and co-founded www.thebroad.life, a blog for anyone over 40.

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 an editor at MUTHA Magazine and a creative nonfiction reader for Mud Season Review. Her work has appeared in The Sun Magazine, Ms., BUST, Hip Mama, and elsewhere. She has participated in readings and storytelling events at the Columbus Arts Fest, Wild Goose Creative, and Two Dollar Radio. Originally from the South, she currently resides in the Midwest.

Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania.

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 Caroccio Maldonado is a Boricua writer from Queens. She has published essays on mental health, travel, Latinx culture and comics at HuffPost, Bitch Media, and Comicosity. Her poems have appeared in Poydras Review, Post-Traumatically Stressed Feminist, and New Voices anthology series. Currently Jennifer works as an Assistant Professor in the English Department at Baruch College, CUNY. You can learn more about her work at www.jennifercaroccio.com or follow her on Twitter @jcaroccio.

Jennifer Case teaches creative writing at the University of Central Arkansas. She also serves as an assistant nonfiction editor at Terrain.org and is the supervising editor of Arkana. She is the author of Sawbill, and her work has appeared in Orion, the Sycamore Review, and Fourth River. She lives in central Arkansas.

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 Bartoy is a French-American writer, developmental editor, and mama of three based in the Pacific Northwest. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Boston Globe, Room, Chicago Review of Books, Literary Mama, Permafrost Magazine, and the anthology Sharp Notions (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2023) among other publications. She is the editor of Broken Free: On Cutting Ties, an anthology of essays and poems about estrangement, currently in development, and the former managing editor of Literary Mama and Quiltfolk magazine. You can connect with her at www.jennybartoy.com or on Instagram @jbartoywriter.

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 Bell is a multi-award-winning author/poet and singer-songwriter who was born in Melbourne, Australia. In addition to having published a memoir, five novels, three poetry collections, and her bestselling Writing in a Nutshell series, she has been featured in a variety of publications and radio shows such as Writer’s Digest, Publisher’s Weekly, The Guardian, Life Matters, and Poetica. She is also the Publisher of Vine Leaves Press, and a highly sought-after book cover designer. She currently resides in Athens, Greece, with her partner and son, and a pile of dishes that still don’t know how to wash themselves despite her consistently teaching by example. For more information visit: iamjessicabell.com

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 E. Johnson is a career community college instructor based in Portland, Oregon. She's the author of the book-length poem Metabolics (Acre Poetry Series), the chapbook In Absolutes We Seek Each Other (New Michigan Press), and the memoir Mettlework: A Mining Daughter on Making Home (Acre Books). She is a contributor to Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry, and her poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in The Paris Review, Tin House, The New Republic, Poetry Northwest, 32 Poems, River Teeth, DIAGRAM, Annulet Poetics, Terrain, and Sixth Finch, among others. She co-hosts the Constellation Reading Series.

Jessica Harvey writes fiction and personal narrative. Her themes often explore the cultural intersection of Western medicine and embodied experience. She is a two-time winner of the Texas Health Resources Literature and Medicine Award. She is the two-time winner of the Laura Richardson Whitaker Memorial Award for Research in Women’s and Gender Studies. Jessica lives in California with her partner, a dog on Prozac, and his tripawd brother. She is a devoted witch and unlucky gardener. Jessica is finishing her first memoir, "Burnt: A Medical Memoir of COVID-19." Her website is jessicaharveywrites.com.

Jessica O’Dwyer is author of Mother Mother (2021 San Diego Book Award for fiction; finalist, 2021 National Indie Excellence Award) and Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir (2011 San Diego Book Award for memoir). Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Scary Mommy. An alum of the Squaw Valley and Bread Loaf writers’ conferences, Jessica earned an MFA from Antioch Los Angeles. She lives in Marin County, California.

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.

Jess Phillips Lorenz is a playwright, essayist, and childhood cancer advocate. She has performed several original solo plays throughout New York City including Drawn about her family connection to cartoon icon Betty Boop. Jess's work has been featured in many publications including Chalkbeat, Insider, Romper, Real Simple, Parents.com, MUTHA Magazine (Pushcart nominee), and a theatre festival for babies in Northern Ireland. Most recently, her monologue, Permission, was selected for the upcoming PlayGround Experiment’s Faces of America Monologue Festival #5. In 2023, Jess was awarded a writers’ residency with The Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, Illinois and her latest play, BEST PARTY EVER! was granted a workshop production with Piper Theatre's Playwright Spotlight Series. Jess is a member of Emerging Artists Theatre, Piper Theatre, The American Childhood Cancer Organization, and Momcology. Jess lives in Brooklyn with her children, husband, and pet snail. jessphillipslorenz.com IG @playpracticenyc

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).

Jessie Carson lives in Ontario, Canada. She is a writer, a reader, a teacher and the mother of three boys. Her creative non-fiction has been published in Ars Medica, The MacGuffin, and an anthology called Don’t Ask: Family Secrets (2023) and is most often an inquiry into the themes of motherhood, loss, and how stories live in the body and through generations. Currently, she has been intrigued with fractured non-linear stories as this seems to be the only way some stories can be told.

Jill Stukenberg is the author of the novel News of the Air and co-editor of Midwest Review. She wrote previously for Mutha about parenting through online school during the pandemic.

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    

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.

Jody Keisner is a writer, teacher, mother, first-generation college graduate, and ex-waitress. Her first book Under My Bed and Other Essays is available for preorder. Her essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Los Angeles Review of Books, Fourth Genre, Cimarron Review, and many other literary journals and magazines. She writes for AARP’s The Girlfriend, and is the Editor-in-Chief of The Linden Review, a journal of creative nonfiction focused on health.

Johanna Stephenson is the pseudonym of a queer writer and psychotherapist who lives in Massachusetts. Her work has previously appeared in Bitch magazine.

Johna Mandel is a cartoonist and mom based in Brooklyn. Her work focuses on technology and parenting. She holds an MFA from the Center for Cartoon Studies and has contributed work to The New Yorker. You can find more work at @johnatoons or at johnatoons.com.

Josie Cellone earned an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School after a career in journalism where she worked for The Washington Post, Associated Press and NPR. She's published flash fiction in The Inquisitive Eater and 50-Word Stories. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she's working on a novel, in between shuttling her three kids to hockey, gymnastics and dance.

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.

I am a writer and full-time nutrition professor at Palm Beach State College in Boca Raton, Florida. I received my MFA in creative writing from the Newport MFA at Salve Regina University, earned a PhD in nutrition from Tufts University and am a registered dietitian. I’ve published personal essays in Meat for Tea and Halfway Down the Stairs. I have an essay forthcoming in the Boston Globe. I am also the author of a cookbook and nutrition guide, The Romantic Vegetarian, which won an American Health Book Award. I’m working on a memoir about a woman’s journey to overcome the challenges of grief surrounding the deaths of her husband and son through baking and cooking.

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 Bolt is an educator, writer and mother of a college student.  She is an Associate Professor of English at Bronx Community College at The City University of New York. Her scholarly book is called Border Pedagogy for Democratic Practice. Her poems have appeared in The Raven’s Perch, Home Planet News, Shot Glass Journal, New Verse News, Scissors and Spackle, Writing in a Women’s Voice, The Red River Review, Slow Trains, Poetic Diversity, and Zygote in my Coffee, amongst others. She has been a featured reader in NYC, LA, and Malta. She is active in the NYC Poetry Circuit. Julie is currently an Andrew W Mellon fellow in Transformative Learning in the Humanities.

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…

A graduate of Miami University’s MFA program, K Anand Gall (she/her; they/them) also holds an MA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. A former Editor-in-Chief for OxMag, K’s work has appeared recently in Glassworks, voidspace, Thin Air Magazine, The Journal, and Rooted 2: The Best New Arboreal Nonfiction. She is the 2023 Academy of American Poets Betty Jane Abrahams Memorial Poetry Prize winner. When she is not writing, she facilitates guided nature hikes for chickens. It's a thing. Find her on X and Instagram @kanandgall or at kanandgall.com.

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.

Karen (Sikola) Kovach received her M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction from California State University, Fresno. She now lives on Boston's South Shore, where she works full-time as a publications editor for MassHealth and part-time as the Assistant Nonfiction Editor of Consequence Forum. A Pushcart-nominated writer, her nonfiction has appeared in several journals, including Vol. 1 Brooklyn and Monkeybicycle.

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.

Kat Vaino is a writer and poet working in equitable education through Disability Support Services at Diablo Valley College.  They are Canadian born genderqueer mutha of three children, based in California. Kat holds degrees in both English & Social Justice and is working towards their B.A. in Ethnic Studies at CSUEB. You can connect with them on Instagram @KatVaino.

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 Martin Rowe was born in Omaha, Nebraska, reared in Texas and New Mexico, and came of age at the base of the San Gabriel mountains in Los Angeles. Her nonfiction and poetry have appeared in or are forthcoming from Fourth Genre, Hypertext Review, fugue, Michigan Quarterly Review, Brevity, Denver Quarterly, Beloit Poetry Journal, Zyzzyva, and elsewhere. She is at work on a book of essays about infertility, foster care, and interracial adoption and teaches writing at Glendale Community College. She lives in northeast Los Angeles with her husband, four children, and one very lazy dog.

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

Kate Tellers is a storyteller, host, senior director at The Moth and co-author of their most recent New York Times best-seller, How to Tell a Story. Her writing has also appeared on McSweeneys and The New Yorker. She lives in Brooklyn and makes her own sparkling water (not bragging).  More at @thekatetellers.

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.

Katia Wish a dreamer, serious side hustler and single/divorced/co-parenting mom recording joys, humor and challenges of parenting (real and fictionalized, personal and universal, present and past).

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).

Katya Apekina is a novelist, screenwriter, and translator. Her debut novel, THE DEEPER THE WATER, THE UGLIER THE FISH, was named a Best Book of 2018 by Kirkus, Buzzfeed, Lithub, and others, was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, and has been translated into Spanish, Catalan, French, German, and Italian. She is the recipient of an Elizabeth George grant, an Olin Fellowship, the Alena Wilson prize, and a Third Year Fiction Fellowship from Washington University in St. Louis, where she did her MFA. Born in Moscow, she moved to the US when she was three years old and currently lives in Los Angeles. MOTHER DOLL is her second novel.

KC Councilor is a communication professor and a cartoonist who often draws about the experiences of being trans. He became a parent in 2022, the biggest transition of his life. KC's first book, Between You and Me: Transitional Comics, was published in 2019. You can see more of his work at www.kccouncilor.com.

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.

Kendra Sullivan is a poet, a public artist, and an activist scholar. She is Director of the Center for the Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center, where she led the Andrew W. Mellon Seminar on Public Engagement and Collaborative Research from 2014-2024. Sullivan is a co-director of the NYC Climate Justice Hub, the publisher of Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative, and a co-editorial director of Women’s Studies Quarterly. Kendra has produced public art addressing water access and equity issues in cities around the world and has published her writing on art, environment, and engagement widely–her most recent oped in City Limits calls on civic leaders to help make CUNY the climate justice university of New York. She is the co-founder of the Sunview Luncheonette, a cooperative arts venue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn; and a member of Mare Liberum, an eco-art collective. Her books include Zero Point Dream Poems (Doublecross Press) and Reps (Ugly Duckling Presse).

Although born in Ashland, Oregon with family roots in New York, Kerby Kunstler Caudill has spent most of her life in Southern California. She earned a BA in Film Studies from the University of California at Irvine, an MA in education from Cal State Long Beach, and then taught elementary school for 20 years. When she decided to switch gears, she joined a writing workshop with author Francesca Lia Block. “Paper” an excerpt from her memoir was published in the Winter 2020 issue of The Good Life Review. Another excerpt entitled “Boo” appeared in the Spring 2021 issue of Months to Years. The third piece from her memoir, “Stains” will appear January 15, 2023, in the online Literary Magazine Lit Angels.

Keri is a New York based actress, voice over artist, yoga and meditation teacher, podcast producer and host. Her podcast Momtourage is a top lifestyle/comedy momcentric show. As a producer and host she brings together all her myriad job skills: celebrity nanny, blabber mouth, brutally honest friend, voice over actress, on camera host, comedy writer, and real life mom. She recently can be heard as Co-Host of Scary Mommy‘s podcast Scary Mommy Speaks and her meditation podcast TMI: Truth, Meditation, Inspiration. In her 25 years as an actress, Keri has performed in many productions including All My Children, Law and Order: SVU, Orange is the New Black, Nurse Jackie, The Sopranos, Nip/ Tuck and the Saints Row series, as well as tons of national voice overs and commercials. As a yoga and meditation teacher she has learned to navigate the stressful life of hustling in New York City as a creative professional. One of Keri’s passions is bringing yoga and meditation to children. Keri currently lives in Montclair, New Jersey with her husband, her daughter and elderly dog. KeriSetaro.com // @KeriSetaro

Kerry Chaput is the award-winning historical fiction author of Daughter of the King, Daughter of the Shadows, and Chasing Eleanor. She believes in the power of stories that highlight young women and found families. Born and raised in California, she now lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, where she can be found on hiking trails and in coffee shops.

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 McGovern lives in the Adirondacks of northern New York. Her work has appeared in What’s Your Grief, The Brooklyn Review, Oh Reader, Gordon Square Review, Saranac Review and others. Visit lauren mcgovern.online.

Lauren Weinstein is a cartoonist, artist and educator. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Slate, the Paris Review, Nautilus, and the Guardian, among many other outlets. Since 2019 she has been the artist-in-residence at Town Clock, CDC, teaching art to the survivors that live there. Her comic “The Gift of Time” is based on that experience and originally ran on Slate.com. Her acclaimed comic Normel Person was the last weekly comic strip to run in The Village Voice. Her short work “Being an Artist and a Mother” won the Slate Cartoonist Studio Prize, and Carriers won the Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators. Other notable works include her memoir Girl Stories, as well as Mother’s Walk, Inside Vineyland, and Goddess of War. She has also received two Ignatz Awards. Her work has been featured twice in the Best American Comics series. Now she’s working on her next graphic memoir. Author photo (c) Lisa Whiteman

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.

Leah Ongiri is a queer foster-turned-adoptive mama of four who just moved back to her Portland, Oregon hometown after years in Midwestern exile. She is an amatuer potter and poet, and a Unitarian Universalist minister.

Leela Corman is a painter, educator, and graphic novel creator. Her books include Unterzakhn (Schocken/Pantheon, 2012) and the short comics collections We All Wish For Deadly Force (Retrofit/Big Planet, 2016) and You Are Not A Guest (Field Mouse Press, 2023). Her graphic novel Victory Parade, a story about WWII, women's wrestling, and the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp, will be published by Schocken/Pantheon in 2024. Her short comics have appeared in The Believer Magazine, Tablet Magazine, Nautilus, and The Nib. She is a founding instructor at Sequential Artists Workshop, and an instructor at Rhode Island School of Design. Author photo is (c) Dena Rosenberg.

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 Hernandez is a writer, artist and mother. Before motherhood and a pandemic, she worked as a journalist and educator. She lives with her husband and four young children in Austin, TX. She can be found at lindseyhopehernandez.com.

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 Hanson is a writer, traveler, and entrepreneur with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Washington and a Master of Business Administration from Seattle University. She recently published an essay in the CRAB CREEK REVIEW. For more writing and updates on her memoir journey visit www.lisamhanson.com.

Lisa Hsia is a writer, artist, and parent who has lived on Ohlone lands all her life. Sometimes her words and pictures play well together, and sometimes they need their own space. She's on IG @lisa.hsia.art and at satsumabug.com

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 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.

Lise K. Ragbir's essays about immigration, family relationships, identity, race, art and culture, and parenting have been featured in Elle, Salon, YES! Magazine, Time Magazine, Hyperallergic, USA Today, Psychology Today, and The Guardian, among other outlets.

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.

Liza (Wetzel) Ruggiero graduated summa cum laude from Tufts University with a BA in clinical psychology and child development, and later went on to earn her MA in professional psychology from William James College. She has served in a variety of counseling and teaching roles and has supported numerous adolescents and adults in making choices that capitalize on their strengths and promote their wellbeing. Drawing on her expertise in psychology, mindfulness, and yoga, Liza's work focuses on cultivating inner growth, self-compassion, and greater self-awareness.

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.

Madhumati Ricker is a self-taught artist who grew up making illustrations for her school newspaper, for school play posters, and for her friends. Her illustrations and comics are often inspired by things that happen in her daily life as a parent. She lives in Oregon with her husband and daughter. Find her on Instagram @madhu_prints

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

Mahru Elahi is an educator and a queer single foster mom. Mahru’s poetry and nonfiction prose have appeared in newspapers, magazines, journals and the anthology Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora (ed. Persis Karim, University of Arkansas Press, 2006). This fall, she will be entering Antioch University’s low-residency MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis on creative nonfiction and poetry.

Mahru lives in Oakland, California, with her son and their furry companions. Samir is an excerpt from a memoir in progress.

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/

Manuela Gomez Rhine is a writer based in Oaxaca, Mexico. She is the editor of www.mexicanista.com and author of the novel, The Wild Chihuahuas of Mexico.

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 Hanley’s work has appeared in Discretionary Love, Grande Dame Literary Journal, Potato Soup Journal, and placed second in the 2021 Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition for memoir-vignettes. When she’s not actively parenting two teenagers and an eight-year-old, she writes. She lives in Santa Barbara, California, with her husband, three sons, and two cats. Follow Maria on Twitter and Instagram @MHanleyWriter.

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.

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.

Maryrose Smyth is a member of the Writer's Collective in Los Angeles. She studies with Jack Grapes, Suzanne Lummis, Tresha Faye Haefner, Ellen Bass, Natalie Goldberg, Terrie Silverman and Amanda Montei. Her poem, "Desert Winter Sky, Joshua Tree" was in Amethyst Review, June 2022. Her other work appears in F.R.E.D. and The Best of the Poetry Salon 2013-2018, Wax Seal Online Literary Magazine, August, 2018, “To My Dear Dead Grandmother.” Her poem “Liberty” was an honorable mention in the Jack Grapes Cultural Weekly Poetry Contest of 2015. She lists her passions as: art making, family and the one-woman artist preserve she calls home where she lives.

MD is a visual artist and writer living in Italy. After a long hiatus, they are toiling away at a memoir about life as a maker/survivor/expat/queer parent.

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 Evans is a scholar, researcher, and mother based in New England. Her research interests include mental health and substance use recovery and the power of lived experience. She enjoys writing, knitting, and live music. This is her first personal essay. 

Megan Hanlon is a podcast producer who sometimes writes. Her words have appeared in Raw Lit, Variant Literature, Gordon Square Review, and other publications both online and print. Her blog, Sugar Pig, is known for relentlessly honest essays that are equal parts tragedy and comedy.

Megan Kennedy writes lyric essays about her evolution as a daughter and mother. She is an elementary school counselor and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and nine-year-old daughter.

Megan Mizanty is an an interdisciplinary artist and educator. She’s currently a writer and editor for thINKing Dance in Philadelphia.

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.

Megan Vos is a writer, educator, mom, and native New Hampshirite who lives in Boulder, CO. After many years of writing nonfiction, she is working on a novel, which feels simultaneously freeing and terrifying. Megan loves playing cards with her family, walks with her dog, spring skiing, good books, and strong lattes. A former producer of Boulder’s Listen to Your Mother show, she has also shared her stories in Story Collective shows. Megan’s essays have been published in Motherscope, Kindred, Motherwell, Journal of Expressive Writing, and MUTHA. You can find her on Substack at megansvos.substack.com.

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.

Melinda Coppola penned her first poem—about the color pink—at the tender age of 8.  Her relationship with writing was mercurial for decades, but once she learned that her blood type is, in fact, poet, she  has settled into a kind of quiet cohabitation with her muses. Melinda's work has been published in many fine books, magazines, and journals including Spirit First, Third Wednesday, Willows Wept Review, and Thimble Literary Magazine. She also makes art, teaches Yoga, and communes with stones on Cape Cod beaches. She is currently seeking a publisher for her first full length book of poetry, which focuses on her journey parenting her autistic daughter.

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.

Melissa Wabnitz Pumayugra is a writer based out of San Antonio. When she isn't tending to her succulent collection or children, she enjoys day trips and reading short stories while sipping iced coffee. Her writing and photography can be found online in You Might Need to Hear This, Blood Orange Review, Hobart Pulp, Emerson Review and many more literary journals.

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 travel journalist who has danced on six continents. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Hidden Compass, Outside, Wired, Afar, Los Angeles Times, CNN, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Yes!, Via, and many more. She writes the newsletter, Our Feet on the Ground, about parenting in the Anthropocene. When not traveling, she teaches writing at University of California, Santa Cruz. She's writing a book, Mothering in the Anthropocene, about how taking her sons to meet people stewarding fragile ecosystems helped her become the adult she hopes her kids will be. Her two sons, Kai and Nikko, remind her that making the world a better place is the only work worth pursuing. Follow her adventures on Twitter and Instagram

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.

M. De Voe is a writer as well as an advocate for writers with kids. She founded the nonprofit Pen Parentis to help other writers with kids stay on creative track. The author of the prize-winning guide, BOOK & BABY,the complete guide to managing chaos & becoming a wildly successful writer-parent,she holds an MFA from Columbia and has won more than 20 awards for short literary fiction and poetry. Website: mmdevoe.com Tweets @mmdevoe #standwithUkraine

Minna Dubin (she/her) is a writer in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Salon, Parents, Romper, The Forward, Hobart, MUTHA Magazine, and elsewhere. She is the author of MOM RAGE: The Everyday Crisis of Modern Motherhood (September 2023) from Seal Press. You can follow her @minnadubin.

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 O. Kemper (she/her) is a writer, reader, editor, and translator living in New York City. She is also a co-host of the Dead Ladies Show NYC (subscribe to our free Substack and follow us on Instagram for updates: @deadladiesnyc). Photo credit: Sophie Mathewson.

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.

Monica Benevides is a writer and award-winning journalist based in Central Massachusetts, where she was raised. She is the co-founder and prose editor of the literary magazine Talk Vomit, and also leads writing workshops at the Boston-based nonprofit GrubStreet. Her freelance essays and reportage have appeared in places like Bitch, Man Repeller, and the Columbia Journalism Review. She holds an MFA in nonfiction from Columbia.

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).

Naomi Racz is a writer and editor living on Vancouver Island on the unceded traditional territory of the K’ómoks First Nation. She writes about nature, the environment and parenting and her writing has appeared in The Real Story, The Learned Pig, Zoomorphic, and Sea & Cedar. She was a 2021 Orion Magazine environmental writer’s workshop participant and is the editor of Stonecrop Review.

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.

Natalie Serianni is a Seattle-based writer, instructor, and mother of two with work at Motherwell, MSN/SheKnows, Today's Parent, The Manifest-Station, and Seattle's ParentMap. She has an essay included in the recently published anthology The Pandemic Midlife Crisis: GenX Women on the Brink. Connect with her on Instagram and Twitter.

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.

Nicole Haroutunian is the author of Choose This Now (Noemi Press, 2024) and Speed Dreaming (Little a, 2015). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Georgia Review, the Bennington Review, Story, Tupelo Quarterly, Post Road, Tin House's Open Bar, and elsewhere. She works in museum education and lives in Woodside, Queens in New York City. Author photo © Sylvie Rosokoff.

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 Harrelson is a writer deep in the fall of life. At 76, she has four siblings, three adult children, fifteen grandkids, an ex-husband, and a female spouse, all of whom find their way into her writing. With three-quarters of a century in her rearview mirror, many humans, a variety of pets and creatures, and a fair bit of the world make their way into her work. She’s published three nonfiction narrative books and writes about arts and entertainment for regional publications in Northern California where she lives.

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

Philippa Rice is an artist, author and animator who works in a number of mediums. Her books include the New York Times #1 bestseller SOPPY, Sister BFFs and BABY: A Soppy Story. She lives in Nottingham, UK with her partner and three children.

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 Aimee is a queer writer, parent, and nonprofit development person living close enough to New York City. She is a co-editor of $pread: The Magazine That Illuminated the Sex Industry and Started a Media Revolution (Feminist Press, 2015) and the former executive director of Drag Story Hour NYC. Find more of her writing at RachelAimee.com and follow her on Instagram @rachelaimeeee

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 cartoonist. She lives in Montreal with her partner and two children. 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 a child psychologist and the mother of three children who have dared to become young adults. She is deeply interested in the complexities of the family as well as the paths children travel, sometimes alone.

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.

Rachelle Skilling is an Artist living in Calgary, Alberta. Her work can be seen on the cover of Calgary’s feminist magazine called ‘New Forum ‘. Rachelle graduated from Alberta College of Art and Design in 2003 with her major in Drawing. Her Artwork has been shown at the New Edward Gallery, Artpoint Gallery, Stride Gallery +15 and Private Collections in the Netherlands and Edmonton.   Rachelle’s work can be described as Autobiographical Narrative artwork illustrating her experiences  as a woman, wife and mother of two boys. Her mediums are acrylic paintings on birch panels, Ink on paper, perlerbead art, vinyl heat transfer and Procreate digital platform.

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.

Raya Yarbrough is a writer and singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles, California. Her creative nonfiction has been published or is forthcoming in Frazzled and Mixed Mag. Her poetry has been featured in Writers Resist and won first prize in One Page Poetry’s 2023 contest and an honorable mention in Poetry of the Sacred’s 2023 contest. Raya has written and produced three albums of eclectic music, and her voice and original music have been featured in many TV series, including Battlestar Galactica and Outlander. She is currently finishing a humorous memoir about being a parent in a multiracial family while also being a working artist. rayayarbrough.com/

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 Brenner's work has been featured in Time, the LA Times, Tin House, and The Rumpus. She co-founded Mindful. Summit County, a nonprofit focused on moving mindfulness past self-care into community care. She lives in Park City, UT, with her two children, and when they sleep, she writes essays, poetry, and novels.

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 Rolland is the author of The Art of Talking with Children, out 3/1/2022 from HarperOne. She teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Harvard Medical School, and she lives in Boston with her family. Find her at her website or on twitter.

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.

Rick Louis was born in New York City and raised by Star Trek. After college and a year on the road as a circus roustabout, he managed to get a couple of plays produced off-off-Broadway. Relocating to Los Angeles, he worked as a writer on movie scripts and sketch comedy. As a tattooed vegan on a bike, he eventually moved to Portland, Oregon, where he lives to this day, working as a freelance writer and editor. Lara Antal (she/they) is an artist who loves black humor, black coffee, and colorful characters. Their debut graphic novel, Ronan and the Endless Sea of Stars, won the 2023 Graphic Medicine Award and was nominated for the 2023 Ringo Comic Awards. Their clients include The Washington Post, Google, and Dotdash-Meredith, and they've been featured in The Wall Street Journal, WNYC-NPR, Kirkus, and more. If you dine in NYC you might see one of their infamous Choking Victim posters. They are also a creative producer on the Witch Wave Podcast, hosted by Pam Grossman. Hailing from Wisconsin, they currently live in Brooklyn with their almost-toothless chihuahua, Chuck.

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.

Risa Polansky Shiman lives in South Florida with her husband and three children. A former newspaper reporter with an MFA in creative writing, she has performed in Miami’s Lip Service storytelling series, and her written work has run in publications such as Kveller, the Brevity blog, HelloGiggles and Harlot.

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

RubyRussellis a single mom, environmental journalist, and author of Doing It All: The Social Power of Single Motherhood. Originally from London, she currently lives in Berlin, Germany, with her kid and their cat.

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 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.

Samantha is the author of Putting Out: Essays on Otherness. She edited the upcoming anthology I Feel Love: Notes on Queer Joy (June 2022 Read Furiously Publishing). Publications include The Rumpus, Elle, Bust, Romper, and others.

A Brooklyn-based writer and educator, Sammi LaBue is the author of the creative writer’s guided journal, Words in Progress (DK 2020) and basically obsessed with the feeling of having an idea and writing it down. She is founder of Fledgling Writing Workshops, a generative writing community named one of the best writing classes in NYC by TimeOut NY and a graduate of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing program. Some of her other writing has appeared in Literary Hub, Glamour, Hunger Mountain, Hobart, [PANK] Magazine, So to Speak Journal, and elsewhere.

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 Beck is a singer/songwriter, poet, and an assistant professor of psychology. She got her PhD from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and she currently lives in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and teaches at Randolph College. Her musical output spans two decades and eight albums, including a children’s record. Her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Litmosphere, and Sunlight Press. Her favorite pastime is scribbling in notebooks while her children climb trees. Check out what she’s up to on Instagram (@saralynbeck).

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 Hare lives with her husband, two red headed toddlers, and yorkie in Bloomington, Indiana. She enjoys hiking, writing, and eating too much ice cream. This is her first personal essay.

'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 has lived in Brooklyn for almost thirty years. Her kids are technically adults but she still loves to hold them close. She worked as a doula, lactation counselor, and childbirth educator and is working on a book about her experiences.

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 is a poetry MFA student at Saint Mary's College of California where she works at the Center for Environmental Literacy which houses the River of Words youth art and poetry contest where she is a judge. Sarah has been a writing coach and a teacher for ten years and enjoys writing ecopoetry, and inspiring young writers to express themselves through poetic expression. She lives in Oakland, CA with her husband and two kids.

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.

Sarah W. Jaffe is a lifestyle writer with Romper whose work has appeared in Slate, Catapult, Mutha, and The Rumpus, among other places. Her work has focused on mental health, the healthcare system, and the foster care system. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and 4-year-old daughter and is currently getting an MFA in creative non-fiction at The New School.

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.

Sayuri Ayers is a poet and nonfiction writer from Columbus, Ohio. She writes into intersectionality of motherhood, myth, and science. Her work can be found on The Poetry Foundation website and in TriQuarterly, SWWIM Every Day, CALYX, and Parentheses Journal. Sayuri is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee. She has been supported by Kundiman, PEN America, Yaddo, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, The Ohio Arts Council, and The Greater Columbus Arts Council. Sayuri received her MFA in creative writing from Randolph College as a Blackburn Fellow.

Serena Menken is a senior leader in a nonprofit, where she leads a gifted team and serves as editor of a company website. She is the mother of three teenagers plus a rambunctious dog. Connect with her at serenamenken.substack.com and serenamenken.com.

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 Berkeley-based writer, editor, book coach, and publicist originally from New Jersey. Her writings have appeared in BuzzFeed, Rumpus, OZY, Hyphen, and CAAM. She is a Glimmer Train fiction contest finalist, a former VONA fellow; and co-host of the podcast “Democracy in Color with Steve Phillips.” She is an advocate for maternal mental health and wellness.

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.

Sofía Quesada, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, has studied Audiovisual Arts at UNA (National University of the Arts) and Philosophy at UCES (University of Business and Social Sciences). In 2015, she completed her studies as a Professional Photographer at the Andy Goldstein School of Creative Photography. Besides her personal work, she mainly focuses on social and migratory movements, decolonial feminism, human rights and climate issues. Since March 2022 she has been part of the editorial staff of the "Lateinamerika Nachrichten" and continues with her work as a freelancer photojournalist. Sofía is currently based in Berlin.

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.

Starr Davis is a talented writer and devoted mother whose works have been showcased in numerous literary platforms, including The Kenyon Review, Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day, the Rumpus, and Catapult. She is recognized as a fellow at The Luminary, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and PEN America. Starr serves as the creative nonfiction editor for TriQuarterly and also as a columnist for Mama's Writing at Raising Mothers. She earned her MFA in creative writing from the City College of New York and a BA in journalism and creative writing from the University of Akron. Starr's personal-political writing has garnered accolades and landed her reviews in Longreads 'Top 5 Longreads of the Week.' She has been nominated for prestigious literary awards such as the Pushcart Prize in poetry and creative nonfiction, Best of the Net, and Best American Essays. Currently, Starr resides in Houston, Texas, where she actively advocates for justice and volunteers with organizations that empower women.

Stephanie Damplo Luke is an illustrator and designer with a focus on sustainable agriculture and environmentalism. Stephanie’s art explores cultivating connections with nature, travel, and culture. When she isn’t traveling for sun, outdoors, friends, Stephanie lives in MA with her family. More of her work can be found at: StephanieLuke.com and @SteffiLuke on Instagram.

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

Susan Ito began reading at the age of three, and writing stories at the age six. She co-edited the literary anthology A Ghost At Heart’s Edge: Stories & Poems of Adoption. Her work has appeared in The Writer, Growing Up Asian American, Choice, Hip Mama, Literary Mama, Catapult, Hyphen,The Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. She is a MacDowell colony Fellow, and has also been awarded residencies at The Mesa Refuge, Hedgebrook and the Blue Mountain Center. She has performed her solo show, The Ice Cream Gene, around the US. Her theatrical adaption of Untold, stories of reproductive stigma, was produced at Brava Theater. She is a member of the Writers’ Grotto, and teaches at Mills College/Northeastern University and Bay Path University. She was one of the co-organizers of Rooted and Written, a no-fee writing workshop for writers of color. She lives in Northern California.

Susannah Dainow (she/they) is an award-winning writer who has also worked as a public interest lawyer in Toronto / Tkaronto. She is a recipient of a 2024 Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Research Award from Brandeis University for her work on the poetry manuscript, “Mezuzot.” They have also published poetry in journals including Acta Victoriana, Misunderstandings Magazine, Hart House Review, and the upcoming anthology Thriving. Their poetry can be found in the American Jewish Historical Society archives and the Riot Grrrrl Collection at Fales Library, New York University. Dainow has published essays in Ms., and the dearly departed feminist forums The Toast and Bitch, and is an ongoing contributor of personal essays to the international news outlet, the Times of Israel. She has received funding for a workshop intensive at the Community of Writers and a residency at the Vermont Studio Center. Last spring, they were the inaugural Jennifer Egan Fellow at the Mesa Refuge writing residency. She has won the Hamilton Grit Lit festival fiction prize and has received an Honorable Mention for short fiction in Glimmer Train. Currently, they are a creative nonfiction reader for the literary journal, Identity Theory.

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.

Dr. Tamara MC is a child marriage and human trafficking survivor and a freedom activist for girls and women worldwide. She’s a mama to two amazing grown boys and a grandmama to two rambunctious pups, an Aussie named Willow and Boston Terrier named Blazer. She’s currently at work on her memoir Child Bride about her marriage at 12. Please reach out to her on her socials:

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, radio journalist, mother, filmmaker and Vice President at The Center for Cultural Power, a home for artists and activists. She currently serves on the Advisory Boards for Color Congress and Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation. Her work is published in Al Jazeera, The Chicago Quarterly, Huizache, and acclaimed anthologies including: Good Girls Marry Doctors & All the Women in My Family Sing. She received a 2019 & 2021 Arts Commission from the San Francisco Arts Commission for her writing and documentaries on Kashmir. Her first film, Here Still, was screened at over a dozen film festivals throughout Asia and the USA, and were an official selection of the Jaipur International Film Festival, the world’s largest competitive film festival. Awards include Asia’s Best Independent Documentary Film at the All Asia Independent Film Festival 2020, a Silver Medal at the 2020 Asia South East Short Film Festival, and a 2021 Semi-Finalist Award for the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival.

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.

Teresa Douglas is a Mexican American woman living in Canada. She has an MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College. Her work has appeared in Tiny Beans, Flashflood Journal, Epoch press, and (Mac)ro(mic). She is the editor of Latinx Lit Audio Mag.

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. 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. She was appointed as Cleveland Public Library's first Director of Arts and Culture in February 2023. She is currently seeking a publisher for her memoir, The Calm and the Storm: A Race to Outrun Bad Genes and can be found on Instagram @tiffanygrahamcharkosky. 

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, graphic designer, and educator. Their book, Primahood: Magenta, won the 2017 Bisexual Book Award for Graphic Memoir. Tyler’s work has 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.

About Vanessa Hope Schneider Vanessa Hope Schneider is a writer and performance artist, interested in how collective generation creates outcomes that cannot be realized by individuals. Her work includes poetry, essays, zines, video, and live performance. Past collaborations include the San Francisco Neo-Futurists, the Poetry Foundation, and Christian Jankowski for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.   About Carissa Potter Carlson Carissa Potter Carlson is a human longing for connection. She makes art, writes, collaborates, and talks to people. Her life changed in 2019 with the birth of Margaret. Past books include I Like You, I Love You, It’s Okay to Feel Things Deeply, How To Heal From Heartbreak, and upcoming Breathe Through it. Potter has worked with Facebook, Substack, Google, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative,  SFMOMA, Hammer, De Young Muesuem, Mia in Minneapolis. In 2021 she was voted one of AdAges 50 most inspiring people and one of Cosmo Mags 24 people making the world a better place.  

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.

Virginia Archer Peak is a native of Louisiana and graduated from Louisiana State University with a degree in anthropology, through which she discovered her passion for folklore and story. Both in her writing and non-profit career in human services, Virginia is interested in the space where religious folkways, mysticism, mental illness, and poverty intersect in rural America. She currently resides in Portland, Oregon with her husband, their son and golden retriever. Her writing has been featured in Deep South Magazine, 225 Magazine, Country Roads Magazine, They Call Us, and is forthcoming in Soul Lit and Minerva Press.

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

Xinran Maria Xiang is a Chinese-American immigrant mother, writer, physician, and artist. Her literary work and medical humanities/opinion pieces have appeared in The New Yorker, Defenestration, Glint Literary Journal, and JAMA Neurology.

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.

A Southern girl from Nashville, Yvette J. Green has grown to love Go-Go music having made the DC metro area home. A graduate of Xavier University of Louisiana (BA in English) and University of Maryland, College Park (MA in English). She is an alum of Tin House’s Winter Workshop and a Periplus Collective Finalist. Yvette’s writing can be found in Salon, Viator, midnight & indigo, and Brevity Blog, among others.

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.