Good Mom on Paper

edited by Stacey May Fowles & Jen Sookfong Lee

Image | BOOK COVER: Good Mom on Paper by Stacey May Fowles & Jen Sookfong Lee

(Book*Hug Press)

The experience of motherhood is fundamental, yet rarely discussed in connection with literary or creative life. How do we navigate the twin devotions of love and art? How does motherhood disrupt the creative process? How does it enhance it
Good Mom on Paper is a collection of twenty essays that goes beyond the clichés to explore the fraught, beautiful and complicated relationship between motherhood and creativity. These texts disclose the often-invisible challenges of a literary life with little ones: the manuscript written with a baby sleeping in a carrier, missing a book launch for a bedtime, crafting a promotional tour around childcare. But they also celebrate the systems that nurture writers who are mothers; the successes; the intricate, interconnected joys of these roles.
Honest and intimate, critical and hopeful, this collection offers solace and joy to creative mothers and asks how we can better support their work. Mothers have long been telling each other these vital stories in private. Good Mom on Paper makes them available to everyone who needs them.
With contributions by Heather O'Neill, Lee Maracle, Jael Richardson, Carrie Snyder, Alison Pick, Meaghan Strimas, Sofia Mostaghimi, Rachel Giese, Lorri Neilsen Glenn, Erin Wunker, Jónína Kirton, Jennifer Whiteford, Teresa Wong, Nikkya Hargrove, Lesley Buxton, Amber Riaz, Adelle Purdham, Harriet Alida Lye, and Kellee Ngan. (From Book*Hug Press)
Stacey May Fowles is an award-winning journalist, essayist and the author of four books. Her writing has appeared in the Globe and Mail, The National Post, Elle Canada, The Walrus and elsewhere. Fowles lives in Toronto, where she is working on a children's book and her fourth novel.
Jen Sookfong Lee is a writer from Vancouver. Her books include The Conjoined, which was nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award and was a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, The Better Mother, which was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award, The End of East, The Shadow List and Finding Home.