Writer Mother Monster

Anna V. Q. Ross’s most recent book—Flutter, Kick—won the 2020 Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award and is forthcoming from Red Hen Press in 2022. She is the author of 3 previous poetry collections: Figuring, If a Storm, and Hawk Weather and her work has received fellowships from organizations including the Fulbright Foundation. She is poetry editor for Salamander, teaches at Emerson College, and lives with her family in Dorchester, MA, where she runs the performance series Unearthed Song & Poetry and raises chickens. She has two kids ages 11 and 14 and describes writer-motherhood in three words as Fractured. Brilliant. Sleepless.

Writer Mother Monster is a conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice as we make space for creative endeavors.

Support the show

If you appreciate what you hear, consider becoming a patron/ess of Writer Mother Monster. Depending upon your level of support, you can tell me who you want to hear and topics you’d like to hear about, send me questions for guests in advance of interviews, receive a letter of thanks, a signed book–and more! Thank you for contributing to WMM’s sustainability. www.writermothermonster.com/donate/

(November 11) Sara Hosey is the author of Home Is Where the Hurt Is: Media Depictions of Wives and Mothers, which looks at representations of the domestic in popular culture, as well as 2 young adult novels: Iphigenia Murphy and Imagining Elsewhere. She has a Ph.D. in American Literature and is a professor of English, Creative Writing, and Women and Gender Studies at a New York area community college. Sara has an 11-year old and a 9-year old and she and her partner are certified foster parents; they recently had a 4-year old foster daughter staying with them. Sara describes writer-motherhood in 3 words as: Fun. Flow Finite.

Writer Mother Monster is a conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice as we make space for creative endeavors.

Support the show

If you appreciate what you hear, consider becoming a patron/ess of Writer Mother Monster. Depending upon your level of support, you can tell me who you want to hear and topics you’d like to hear about, send me questions for guests in advance of interviews, receive a letter of thanks, a signed book–and more! Thank you for contributing to WMM’s sustainability. www.writermothermonster.com/donate/

(November 4) Sheba Karim is the author of the YA novels Skunk Girl, That Thing We Call a Heart, which made several Best Book lists including Bank Street and Kirkus, and Mariam Sharma Hits the Road, which was named a NPR Best Book of the Year, and The Marvelous Mirza Girls (May 2021). Her fiction and essays have been featured in 580 Split, Asia Literary Review, Femina, India Today, Literary Hub, Off Assignment, Shenandoah, South Asian Review, The Rumpus, Time Out Delhi and in several anthologies in the United States and India. She has an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is a Writer-in-Residence at Vanderbilt University. Sheba has 2 kids, ages 4 and 7, and describes writer-motherhood in three words as Submission, isolation, wonder.

Writer Mother Monster is a conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice as we make space for creative endeavors.

Support the show

If you appreciate what you hear, consider becoming a patron/ess of Writer Mother Monster. Depending upon your level of support, you can tell me who you want to hear and topics you’d like to hear about, send me questions for guests in advance of interviews, receive a letter of thanks, a signed book–and more! Thank you for contributing to WMM’s sustainability. www.writermothermonster.com/donate/

Note: Apologies for the technical difficulties at the start--our intro song refused to play!

Kristie Robin Johnson is an educator, essayist, and poet from Augusta, GA. She is the current Chair of the Department of Humanities at Georgia Military College’s Augusta campus where she is an Assistant Professor of English. A graduate of the MFA Creative Writing program at Georgia College and State University, Kristie’s writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has received other awards and recognition including the 2020 Porter Fleming Prize for Nonfiction and the 2021 Page Prize for Nonfiction. Her work has been published in numerous literary magazines, journals, and anthologies. Her first book, High Cotton, was released in 2020 by Raised Voice Press and has been recognized as the finalist in the memoir category for 2021 Georgia Author of the Year. Kristie has two sons, ages 14 and 21, and she describes writer-motherhood in 3 words as “inspiring, exhausting, LOVE.”

Writer Mother Monster is a conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice as we make space for creative endeavors.

Support the show

If you appreciate what you hear, consider becoming a patron/ess of Writer Mother Monster. Depending upon your level of support, you can tell me who you want to hear and topics you’d like to hear about, send me questions for guests in advance of interviews, receive a letter of thanks, a signed book–and more! Thank you for contributing to WMM’s sustainability. www.writermothermonster.com/donate/

Ramona Ausubel is the author of two novels and two story collections. Her most recent book, Awayland, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection, a Finalist for the California Book Award, Colorado Book Award and long-listed for the Story Prize. She is also the author of Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty, No One is Here Except All of Us and A Guide to Being Born. She is the recipient of the PEN/USA Fiction Award, the Cabell First Novelist Award and was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Award. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Tin House, One Story, Ploughshares and many other journals and she teaches in the MFA programs at the Institute of American Indian Arts and Colorado State University. Ramona lives in Colorado where she has two children, ages 7 and 10, and describes writer-motherhood in three words as “effort plus magic.”

Writer Mother Monster is a conversation series series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice as we make space for creative endeavors.

Support the show

If you appreciate what you hear, consider becoming a patron/ess of Writer Mother Monster. Depending upon your level of support, you can tell me who you want to hear and topics you’d like to hear about, send me questions for guests in advance of interviews, receive a letter of thanks, a signed book–and more! Thank you for contributing to WMM’s sustainability. www.writermothermonster.com/donate/

Tara Laskowski’s debut suspense novel One Night Gone won the Agatha Award, Macavity Award, and the Anthony Award, and her second novel, The Mother Next Door, was published in October 2021. She is also the author of two short story collections and was the longtime editor of the online flash fiction journal SmokeLong Quarterly. A graduate of Susquehanna University and George Mason University, Tara lives in Virginia, where she has a nine-year-old son and describes writer-motherhood in three (and a half?) words as “learning to be efficient.”

Writer Mother Monster is a conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice as we make space for creative endeavors.

Support the show

If you appreciate what you hear, consider becoming a patron/ess of Writer Mother Monster. Depending upon your level of support, you can tell me who you want to hear and topics you’d like to hear about, send me questions for guests in advance of interviews, receive a letter of thanks, a signed book–and more! Thank you for contributing to WMM’s sustainability. www.writermothermonster.com/donate/

Diksha Basu is an actor and the author of the novels Destination Wedding and The Windfall, which is under adaptation for a television series by Shonali Bose. ELLE magazine said The Windfall broke stereotypes of exoticism surrounding India while The Wire called it a “shrewd and unstintingly funny story about the neuroses of New Delhi’s 1%.”

Writer Mother Monster is a conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice as we make space for creative endeavors.

Support the show

If you appreciate what you hear, consider becoming a patron/ess of Writer Mother Monster. Depending upon your level of support, you can tell me who you want to hear and topics you’d like to hear about, send me questions for guests in advance of interviews, receive a letter of thanks, a signed book–and more! Thank you for contributing to WMM’s sustainability. www.writermothermonster.com/donate/

(September 2, 2021) Kelly Sue DeConnick is the force behind Carol Danvers’ reinvention as Captain Marvel and is the first female writer of an ongoing Avengers title in AVENGERS ASSEMBLE. In 2013, Kelly Sue debuted on the independent scene with the mythological Western PRETTY DEADLY, followed by the sci-fi kidney-punch BITCH PLANET. She began writing for DC Comics with the ongoing series AQUAMAN in 2018 and develops TV with her husband and partner, Matt Fraction, as Milkfed Criminal Masterminds. Kelly Sue has two children ages 11 and 13 and describes writer-motherhood in three words as Personal, Hilarious, Clarifying.

Support the show

If you appreciate what you hear, consider becoming a patron/ess of Writer Mother Monster. Depending upon your level of support, you can tell me who you want to hear and topics you’d like to hear about, send me questions for guests in advance of interviews, receive a letter of thanks, a signed book–and more! Thank you for contributing to WMM’s sustainability. www.writermothermonster.com/donate/

Author of seven books, Leslie Lehr explores the duality of today’s women to navigate a new path between sexy and sacred. Salma Hayek is developing Leslie’s critically acclaimed new memoir, A Boob’s Life, into a comedy series for HBO Max.

Writer Mother Monster is an interactive conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice as we make space for creative endeavors.

Support the show

If you appreciate what you hear, consider becoming a patron/ess of Writer Mother Monster. Depending upon your level of support, you can tell me who you want to hear and topics you’d like to hear about, send me questions for guests in advance of interviews, receive a letter of thanks, a signed book–and more! Thank you for contributing to WMM’s sustainability. www.writermothermonster.com/donate/

Content warning: Childhood sexual abuse

(August 5, 2021) Dorothy Allison’s novel Bastard Out of Carolina was a finalist for the National Book Award, became an award-winning movie, and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. She was an award-winning editor for numerous early feminist and lesbian & gay journals and her many publications include The Women Who Hate Me, Trash, and Cavedweller, which became a NY Times Notable book of the year and was adapted for the stage and screen. Dorothy lives in Northern California with her partner Alix and her son, Wolf Michael, and describes writer-motherhood in 3 words as: Exhausted, Stubborn, Exhilarated.

Writer Mother Monster is a conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice as we make space for creative endeavors.

Support the show

If you appreciate what you hear, consider becoming a patron/ess of Writer Mother Monster. Depending upon your level of support, you can tell me who you want to hear and topics you’d like to hear about, send me questions for guests in advance of interviews, receive a letter of thanks, a signed book–and more! Thank you for contributing to WMM’s sustainability. www.writermothermonster.com/donate/