Good Mom on Paper: Writers on Creativity and Motherhood

Written by Stacey May Fowles, Larissa Thompson, Rogin Rashidan and 3 more

Narrated by Jen Sookfong Lee

The experience of motherhood is monumental, 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 child care. 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, S. Lesley Buxton, Amber Riaz, Adelle Purdham, Harriet Alida Lye, and Kellee Ngan.

A portion of each sale will be donated to the Mothers Matter Centre: a not-for-profit organization dedicated to empowering isolated, at-risk mothers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bookhug Press
• Release date: Feb 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9781771668378

Stacey May Fowles

STACEY MAY FOWLES is a multiple award-winning journalist, essayist and author of four books, including the national bestseller, Baseball Life Advice: Loving the Game that Saved Me. She is the co-editor, with Jen Sookfong Lee, of the anthology Good Mom on Paper: Writers on Creativity and Motherhood. A former columnist at the Globe and Mail, Stacey currently writes the Book Therapy column for Open Book Ontario. She lives in Toronto, Ontario, with her husband and daughter.