This Mama Is Lit!

Holly Rizzuto Palker and Amanda Fields chat with Dr. Robyn Kozlowitz, author of Post Traumatic Parenting, about using guilt as a teacher, discovering how stress and trauma affect parenting, and creating patterns of joy. Dr. Kozlowitz argues that the best time to rewire our trauma brain is when we are parenting. It gives us an opportunity to heal our inner child through admitting our own damage and not passing it onto our children. By recognizing our trauma, we take the shame away.Dr. Robyn Koslowitz is a clinical child psychologist and the author of the recently released book Post-Traumatic Parenting: Break the Cycle, Become the Parent You Always Wanted to Be. She’s a leading expert on the intersection of trauma and parenting, helping parents understand how both early life experiences and more recent events can shape—and sometimes sabotage—their ability to respond to their children with calm, clarity, and connection.Her core belief is simple but powerful: Parenting is a skill—and everyone can learn it. If you’re struggling, it’s not because you’re broken. It’s often because trauma has blocked your access to the parenting tools you need. And not only can you learn to parent skillfully after trauma—you can actually heal in the process.Through her book, podcast, YouTube channel, and the Post-Traumatic Parenting Summit, Dr. K offers practical tools, clinical insight, and deep compassion to help parents move from reactivity to intention.Author WebsiteInstagramYouTubePodcastLinkedIn This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com

Holly Rizzuto Palker and Eva Langston chat with Michelle Lerner, author of Ring, about defining and treating complicated grief, living with irreparable damage, and finding healing in nature. Ring takes the reader on an unforgettable odyssey through the depths of human emotion, from the hollows of grief to the heights of newfound hope. In the backdrop of a snow-covered sanctuary designed to aid the dying, Lee, a middle-aged non-binary person from the Midwest, grapples with the unbearable weight of losing their young adult daughter. Abandoning their previous life and even the comfort of a longtime spouse, Lee is driven by a quest for closure—or an end to it all.Michelle Lerner is the author of the novel Ring, published by Bancroft Press, the poetry chapbook Protection, published by Poetry Box and she has had personal essays in publications like Time and The Hill; She’s published poems and other writing in journals such as Shenandoah and VQR. She has an MFA in Poetry from The New School and a law degree from Harvard Law School. Michelle directs the Laura Boss Poetry Foundation and mentors young writers in Gaza through the organization We are Not Numbers. She’s a recovering public interest lawyer currently emerging from late-stage neurological Lyme Disease, living with her family in rural New Jersey.Author WebsiteInstagramBluesky This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com

Amanda Fields and Holly Rizzuto Palker chat with Claire Adam, author of Love Forms, about forced delivery in Venezuela and testing the mother-child bond in fiction. Love Forms, longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, centers on Dawn, a 58 year old mother of two grown sons. She finds herself returning to her past and a secret she has kept for many years. When Dawn was 16, her parents sent her from Trinidad to Venezuela to have a baby and give her up for adoption. She’s now trying to track down the daughter she gave up, which leads her to retrace her journey from Trinidad to Venezuela to London, and question not only that fateful decision she made as a teenager but every turn in the road of her life since.Claire Adam’s debut novel, Golden Child, was listed as one of the BBC’s “100 Novels That Shaped Our World” and was awarded the Desmond Elliott Prize, the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, the McKitterick Prize, and the Barnes & Noble Discover Award. She was born and raised in Trinidad. She studied physics at Brown University and later received an MA in creative writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. She lives in London.Author WebsiteInstagram This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com

Amanda Fields and Holly Rizzuto Palker chat with Teri Vlassopoulos, author of Living Expenses, about technology creep in modern relationships, fertility treatments’ effect on emotional intimacy, and bookstore karaoke. Teri’s most recent novel interrogates the strain that can accompany even the strongest of relationships and also the discovery that so often it is when we are on the way to something else and stuck in the in-between period that we discover our true selves.Teri Vlassopoulos is the author of Living Expenses (Invisible Publishing, 2025), Escape Plans (Invisible Publishing, 2015) and Bats or Swallows (Invisible Publishing, 2010). Her fiction and non-fiction have been published in Room Magazine, Today’s Parent, Catapult, The Millions, The Rumpus, The Toast, Open Book, and more. She has been nominated for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and she sits on the Board of Directors of the FOLD (the Festival of Literary Diversity). Teri lives in Toronto.Author WebsiteInstagramSubstack This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com

Amanda Fields and Eva Langston chat with Brittany Micka-Foos, author of It’s No Fun Anymore, about domestic horror tropes and how a neurodiversity diagnosis offered insight into writing and motherhood. The lack of safety felt in womanhood and discomfort that lies within it is the discussion that Brittany strives to acknowledge and pursue. Her most recent book is a collection of eight short stories that explore the politics of victimization, the sites of trauma on women’s bodies, and women’s attempts to divine meaning from suffering.Brittany is the author of the poetry chapbook a litany of words as fragile as window glass (Bottlecap Press, 2024). Her work has been published in Ninth Letter, Witness Magazine, NonBinary Review, Hobart, Literary Mama, Identity Theory, and elsewhere. A former victim’s rights lawyer in Washington, DC, she turned to writing after the birth of her first child.Author WebsiteInstagramLiterary Mama Essay (2023) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com

Amanda and Eva chat with Domenica Ruta, author of All the Mothers, about a new dialectic in motherhood, the specific anxieties of single moms, and the necessity of single mom communities. She also explores the trials of the family court system and the realities of what those minefields can mean for single moms.Domenica’s latest book, All the Mothers, is a novel that follows three single mothers in New York whose kids share the same deadbeat father. The protagonists Sandy, Stephanie, and Kaya eventually meet and begin to redefine family structure as single mothers. As they try to stay afloat financially while raising their children, and as these children grow and change, the father, Justin, creates numerous roadblocks and conflict along the way. Overall, this novel is real and funny, all while aptly narrating the intense struggles of single mothers, who are often judged for not maintaining the status quo.Domenica Ruta is the New York Times bestselling author of the memoir With or Without You and the novel The Last Day. She teaches in the creative writing program at Sarah Lawrence College, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Cut, The American Scholar, Oprah online, and many others.Author WebsiteInstagram This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com

Eva Langston and Amanda Fields chat with Jessie Harrold, author of Mothershift, about matrescence - the process of becoming a mother, the four radical transformations, and the seven mother powers. Jessie explains how mothers can be agents of change, and how modern mothers in crisis can step into their innate powers to reclaim themselves.Mothershift is the first book of its kind to dive deeply into the science and soul of matrescence, the 2-3 year transition into motherhood. Mothershift helps mothers identify the cascade of changes they can expect as they enter motherhood, normalizes the feelings of grief and loss of self they may feel along the way, and reassures them that they are not broken, they are becoming. The book helps readers cultivate a sense of empowerment and leadership in motherhood, showing how mothering is a counterculture act. Mothershift is a Nautilus Gold Medal winner, has been featured in international media, and is being recognized as contributing to a pivotal development in our understanding of matrescence.Jessie Harrold is a coach and doula who has been supporting women through radical life transformations and other rites of passage for over fifteen years. She works one-on-one with women and mothers, facilitates mentorship programs, women’s circles and rituals, and hosts retreats and nature-based experiences. Jessie is the author of Mothershift: Reclaiming Motherhood as a Rite of Passage (Shambhala 2024) and Project Body Love: my quest to love my body and the surprising truth I found instead. She is also the host of The Becoming Podcast. Jessie lives on the east coast of Canada where she mothers her two children, writes, and stewards the land.Author WebsiteInstagram This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com

Holly Rizzuto Palker and Eva Langston chat with Liz Alterman, author of Sad Sacked, about the perils and freedoms of unemployment, the dichotomy of working moms, and the need to write the book you want to read. Diving deep into her own family’s dual layoffs, Liz’s memoir uses humor as a healing force as she details the downsizing and uploading of life’s losses and wins.Liz Alterman is the author of the young adult thriller, He’ll Be Waiting, the suspense novels The Perfect Neighborhood, The House on Cold Creek Lane, and You Shouldn’t Have Done That, as well as the romcom Claire Casey’s Had Enough. Liz’s most recent literary thriller, A Different Type of Poison, was just released this week. Her work has been published by The New York Times, The Washington Post, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and other outlets. Subscribe to her Substack where she shares the ups and downs of the writing life (and cat photos). Liz lives in New Jersey with her husband, three sons and two cats. She spends most days repeatedly microwaving the same cup of coffee and looking up synonyms.Author WebsiteInstagramSubstack This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com

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.Author WebsiteInstagramSubstack This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com

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.Author WebsiteInstagramFacebook This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com

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.Author WebsiteInstagramFacebook This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com

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.Author WebsiteInstagram This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com

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.Author websiteInstagram This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com

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.Sign up for our email newsletter to become a Literary Mama Insider!Sent just once a month, you’ll receive an email to let you know our new issue is live on the months we publish. On other months, you’ll receive a Between the Issues newsletter with editor picks, exclusive content, and more. A few times a year, we will send emails about fundraising or special events so you can join in the fun. Plus receive our 8 Tips for Mama Writers as a thank you!Jane FriedmanCatherine NewmanNicole HaroutunianTovah KleinMaggie SmithNancy ReddyK.T. NguyenRachelle BergsteinKathleen GlasgowAmy ShearnNicole CooleyMolly SpencerLena Khalaf TuffahaJessica Slice (releasing 11/20/2025)Tiffanie DraytonJudith SmithJessie Harrold (releasing 12/4/2025)Amy Bornman Kelly McMastersJacinda Townsend This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com

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.Author WebsiteInstagramFacebookPodcastSubstack This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com

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.Author WebsiteInstagramThreadsTikTokSubstack This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com

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/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/catmargulisFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/catmargulisYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpkg_U6XtfcbptMuCXd_p_gSpotify: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com

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/Substack: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pennyzang/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PennyZangWriter/X: https://x.com/Penny_Zang This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com

Eva Langston and Amanda Fields chat with Ellen Wiles about her second novel, The Unexpected, published in November 2024 by HarperCollins. It follows two best friends, Robin and Kessie, who find themselves platonically coparenting a baby. It's a book about different species of love, including friendship and kinship, about motherhood and fertility, and about unconventional and queer families.Ellen Wiles is a British novelist, sound artist, literary anthropologist, and Creative Writing professor at the University of Exeter, UK. She has previously worked as a barrister and as a musician. She is the author of two novels, The Unexpected (2024) and The Invisible Crowd (2017), and two non-fiction books, Live Literature (2021) and Saffron Shadows (2015). She also makes literary audio work engaging with nature and landscape, and is currently artist-in-residence at an environmental science center.Author website: https://www.ellenwiles.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ellenwiles/#BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/ellenwiles.bsky.socialLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellen-wiles-a8478951/?originalSubdomain=uk This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com

Eva Langston and Amanda Fields chat with Emma Pattee, author of Tilt, about parsing capitalism and creative pursuits, powering large-scale climate activism, and questioning how to love something you know will die.Emma Pattee is a climate journalist and fiction writer living in Portland, Oregon. She has written about climate change for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian, and her fiction has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Idaho Review, Carve Magazine, and many more. Her debut novel, Tilt, was published by Simon & Schuster in March 2025.Author website: https://www.emmapattee.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emmapattee/?hl=en This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com