Writer Mother Monster

Megan Stielstra is the author of three collections: Everyone Remain Calm, Once I Was Cool, and The Wrong Way to Save Your Life, the Nonfiction Book of the Year from the Chicago Review of Books. Her work appears in the Best American Essays, New York Times, The Believer, Poets & Writers, Tin House, Longreads, Guernica, LitHub, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. A longtime company member with 2nd Story, she has told stories for National Public Radio, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Steppenwolf Theatre, and regularly with the Paper Machete live news magazine at the Green Mill. She teaches creative nonfiction at Northwestern University and is an editor at Northwestern University Press. She has one child, who just turned 16, and describes writer-motherhood in three words as “Oh my God."Writer Mother Monster is a community and conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice. Each episode is streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, then archived on writermothermonster.comSupport the showIf 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/

Fox North (call them Fox!) is a critically acclaimed novelist for teenagers and adults. Fox, a graduate of the University of Florida’s MFA program in poetry, was a finalist in 2018 with the Sustainable Arts Foundation, the recipient of a Creatives Rebuild NY grant, a Publisher’s Weekly Flying Start, and an Analog AnLab’s Reader’s Choice Award winner. Their novels for teenagers – written under the name Phoebe North – have been published by Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins. Their short fiction, critical writing, and poetry has appeared with Analog, Daily Science Fiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, the YA Review Network, Umbrella Journal, District Lit, 2river View and Strange Horizons (among many others others), and in anthologies such as the Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide, Hungry Hearts, Among the Shadows, and Speculative Fiction 2015. From their home in the Hudson Valley, they save Girl Scout camps, write songs, climb trees, and have better taste in music than you do.Writer Mother Monster is a community and conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice. Each episode is streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, then archived right here as a video and audio podcast.Support the showIf 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/

Welcome to a special live episode of Writer Mother Monster, a community and conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice. The show is typically streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, and then released as an audio podcast on all major platforms--but today's episode is in-person at the 2023 CT Lit Fest, hosted at Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut.Today's guest, Dr. Janet Garcia-Hallett, is a criminal justice professor at the University of New Haven's Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences. She earned her PhD in criminal justice from Rutgers University-Newark in 2017. From 2017 to 2021, she worked as a criminal justice professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. At this point, during the pandemic, Janet made the decision to move back to the East Coast to be closer to family and a support network. As an Afro-Latina mother, Janet has maintained a personal interest in mothers' experiences before, during, and after incarceration. Her non-fiction book, INVISIBLE MOTHERS: UNSEEN YET HYPERVISIBLE AFTER INCARCERATION is based on interviews she conducted throughout New York City with formerly incarcerated mothers of color. Her book shares mothers' stories and explores how mothers of color navigate motherhood post-incarceration. Although Janet was first drawn to this work due to her upbringing in Harlem, she continues to study the impact of the criminal legal system and advocate for communities of color. Janet has 3 children ages 7, 4, and 2,, and she describes writer-motherhood in 3 words as Versatile, Determine, Badass.A special thanks to our sponsors and patrons listed on the Writer Mother Monster website. Your support helps make this show possible. If you enjoy this episode, please become a patron/ess to help keep this podcast going. Learn more at writermothermonster.comSupport the showIf 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/

A panel discussion with Chaya Bhuvaneswar, a psychiatrist and author of White Dancing Elephants, who has treated postpartum patients in-hospital, including at a forensic psych ward for women awaiting trial for harming their children. Sharline Chiang is a writer, editor, book coach, publicist, and journalist who wrote, among many other articles, Don’t Call It Baby Blues, the only existing online magazine article on Asian American survivors of postpartum depression. Kathryn Gahl is the author of The Yellow Toothbrush, a look at anxiety, depression, OCD, and paranoid thinking through the eyes of a mother whose daughter is experiencing a jail sentence after committing filicide. Thank you, viewers and listeners, for helping to make Writer Mother Monster a safe space for our guests to share their stories as we come together tonight to illuminate and complicate what we think we know about postpartum psychosis and depression. Support the showIf 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/

Elizabeth Nunez emigrated from Trinidad to the US at age 19. Winner of an American Book Award, an Independent Publishers Award, a PEN Josephine Miles Award, and a Hurston Wright Legacy Award, she is the author of a memoir and ten novels, four of which were selected as New York Times Editors Choice. She is the co-founder with John Oliver Killens of the National Black Writers Conference and executive producer of the series Black Writers in America. She has served on the jury for national and international literary prizes/awards, and is a Distinguished Professor at Hunter College, CUNY. She has one son, age 46, and two granddaughters ages 15 and 22, and describes writer-motherhood in 3 words as: "life-affirming essential."A few notes! The official Writer Mother Monster shop has everything from t-shirts and tea towels to onesies and undies so you can support the show in style! And this Mother’s Day, May 14, treat yourself to a writing class with me, your host and the author of the story collection Animal Wife. We’ll talk about writer-motherhood, share strategies for prioritizing our craft, and write. You’ll leave the workshop armed with a plan for recommitting to your creative work. Finally, a special thanks to our sponsors and patrons listed on the Writer Mother Monster website. Your support helps make this show possible. If you enjoy this episode, please become a patron/ess to help keep this podcast going. For details on the store, class, and sponsorship, visit writermothermonster.comSupport the showIf 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/

SAMANTHA SILVA is an author, playwright, and screenwriter based in Idaho. She’s sold film projects to Paramount, Universal, and New Line Cinema, and she is the author of Mr. Dickens and His Carol (Flatiron Books, 2017), and Love and Fury: A Novel of Mary Wollstonecraft (Flatiron Books, 2021). Sam wrote and directed the award- winning short script, THE BIG BURN, which premiered at the Sun Valley Film Festival in 2017 and adapted Mr. Dickens and His Carol for Seattle Repertory Theater in 2022. Sam has 3 children, ages 28, 26, and 22, and describes writer-motherhood in three words as NECESSITY OF INVENTION.Writer Mother Monster is a community and conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice. Each episode is streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, then released as a podcast and hosted on www.writermothermonster.comSupport the showIf 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/

(February 14, 2023) Rebecca Makkai’s last novel, THE GREAT BELIEVERS, was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award; it was the winner of the ALA Carnegie Medal, the Stonewall Book Award, the Clark Prize, and the LA Times Book Prize; and it was one of the New York Times’ Ten Best Books of 2018. Her other books are the novels THE BORROWER and THE HUNDRED-YEAR HOUSE, and the collection MUSIC FOR WARTIME—four stories from which appeared in The Best American Short Stories. A 2022 Guggenheim Fellow, Rebecca is on the MFA faculties of Sierra Nevada University and Northwestern University, and is Artistic Director of StoryStudio Chicago. Her new novel, I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU, is forthcoming in February, 2023. She has 2 kids ages 12 and 15.Writer Mother Monster is a community and conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice. Each episode is streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, then released as an audio podcast. www.writermothermonster.comSupport the showIf 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/

Artress Bethany White, associate professor of English at East Stroudsburg University, is a poet, essayist, and literary critic. She is the recipient of the Trio Award for her poetry collection My Afmerica: poems and the essay collection, Survivor’s Guilt: Essays on Race and American Identity, which received a 2022 Next Generation Finalist Indie Book Award and is listed as a CLMP social justice read. Her research interests include American slave archives and contemporary African American prose and poetics. She has four children ranging in age from 14 to 26, and describes writer-motherhood in three words as Determined, Fierce, Improvisational.Writer Mother Monster is a community and conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice.Support the showIf 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/

Lisa Czarina Michaud is an American novelist of Italian-Mexican origins whose work is inspired by her life experiences. She attended The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington before stumbling through adulthood in Los Angeles. In 2009, she followed in the footsteps of her jazz-singing grandmother and moved to France where she currently resides. Her first novel Slanted and Disenchanted explores complex relationships between mother and daughter, sexual tension in friendships, the confusion of adulting...and the soundtracks that get us through it all. Lisa has one son age 7. She describes writer-motherhood in 3 words as: take it easy.Writer Mother Monster is a community and conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice. Each episode is streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, then archived on www.writermothermonster.comSupport the showIf 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/

(December 1, 2022) Anna Hogeland is a psychotherapist in private practice, with an MSW from Smith College School of Social Work and an MFA from UC Irvine. She lives in Vermont. Her essays have appeared in LitHub, Gloss, Big Issue, and elsewhere. The Long Answer, sold in 8 countries to date, is her first novel.Support the showIf 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/

(January 10, 2023) Caroline Hagood is an Assistant Professor of Literature, Writing and Publishing and Director of Undergraduate Writing at St. Francis College in Brooklyn. She is the author of the poetry books, Lunatic Speaks and Making Maxine’s Baby, the book-length essay, Ways of Looking at a Woman, the novel, Ghosts of America, a book-length essay Weird Girls, and her novel Filthy Creation is forthcoming in March 2023. Her work has appeared in publications including Creative Nonfiction, LitHub, the Kenyon Review, Hanging Loose, the Huffington Post, the Guardian, Salon, and Elle. Caroline lives in Brooklyn and has two kids ages 6 and 9. She describes writer-motherhood in 3 words as: hybrid effing monster.Writer Mother Monster is a conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice. Each episode is streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, then archived as an audio podcast. www.writermothermonster.comSupport the showIf 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 10, 2022) Yexandra “Yex” Diaz is a multi-disciplinary artist whose oeuvre is her sobering expression of what it is to exist in a world of resistance, resilience, and revolution during a new era of renaissance rooted in healing. Chicago born and New Haven raised, the polarizing reality of oppression juxtaposed alongside privilege inspires Yex, an Oral Narrator, to employ the art of spoken word as a vehicle for messages that raise awareness around social and environmental injustices. Yex’s style uplifts afro-indigenous culture while evoking radical spiritualism to rewrite the dangerous single narratives which plague stigmatized peoples.Writer Mother Monster is a conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice. Each episode is streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, then archived as an audio podcast. www.writermothermonster.comSupport the showIf 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 3, 2022) Sarah M Jasat grew up believing her family was very strange but later discovered she was Indian. She lives in Leicester, UK, and writes short fiction about the strangeness of family. She dreams about writing a novel for older children if only she could get her own children to go to sleep.Writer Mother Monster is a conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice. Each episode is streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, then archived as an audio podcast. www.writermothermonster.comSupport the showIf 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/

(October 27) Lindsay Lerman is the author of two experimental novels, I’m From Nowhere (2019) and What Are You (2022). She is also a translator. She has a Ph.D. in philosophy and sometimes teaches philosophy and creative writing. Her essays and short stories have been published in LA Review of Books, New York Tyrant, Entropy, and elsewhere. She is working on her third novel and a screenplay. She has a nine-year-old daughter, and describes writer motherhood in three words as TOO MUCH 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. Each episode is streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, then released as a video and audio podcast. writermothermonster.comSupport the showIf 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/

(October 20) Toni McLellan is a marketing writer by day and a round-the-clock phrase-gatherer. For two decades, she’s written for major magazines and brands, including a stint as an outdoor family travel writer. She’s also published essays with Outside, KitchenAid, and Fort Collins Magazine. In 2022, Toni started New-to-me Phrases, a weekly newsletter dedicated to curiosity, language, and humor. She lives in a quaint town northwest of Chicago with her husband, their three neurodiverse & queer adult kids, three parrots, a fish named Al Carpone, and a pink axolotl named Mimi.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. Each episode is streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, then released as a video and audio podcast. writermothermonster.comSupport the showIf 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/

(October 13) Caroline Leavitt is the NYT Bestselling author of 13 novels, including With or Without You and Cruel Beautiful World. She is also the cofounder of A Mighty Blaze, a blogger/columnist for Psychology Today, and a book critic for People Magazine. A New York Foundation of the Arts Fellow, she was long-listed for the Maine Readers Prize, and was a Sundance Screenwriting Lab finalist.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. Each episode is streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, then released as a video and audio podcast. writermothermonster.comSupport the showIf 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/

Shin Yu Pai is a poet, essayist, and visual artist. She is the author of several books of poetry, including VIRGA (Empty Bowl, 2021), and served as the fourth poet laureate of the city of Redmond. In 2014, Shin Yu was nominated for a Stranger Genius Award in Literature. She is the creator and host of The Blue Suit, a podcast on Asian American stories, for KUOW, Seattle’s NPR affiliate. She lives with her husband and 9-year-old son in the Pacific Northwest and describes writer-motherhood in three words as interrelated, elusive, empowering.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. Each episode is streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, then released as an audio podcast.Support the showIf 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 26) This is a special episode on writing motherhood and sex with Tracey Livesay, Cat Sebastian, and Julie Tieu. Tracey Livesay’s latest release, Like Lovers Do, was named one of the 100 Best Fiction Books of 2020 by Kirkus Reviews and one of the Top 10 Romances of 2020 by Entertainment Weekly. Cat Sebastian has written sixteen queer historical romances and her books have received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist. Julie Tieu is a Chinese American contemporary romance author based in the Los Angeles area. Her debut novel, The Donut Trap, is loosely inspired by the years she spent working at her family’s donut shop.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. Each episode is streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, then archived as an audio podcast.Support the showIf 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 19) Elana Bell is the author of Mother Country (BOA Editions in 2020), poems about fertility, motherhood, and mental illness. She is also the founder of the Mother-Artist Salon, a virtual community dedicated to supporting mothers in their artistic practice. Elana’s debut collection of poetry, Eyes, Stones (LSU Press 2012), was selected by Fanny Howe as the winner of the 2011 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, and brings her complex heritage as the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors to consider the difficult question of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.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. Each episode is streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, then archived right here as an audio podcast.Support the showIf 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 5) This is a special episode on poets writing motherhood with Emily Pérez and Nancy Reddy, co-editors of The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood (UGA, 2022). bell hooks said: “No woman has ever written enough.” This truth demands that we make space for the essential writing of mothers, too. Motherhood is an experience central to all our lives, and The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood features work from queer mothers, single mothers, adoptive and foster mothers, women whose experiences with motherhood include infertility and loss and childlessness and abortion, and more.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. Each episode is streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, then archived right here as an audio podcast.Support the showIf 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/