S214.
Black MuthaWriters: The Politics, Protests, & Prose of Black Motherhood
Saturday, March 26, 2022
3:20 pm to 4:35 pm
Surviving as a Black woman in the world is an act of protest. Thriving as a Black mother and artist can be revolutionary. How does this revolution appear on the page, on the stage, and in the difficult act of getting published—and paid well? In a genre dominated by white women, can the breadth of our stories be acknowledged and lauded? Writers of fiction, memoir, reportage, and plays will discuss the wide artistic terrain of Black motherhood, including health, disability, sex, adoption, and more.
Participants
Doreen Olivera is a writer and performer whose award-winning solo show, Everything Is Fine Until It's Not, I broke a sellout record at the New York International Fringe Festival. A Yaddo, VCCA, Hedgebrook, and Sustainable Arts fellow, her essays on race, autism, and parenting have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Kenyon Review.
Deesha Philyaw is the author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, winner of the the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 2020/2021 Story Prize, and the 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize: The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction.
Kelly Glass is an independent journalist whose writing focuses on the intersection of parenting, health, and race. Her writing appears in the New York Times, Parents magazine, the Washington Post, Vox, Romper, the Lily, and more. She's also a contributing editor for two parenting publications.
Nefertiti Austin writes about the erasure of diverse voices in motherhood in Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America. Her work can be found in the New York Times, Washington Post, MUTHA, the Nation, etc. She has appeared on the 3rd Hour of the TODAY Show, 1A, NPR, and numerous podcasts.
