Shellie Kalinsky
@sheshellwrites.bsky.social
Writer | Editor | Mama Bear & Gigi ShellieKalinsky.com
So pleased to have a chance to share this seriously good book by Sarah Sentilles with LM readers. It stays with you long after you finish reading it!
Literary Mama@literarymama.bsky.social · 4d ago@sheshellwrites.bsky.social reviews Sarah Sentilles's Stranger Care: A Memoir of Loving What Isn’t Ours in our September/October issue:
"The need to rebuild her memory and her physical body is an unintentional invitation for a reset, a repair, a rebirth" @elizajaneconway.bsky.social reviews @samina-ali.bsky.social's Pieces You'll Never Get Back in our July/August issue:
God Listens. God Remembers. A Review of Pieces You’ll Never Get Back
Motherhood, for many new parents, is life-changing. Life-sacrificing. Samina Ali’s transformation and surrender are more literal. And violent. “I hadn’t realized that ushering in his life would requir...
literarymama.com
"Christman wants her audience to understand that 'we never know what we’ll choose in a situation until we’re standing with our noses pressed up against it.'” @heidifettigwriter.bsky.social reviews @jillchristman.bsky.social's memoir, The Heart Folds Early: literarymama.com/articles/dep...
"Each of these examples illustrates how inadequate the 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice' language is to our realities." Samantha Ho interviews @irincarmon.bsky.social, author of Unbearable: Five Women and the Perils of Pregnancy in America, in our July/August issue:
Navigating the Harsh Realities of Pregnancy in a Post-Dobbs Era: A Conversation with Irin Carmon
By Samantha Ho Irin Carmon was eight months pregnant with her second child when the Supreme Court allowed states to ban abortion in June of 2022, per its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s ...
literarymama.com
"Even if the kids are not talking to me about it after these school talks, a lot of them say, thank you for talking about these things. It's not easy for a kid...what I hope for is that it just opens a dialogue between them and someone." Rebecca Morrison on This Mama Is Lit!
Rebecca Morrison: Disordered Eating and Representing Iranian Culture
Tiffanie and Amanda chat with Rebecca Morrison, author of The Blue Dress, about beauty standards, creating space for teens to talk about disordered eating, and representing Iranian culture.
open.substack.com
"Their desire for their daughters to succeed propels them from involved, supportive mothers to unhinged, enmeshed adversaries." - from @sheshellwrites.bsky.social's review of Jennifer Jabaley's novel, What's Yours Is Mine:
Masks of Perfection: A Review of What's Yours Is Mine
Jennifer Jabaley has a knack for creating flawed characters, exploring their fault lines, and driving them all to the edge of ruin. At least, that’s what she’s done within the plot of her latest suspe...
literarymama.com
"Jennifer Jabaley has a knack for creating flawed characters, exploring their fault lines, and driving them all to the edge of ruin." @sheshellwrites.bsky.social reviews Jabaley's novel, What's Yours Is Mine:
Masks of Perfection: A Review of What's Yours Is Mine
Jennifer Jabaley has a knack for creating flawed characters, exploring their fault lines, and driving them all to the edge of ruin. At least, that’s what she’s done within the plot of her latest suspe...
literarymama.com
"I am a recovering helicopter parent." Don't miss Lisa Roe, author of Big & Lily, in conversation with @hollyrizzutopal.bsky.social & Sam Field on This Mama Is Lit!
Lisa Roe: Sisters, Survival, and Second Acts in Motherhood
Holly Rizzuto Palker and Sam Field chat with Lisa Roe, author of Big & Lily, about sisterhood, second acts, and the ways women learn to rewrite the stories they’ve been living.
open.substack.com
"His questions unnerve me...Where does he get these ideas? Why does his mind conjure notions that on the one hand seem so mature, but nevertheless torment him?" - from Patricia Lawler Kenet's essay, "Night Talk," in our May/June issue:
Night Talk
The urge to sleep tickles my brain as I lie in the semi-darkness of David’s room, fully dressed, atop his yellow bedspread. As usual, my nine-year-old is on the parquet floor with a kaleidoscope of bl...
literarymama.com
"Their desire for their daughters to succeed propels them from involved, supportive mothers to unhinged, enmeshed adversaries." @sheshellwrites.bsky.social reviews Jennifer Jabaley's novel, What's Yours Is Mine:
Masks of Perfection: A Review of What's Yours Is Mine
Jennifer Jabaley has a knack for creating flawed characters, exploring their fault lines, and driving them all to the edge of ruin. At least, that’s what she’s done within the plot of her latest suspe...
literarymama.com
"The fear comes in flashes. I do my best to stop it the moment it enters the atmosphere. Pluck it from the air and stuff it into my back pocket." -from Christie Ellen's essay, "Last Swim," in our May/June issue:
Last Swim
The sun draws beads of sweat from my upper lip. I trudge through the uneven sand, arms loaded down with chairs, bags, a cooler, and several towels. I squint in the face of the bright sun and scout the...
literarymama.com
Love this one!!
Literary Mama@literarymama.bsky.social · 5mo ago***NEW EPISODE!!!*** Amanda Fields and @hollyrizzutopal.bsky.social chat with @martheaus.bsky.social, author of The Grace of Black Mothers, about Black motherhood, poetic form, and the complicated inheritance of the American Dream. @triohousepress.org
"Most women, especially mothers—working moms, stay-at-home moms, beleaguered moms, single moms, and married moms—will recognize themselves in one or more of these tales." Dorothy Rowena Rice reviews @ladiwoods.bsky.social's story collection, published by @autumnhouse.org:
Beautifully Strange Stories: A Review of The Great Grown-Up Game of Make-Believe
The 28 stories in The Great Grown-Up Game of Make-Believe are beyond imaginative in their use of extended metaphors, personification of objects and animals, and storylines that are a mash-up of the re...
literarymama.com
***NEW EPISODE!*** Amanda Fields & Tiffanie Drayton talk w Whitney French, author of Syncopation: A Novel in Verse! @riverstreetwriting.bsky.social
Whitney French: Love, War, Memory, and Black Futurism
Amanda and Tiffanie chat with Whitney French, author of Syncopation: A Novel in Verse, about memory, identity, and what it means to reshape yourself in a fractured world.
open.substack.com
Read Misty Archambault's succinct glimpse of family, "After Midnight," in our March/April issue:
After Midnight
They line up in bed thusly:Middle-aged man, soft but still square in shape,like a block of unmolded clay, sleeping.Too thin, too sensitive, nine-year-old boy,air whistling from his snot-caked nose.Mid...
literarymama.com
"Tomorrow I knocked on your door" Read Maureen D. Hall's poem, "Time Lapse," in our latest issue: literarymama.com/articles/dep...
*NEW EPISODE!* Rage Against the Patriarchy Amanda Fields & Sam Field talk w @laraehrlich.bsky.social, author of Bind Me Tighter Still:
Lara Ehrlich: Rage Against the Patriarchy
Amanda and Sam chat with Lara Ehrlich, author of Bind Me Tighter Still, about domesticity and wildness in motherhood, the fierce love for our children, and feeling like we’re always falling short.
open.substack.com
"How does my writer self belong in motherhood?" Katherine Harnisch reviews Mia Ayumi Malhotra's poetry collection, Mothersalt, in our latest issue:
Stills From the Life of a Writing Mother: A Review of Mothersalt
When I became a mother, after wanting to be one for a very long time, I expected to transform into mother: a role that would bring peace, wholeness, and joy to my life. But what I couldn’t predict was...
literarymama.com
"I found myself compelled to read story after story, in part to discover what story-telling twist the author had in store for me next." Many thanks to Dorothy Rice and @literarymama.bsky.social for this thoughtful review of this award-winning collection by @ladiwoods.bsky.social!
Read the full review here: literarymama.com/articles/dep...
Beautifully Strange Stories: A Review of The Great Grown-Up Game of Make-Believe
The 28 stories in The Great Grown-Up Game of Make-Believe are beyond imaginative in their use of extended metaphors, personification of objects and animals, and storylines that are a mash-up of the re...
literarymama.com
"I was getting a life-long package deal—him, his children, and their mother. But I really had no idea what to expect, and how bruising it would sometimes be." - from Quade Hermann's essay, "Just the Woman Who Married Their Father," in our latest issue:
Just the Woman Who Married Their Father
My husband and his three children pile in the back door, shaking off wet coats and cheerfully bickering about what pizza toppings we’ll have and which movie we’re going to watch. I hand around mugs of...
literarymama.com
"The thing about the story that I find resonant and that I think resonates with people 500 years later is that in so many ways, it seems like she's a woman being punished for her power and her success." @rebeccaslehmann.bsky.social, author of The Beheading Game:
Rebecca Lehmann: Resurrecting Anne Boleyn and Going from Poet to Novelist
Eva and Amanda chat with Rebecca Lehmann, author of The Beheading Game, about rewriting Anne Boleyn through the lens of motherhood and bringing a poetry background to novel-writing.
open.substack.com
