Motherhood Memoirs: Mothers Creating/Writing Lives

Justine Dymond

• Publisher: Demeter Press
• Year: 2013
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781926452920
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism for Women Authors
• Index: Literature

The authors in this collection examine and critique motherhood memoir, alongside the texts of their own lives, while seeking to transform mothering practice— highlighting revolutionary praxis within books, or, when none is available, creating new visions for social change. Many essays interrogate the tensions of maternal narrative—the negotiation of the historical location of writer and readers, narrative and linguistic constraints, and the slippery ground of memory—as well as the borders constructed between the "objective" scholar and the reader who engages with and identifies with texts through her intellect and her emotional being.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright Notice
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• SECTION ONE THE ART OF MOTHERHOOD
• 1. Visualizing Motherhood
• 2. How to Write Motherhood
• 3. “A Long Private Letter”
• 4. Ekphrastic Mama
• SECTION TWO WHAT THE OTHER BOOKS DON’T TELL US
• 5. Milkmother Memoir
• 6. “Where’s the Funeral?”
• 7. Lost and Found
• 8. “Just Another Mother Who Has Lost Her Child”
• SECTION THREE MOTHERS WITHOUT BORDERS
• 9. Transcending the Mind/Body Dichotomy to Save My Own Life
• 10. We Are Family
• 11. Letter to a Young Black Mama on Writing Motherhood Memoir
• 12. In Search of Our Mothers’ Memoirs
• Contributor Notes