Tag: mothers and daughters

How (Not) to Feed a Daughter

Liv Spikes

My delight at the ultrasound tech’s declaration, “It’s a girl,” was immediately followed by a heaviness and fear I associated with that specific gender reveal: the food thing. I did not feel this panic a year ago when the sex of my son was announced. Food things were girl things. Read more

Liv Spikes

Liv Spikes writes about her life-- it seems to offer up plenty of material. Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, Brain, Child Literary Magazine, The Briar Cliff Review, and others.

A Bald Girl

Sarah M. Levy

My mom had it. I know she had hair in all of the pictures of her before I was born. I know she had hair when I was little. I know she got her hair done at Menage e Trois Coiffers on Burton Way, and I didn’t know what “Menage Read more

Sarah M. Levy

A Los Angeles native, Sarah M. Levy was an English teacher in NYC for 21 years. She is a founding member of the experimental theater company The New York Neo-Futurists, and a recipient of The NY Innovative Theater Award for Outstanding Performance Art Production. She has performed her work on Selected Shorts and at The Green Room 42, and she has been published in 225.Plays: By The New York Neo-Futurists from Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. Sarah received her MA in English Literature from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English, and her BA in English Language and Literature from The University of Chicago. A member of The Writers Studio at The Center for Fiction, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son.

The Goodbye Girl

Myra Slotnick

We stood over you with the dropper of oxycodone, trying to get it in the tiny pocket inside your cheek, the three of us, like The Witches of Eastwick, but a lot less funny. Your jaw was clenched tight like a clam because you were about to die, only we Read more

Myra Slotnick

Myra Slotnick is a queer playwright and activist living in Provincetown, Massachusetts. When Covid struck she became eager to explore other genres, culminating in a collection of stories, and several essays.

Her Unwitting Accomplices

Paula R. Hilton

As the automatic doors swished open, my mother began her search. The grocery store’s bakery was on our immediate right. Mom zeroed in on her target, pushing her shopping cart toward a plain woman in a peacock blue trench. To keep up, my short legs moved double time. Mom’s high Read more

Paula R. Hilton

Paula R. Hilton explores the immediacy of memory and how our most important relationships define us. Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and has appeared in The Feminine Collective, The Sunlight Press, Writing In A Woman’s Voice, Dear Damsels, The Tulane Review, and elsewhere. Her novel, Little Miss Chaos, was selected as a Best Indie Teen Read by Kirkus, and her first poetry collection, At Any Given Second, received a Kirkus star. She holds an MFA from the University of New Orleans.

My Mother, After the Dementia Scare

Elisabeth Khan

I had expected worse and felt relieved to find you so close to your old self, reminiscing about the good times, carefully avoiding the bad. They said you had not smiled this much in many months, that, maybe, the fog of medication had cleared up at last, or else, your Read more

Elisabeth Khan

Born in Belgium, I lived 25 years in Michigan before becoming a nomad traveling back and forth between the USA, Europe, the UAE, and India. I blog when I find the time but usually I am too busy living. A few of my stories and poems have been published in "Hanging Loose," "The McGuffin," and other places. My travels and my family are my main sources of inspiration.

We Fought Hard. We Loved Hard. Momma and Me

Leslie Lippa

“What do you want me to do,” she asked, “live until I’m 88?!” “No,” I replied quietly, “I want you to live until I’m 88.” It was at that moment I finally realized my mother was dying. I had been down this road with her for what seemed like an Read more

Leslie Lippa

I am a 50-something-year-old lover of hippos, books, and the beach. I currently work at the Greensboro Fire Department in North Carolina in Public Relations. I wrote this piece in 2014 while struggling to climb out of the depths of despair after losing my mother to a long battle with cancer. My momma and I shared a special bond over the beach, and I recently added a tattoo in her handwriting of a line from the last note she wrote me - "the beach calls and I sure understand that. Love, Mom". I had the opportunity to attend “Summer Camp at the Barn”, a week-long writing workshop at the Highlights Foundation this past July and was honored to work with Megan McDonald, of the Judy Moody series and the renowned Peter Jacoby. I shared my essay with the other authors at the camp and was encouraged to send it out into the world.