Panel on Writing About Motherhood Will be Held at University of Richmond

October 29, 2004

There has been an explosion of publishing for, by and about mothers recently, leading to questions about whether mothering has changed in the new millennium and what new questions are being asked about it.

A panel discussion Nov. 8 at 4 p.m. in the Brown-Alley Room of Weinstein Hall at the University of Richmond will bring together the editors of two literary journals focused on writing about motherhood to examine these questions.

"Questions Our Mothers Forgot to Ask," will feature Jennifer Niesslein and Stephanie Wilkinson, editors of Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers, and Amy Hudock, visiting professor of English at the University of South Carolina and founder and editor-in-chief of Literary Mama, an online magazine attracting nearly 10,000 visitors a month.

The discussion is the third of seven events in the 25th anniversary speaker series sponsored by Women Involved in Living and Learning (WILL) and the Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) program. It is free and open to the public.

Wilkinson, who holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from University of Virginia, and Niesslein, whose background is in journalism, published the first issue of Brain, Child in 2000, because they were "dismayed by the paucity of outlets for intelligent writing about the ambivalent experience of motherhood."

Literary Mama began in a mother's writing group in the Bay Area of California before becoming an online magazine.

For more information, call (804) 289-8578 or contact will@richmond.edu.