Writer Mother Monster

(July 22, 2021) Margaret Adams writes short fiction, creative nonfiction, and essays. She was a Best American Essays 2019 Notable, the winner of the Blue Mesa Review 2018 Nonfiction Contest, and the winner of the Pacifica Literary Review 2017 Fiction Contest, and she’s a fiction editor for JMWW. Originally from Maine, she currently lives on the AZ/NM border in the Navajo Nation where she works as a family nurse practitioner.

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/

(July 8, 2021) Rachel Yoder is the author of Nightbitch (Doubleday), which has been optioned for film with Amy Adams set to star. She is a graduate of the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program, holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Arizona, and is a founding editor of draft: the journal of process. Rachel grew up in a Mennonite community in the Appalachian foothills of eastern Ohio and now lives in Iowa City with her husband and son. 

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/

(July 1, 2021) With Alicia Elliott, author of the thought-provoking essay collection A Mind Spread Out on the Ground; Liz Harmer, author of a memoir about wrestling with bipolar disorder, her hospitalization as a teenager, and postpartum depression; and Meg Leonard, a poet with a new collection, book of lullabies, that grapples with mental illness and new motherhood.

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/

(June 10, 2021) Kate Baer is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and poet based on the East Coast. She has been featured in publications such as Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue.com, Entertainment Weekly, & Literary Hub. Her first book, What Kind Of Woman, is out now with HarperCollins. “In these confident and fearless poems, Baer suggests that the deepest and most vulnerable love is found in life’s imperfections.” (Publisher’s Weekly)

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/

(June 3, 2021) Kendra DeColo is the author of three poetry collections; most recently I Am Not Trying to Hide My Hungers From the World (BOA Editions, 2021). She has received awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and others, and her poems and essays have appeared in American Poetry Review, Tin House Magazine, Waxwing, Los Angeles Review, Bitch Magazine, VIDA, and elsewhere. She has performed her work in comedy clubs and music venues including the Newport Folk Festival, and she has taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Vanderbilt University, and the Tennessee Prison for Women. She currently teaches at The Hugo House and lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Kendra reaffirms the action of mothering as heroic, brutal, and hardcore, interrogating patriarchal narratives about childbirth, postpartum healing, and motherhood through the lens of pop culture and the political zeitgeist.

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/

(May 27, 2021) Tananarive Due teaches Black Horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA and is an executive producer on Shudder’s documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror. A leading voice in black speculative fiction for more than 20 years, Due has won an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a British Fantasy Award, and her writing has been included in best-of-the-year anthologies. Her books include Ghost Summer: Stories, My Soul to Keep, and The Good House. She and her late mother, civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due, co-authored Freedom in the Family: a Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights. She has a 17-year-old son and 35-year-old stepdaughter and describes writer-motherhood in 3 words as “every single day.”

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/

(May 13, 2021) Lan Samantha Chang, Director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, is the author of Hunger; Inheritance; All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost; and The Family Chao (W.W. Norton, 2022). She has a 13-year-old daughter and describes writer-motherhood in 3 words as “Need more time.” In this episode, Sam talks about growing up one of the only Chinese kids in Wisconsin, offers advice for applying to residencies, and explains her method for writing while raising a family and holding down a demanding career. And, she talks about a real dog in an imaginary book.

Writer Mother Monster is an interactive interview 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/

(May 6, 2021) Deesha Philyaw’s debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award in fiction and won The Story Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Her children are 17 and 22, and she describes writer-motherhood as “intense, complex, evolving.” In this episode, Deesha talks about starting her writing career when her daughter was 2, what she learned from sending fan mail to other writers, revisiting an abandoned novel, and how she ended her award-winning collection with a sigh.

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/

(April 29, 2021) Sadie Hoagland is the author of Strange Children and American Grief in Four Stages and has two children, ages 6 and 2. She describes writer motherhood as “exhausting, hilarious, real.” In this episode, Sadie talks about multigenerational motherhood, why ambivalence is underrated, her changing relationship with darkness, and the language of trauma. And, she reads an excerpt of her book–from a ghost’s perspective.

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/

(April 24, 2021) Stephanie Burt is a poet, literary critic, professor, and transgender activist who the New York Times called “one of the most influential poetry critics of her generation.” She has two children, ages 11 and 15 and describes writer-motherhood in three words as “busy, conflicted, resourceful.” In this episode, Stephanie talks about claiming motherhood, finding kinship with Mr. Spock, the horror of The Giving Tree, the misery of octopus motherhood, role-playing games, X-Men, and more.

Writer Mother Monster is an interactive interview 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/