S222.
The Art of Infertility: Writing about Reproductive Choice, Loss, and Family
Saturday, March 11, 2023
3:20 pm to 4:35 pm
How do infertility memoirs rewrite the dominant family narrative? How do they grapple with issues of gender, sexuality, race, and the body? Reading from published memoirs about infertility, miscarriage, reproductive choice, and queer family building, panelists explore the emotional, practical, and legal complexities of infertility and family building outside cisgender and heteronuclear families, such as in vitro fertilization, third party reproduction, blended families, and adoption.
Participants
Robin Silbergleid is a poet and nonfiction writer. Her books include The Old Country, The Baby Book: Poems and the memoir Texas Girl. Her coedited anthology The ART of Infertility is forthcoming in 2023 from Wayne State University Press. She is professor of English at Michigan State University.
Jennifer Berney writes to explore the human state of longing. Her essays have appeared in Wired, Longreads, Catapult, and many other places. Her book, The Other Mothers, tells the story of her journey to parenthood and the obstacles she faced navigating the fertility industry as a queer woman.
Carla Sameth, MFA in creative writing (Lat Am) Queens University, Altadena Poet Laureate, a PEN Teaching Artist, teaches at the LA Writing Project and SNHU. She published the memoir, One Day on the Gold Line and writes about pregnancy loss, nontraditional parenting, identity, addiction, and LGBTQ+ issues.
Cheryl E. Klein’s column, “Hold it Lightly,” appears monthly(ish) in MUTHA. She is the author of Crybaby (Brown Paper Press, 2022), a memoir about wanting a baby and getting cancer instead. She also wrote a story collection, The Commuters, and a novel, Lilac Mines.
Krys Malcolm Belc is the author of the memoir The Natural Mother of the Child: A Memoir of Nonbinary Parenthood and the flash nonfiction chapbook In Transit. He lives in Philadelphia with his partner and their three young children.
