Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined

Today, I am a reviewer for the Blog Book Tour of Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined, edited by Andrea J. Buchanan and Amy Hudock. This book is an anthology of some of the best mama-oriented poetry, fiction, nonfiction and creative nonfiction from the amazing online literary magazine, Literary Mama, established in November of 2003. Literary Mama takes mother-writing seriously, as few places do in this culture which belittles writing about the experiences of motherhood as if they were not worthy of literature. The book takes mother-writing seriously, too, and it contains some truly amazing writing by a wide variety of authors who all deserve to be recognized as the true artists that they are. From its thought-provoking Introduction, all the way to the very last story, this book kept me riveted. It is hard to imagine that in an anthology of over 50 pieces, all of them would be good, but I - picky as I am - could not find one thing in the book that was not both beautifully written and fascinating. The book is that good. It has the added bonus of making me feel like the mothering work that I do is also fascinating and worthy of such craft.

Although I loved Literary Mama in its entirety, my very favorite piece in it was a work of fiction by Cassie Premo Steele called Chocolate, about a mother who teaches her daughter a memorable lesson about sensuality. Literary Mama is available from Seal Press and I highly recommend it to everyone. Not just to mothers, either. We mothers read about the rest of Life and non-mothers can do so as well. Motherhood is one of Life's most basic aspects and we should all take it seriously. Literary Mama shows us that doing so is a delight.