Amanda Fields and Eva Langston chat with Jessica Slice, author of Unfit Parent, about designing and inventing systems of parenting based on the bodies and minds we live in. Unfit Parent examines the obstacles that disabled parents face, the societal beliefs that undergird those barriers, and the political and economic systems that hold it all in place. Jessica explores how disability culture and the strengths inherent in having a body like hers would, if included in parenting culture, make contemporary parenting more sustainable.

Jessica Slice is a disabled author, speaker, and essayist. Her book, Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World (Beacon, 2025) has been shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Prize. She is the co-author of Dateable: Swiping Right, Hooking Up, and Settling Down (Hachette, 2024) and This is How We Play (Dial, 2024), as well as the forthcoming This is How We Talk (Dial, 2025) and We Belong (Dial, 2026), which was co-authored with the late Judy Heumann. Jessica has been published in Modern Love, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, the Guardian, The Globe & Mail, LitHub, Alice Wong’s bestselling Disability Visibility, Slate, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and more. She’s been featured in Vogue, The New Yorker, PBS, NPR, The Cut, the BBC, and more. She lives in Toronto with her family.

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Eva Langston and Holly Rizzuto Palker chat with Natasha Williams, author of The Parts of Him I Kept, about parenting her father through schizophrenia and healing through memoir writing.

The Parts of Him I Kept is an intimate account of a daughter’s coming of age in the face of her father’s schizophrenic unraveling. Williams investigates the limits of our medical and cultural understanding of schizophrenia while chronicling the shared burden and benefits of caring for a mentally ill family member. The Parts of Him I Kept asks us to consider the ways mental illness is as much a social issue as a biological condition.

Natasha Williams has worked as an adjunct biology professor at SUNY Ulster in the Hudson Valley of New York and as a consultant for the International Public-School Network, coaching science teachers. She has an MA from the University of Pennsylvania. She attended the Bread Loaf School of English in the summer of 2020 and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference in 2023. Excerpts of The Parts of Him I Kept, published in April 2025 from Apprentice House Press, have been published in the Bread Loaf Journal, Change Seven, LIT, Memoir Magazine, Onion River Review, Writers Read, Post Road, and South Dakota Review.

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Holly Rizzuto Palker and Amanda Fields chat with Abigail Leonard, author of Four Mothers, about parenting in four different countries, politicizing motherhood, and supporting mothers with the power of community.

Utterly moving and propulsively readable from page one, Abigail interweaves stories of four mothers from four different countries with a critically researched exploration of how parental support programs evolved in each country—and why some provide more help than others. As nations around the world debate programs like paid leave, universal daycare, reproductive healthcare, and family tax incentives, Four Mothers offers a uniquely intimate, moving portrait of what those policies mean for parents on the ground—and considers what modern families really want.

Abigail is an award-winning international reporter and news producer, previously based in Tokyo, where she was a frequent contributor to NPR, Time, and New York Times video. Her stories have also appeared in The Washington Post, Newsweek, and Vox. Before moving to Japan, she wrote and produced long-form news documentaries as a staff producer for PBS, ABC and Al Jazeera America. Stories she reported have earned a National Headliner Award, an Award for Excellence in Health Care Journalism Award, an Overseas Press Club Award and a James Beard Foundation Media Award Nomination. She was a 2011 East-West Center Japan Fellow and 2010 UN Foundation Journalism Fellow. She served as First Vice President of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, a 2000-member national press organization, and also chaired its scholarship program.

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Eva Langston and Amanda Fields chat with Allison Buccola, author of The Ascent, about the anxieties of new motherhood, renegotiating relationships post-childbirth, and navigating career transitions.

Allison’s most recent novel explores an unsolved mystery of a reclusive commune twenty years prior. The only known survivor, Lee, has tried to put the pain of her past behind her, building a new identity for herself. But motherhood is proving a bigger challenge than she anticipated. Then a stranger shows up on her doorstep, offering answers to all of Lee’s questions about her past. Can Lee keep her safe, stable life? Or will new revelations about “the cult that went missing” shatter everything? In The Ascent, Allison Buccola has crafted a nerve-rattling thriller about motherhood, identity, and the truths we think we know about our families.

Allison Buccola is the author of The Ascent and Catch Her When She Falls. She has a JD from the University of Chicago and lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and their two young children.

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Amanda Fields and Eva Langston chat with Monique Clesca, author of Silence and Resistance: Memoir of a Girlhood in Haiti, about reckoning with family secrets, healing, and fighting for Haitian children’s rights.

Monique Clesca is an activist, journalist, and advocate for children’s and women’s rights, participating in high-level policy issues in Haiti and Africa and offering holistic support to girls and women who have suffered domestic and sexual violence. For leading a movement to eliminate child marriage, Monique received the Commander in the Niger Order of Merit in 2016 from the President of Niger. In 2016, Monique also retired from the United Nations to work as an international consultant and continue her work as a leading voice on feminism, democracy, ,and social justice in Haiti. She has spoken at many universities and as a guest on Democracy Now, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, NBC News, and Black News. She has been published in The New York Times, the Miami Herald, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and many others.

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Amanda Fields, Brianna Avenia-Tapper, Holly Rizzuto Palker, and Eva Langston come together to reflect on the evolution of this podcast, memorable guests, and the conversations we can’t wait to have. From their very first attempts at recording to latest and greatest moments, they take time to reflect, celebrate and appreciate all the authors they have featured in addition to what they have learned from each other. The Literary Mama community is fierce and fabulous. Thank you to our loyal listeners who continue to show up for us. We have so much more to explore with you.

Literary Mama believes that all mothers have a story worth sharing and honors the many faces of motherhood by publishing work that celebrates the journey as well as the job. We celebrate the physical, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual processes of becoming a mother through words and images that may be so stark it hurts. We welcome perspectives that challenge us to examine motherhood through a variety of lenses. We’re not afraid of publishing work that crosses boundaries of race, gender, age, or income and encourage comments that build community.

To learn more, visit our About, Staff, Contributors, and Submissions pages.

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Jane Friedman

Catherine Newman

Nicole Haroutunian

Tovah Klein

Maggie Smith

Nancy Reddy

K.T. Nguyen

Rachelle Bergstein

Kathleen Glasgow

Amy Shearn

Nicole Cooley

Molly Spencer

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

Jessica Slice (releasing 11/20/2025)

Tiffanie Drayton

Judith Smith

Jessie Harrold (releasing 12/4/2025)

Amy Bornman

Kelly McMasters

Jacinda Townsend

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For our 50th episode, Holly Rizzuto Palker and Amanda Fields chat with Maggie Smith, author of Dear Writer, about applying poetic license to writing and beyond, embracing the beginner’s mind, and aging in reverse through creativity. Smith’s national bestseller guides the reader on how to unleash the creative mind with ten ingredients, each one explored through inspirational essays and writing prompts. It’s a book for artists of all genres and for everyday life.

Born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1977, Maggie Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful; My Thoughts Have Wings, a picture book illustrated by SCBWI Portfolio grand prize winner Leanne Hatch; the national bestsellers Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life, Goldenrod and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change; as well as Good Bones, named one of the Best Five Poetry Books of 2017 by the Washington Post and winner of the 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal in Poetry; The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, winner of the 2012 Dorset Prize and the 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal in Poetry; and Lamp of the Body, winner of the 2003 Benjamin Saltman Award.

A 2011 recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Smith has also received six Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council, two Academy of American Poets Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Sustainable Arts Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her poems have been widely published and anthologized, appearing in Best American Poetry, the New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poetry, and so many others. Her essays have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, on the Poetry Foundation website, and elsewhere.

Smith holds a BA from Ohio Wesleyan University and an MFA from The Ohio State University. After working for several years in trade book and educational publishing, she now works as a freelance writer, editor, and educator. She has taught creative writing at Gettysburg College, Ohio Wesleyan University, in the MFA and undergraduate programs at The Ohio State University, for the Antioch University Los Angeles Low-Residency MFA, and as MFA faculty for the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing. She is also the host of The Slowdown, a poetry podcast from American Public Media, supported in part by the Poetry Foundation.

Maggie Smith’s most recent title The People’s Project, an anthology co-curated with Saeed Jones (Washington Square Press/Atria) was released September 9, 2025. Her forthcoming book, A Suit or a Suitcase, a collection of poems (Washington Square Press/Atria) is coming March 24, 2026.

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Amanda Fields and Eva Langston chat with Jessica Guerrieri, author of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, about motherhood drinking culture, the power of family and friendship, and addiction. Jessica's debut novel offers an honest rebuttal to the prevalence of alcohol in "mom life" and the fragility of family ties.

Originally from the Bay Area, Jessica Guerrieri lives in Davis, California, with her husband and three young daughters. Jessica has a background teaching special education but left the field to pursue a career in writing. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea won the Maurice Prize for Fiction from her alma mater, UC Davis. With over a decade of sobriety, Jessica is a fierce advocate for addiction recovery. Jessica's second novel, Both Can Be True, will be released in May 2026 and is available for preorder now.

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Holly Rizzuto Palker and Amanda Fields chat with Catalina Margulis, author of Again, Only More Like You, about a reckoning of journalism, ideas of what a "good mother" is, and hard-kept female friendships. For fans of Elin Hilderbrand and Jennifer Weiner, Again, Only More Like You offers a poignant and humorous look at friendship and reinvention at 40.

Catalina is an author, podcast host and mother of four who has written for many of Canada’s top publications over the past 20 years. Cat was an editor at ELLE Canada, Flare, and Today’s Parent, she was a regular contributor to Savvymom, Mabel’s Labels, and Walmart Canada, and has written for more than 40 publications, including The Globe and Mail, Reader’s Digest, and Yummy Mummy Club. She is also the host of Passion Project, a podcast about making your dreams happen. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she lives with her family in the suburbs of Toronto, Canada.

Author website: https://catmargulis.com/

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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpkg_U6XtfcbptMuCXd_p_g

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Eva Langston and Holly Rizzuto Palker chat with Penny Zang, author of Doll Parts, about writing through grief, the “rights and wrongs” of motherhood, and finding inspiration in Sylvia Plath. For readers of The Virgin Suicides and I Have Some Questions For You, Doll Parts is a dual timeline suspense novel following one woman as she begins to uncover the truth of the death of her estranged best friend and the Sylvia Plath adoring sad girls they attended college with decades ago, all while holding a secret that will slowly unravel her new, suburban dream life.

Penny Zang is from Maryland and graduated with an MFA in Fiction from West Virginia University. Her work has appeared in the Potomac Review, Louisville Review, and South 85, among others. She is the 2024 Elizabeth Boatwright Coker fiction fellow via the South Carolina Academy of Authors. She lives in South Carolina, where she teaches English. Doll Parts (Sourcebooks Landmark) is her debut novel.

Author website: https://www.pennyzang.com/

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