kate baer poet author mother

How did your writing career get started?

I graduated with a major in English, which is basically a major in nothing in America. I worked random jobs and was always writing during that time but wasn’t getting paid. My first book,

What Kind of Woman, was the first time I was paid to write—and I had four children by then. I did side hustles and wrote in my free time the rest of the time.

Was writing an outlet for you?

I kind of avoided writing, and I took a big break from writing on motherhood because I was tired of being called a mummy-writer. I wanted to be taken seriously. Then I realised I was internalising misogyny by not writing about motherhood. I was making a statement that it was less-than, and I don’t feel that way.

When I started cheating on my novel with poetry, I quickly returned to motherhood. My fourth baby was a surprise, and it was such a difficult time. I was still very much in recovery mode from that shock, and sitting down to write the book was definitely cathartic. It felt like everything I’d ever