A Fresh Story, season 5, episode 4

We had the honor of talking to Amanda Montei, the author of Touched Out: Motherhood, Misogyny, Consent, & Control. We talked about the transition into motherhood, the #metoo movement and motherhood, the relationship between joy, sex and being a new mom, and her journey to sobriety in new motherhood. We chatted about the response to the book in the world, and we had an honest conversation about domestic equity, women’s work, body agency, motherhood and feminism, and the state of being a mother in our society today.

Amanda is also the memoir Two Memoirs (Jaded Ibis Press) and a collection of prose, The Failure Age (Bloof Books). Her work has been featured at The New York Times, The Guardian, ELLE, TIME, The Cut, Mother Tongue, Slate, Electric Literature, Vox, Rumpus, Salon, The Believer, Ms. Magazine, Poetry Foundation, and in numerous literary journals. She was a 2020 Best American Essays notable.

She is currently a lecturer at California State University, East Bay and in 2024 will begin teaching creative writing in the Stanford Continuing Ed program. She has taught and presented work at Columbia University, New York University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Chicago, The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, University of Virginia, State University of New York at Buffalo, Diablo Valley College, and others.

Amanda has been teaching writing for over a decade at the college level and at various arts organizations, including at Catapult, Corporeal Writing, Hugo House, Writing Workshops, and Write or Die. Her work has received support from In Cahoots, Riverrun Foundation, and Juniper Writer’s Institute.

She holds an MFA in Writing from California Institute of the Arts and a PhD in English literature from SUNY at Buffalo. She runs the popular newsletter Mad Woman and lives in California.

Enjoy this episode with Amanda, check out Touched Out, and follow Amanda on Instagram and her website. You can subscribe to her Substack Mad Woman here.