Megan Stielstra is the author of three collections: Everyone Remain Calm, Once I Was Cool, and The Wrong Way to Save Your Life, the Nonfiction Book of the Year from the Chicago Review of Books. Her work appears in the Best American Essays, New York Times, The Believer, Poets & Writers, Tin House, Longreads, Guernica, LitHub, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. A longtime company member with 2nd Story, she has told stories for National Public Radio, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Steppenwolf Theatre, and regularly with the Paper Machete live news magazine at the Green Mill. She teaches creative nonfiction at Northwestern University and is an editor at Northwestern University Press. She has one child, who just turned 16, and describes writer-motherhood in three words as “Oh my God."

Writer Mother Monster is a community and conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice. Each episode is streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, then archived on writermothermonster.com

If you appreciate what you hear, consider becoming a patron/ess of Writer Mother Monster. Depending upon your level of support, you can tell me who you want to hear and topics you’d like to hear about, send me questions for guests in advance of interviews, receive a letter of thanks, a signed book–and more! Thank you for contributing to WMM’s sustainability. www.writermothermonster.com/donate/

Fox North (call them Fox!) is a critically acclaimed novelist for teenagers and adults. Fox, a graduate of the University of Florida’s MFA program in poetry, was a finalist in 2018 with the Sustainable Arts Foundation, the recipient of a Creatives Rebuild NY grant, a Publisher’s Weekly Flying Start, and an Analog AnLab’s Reader’s Choice Award winner. Their novels for teenagers – written under the name Phoebe North – have been published by Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins. Their short fiction, critical writing, and poetry has appeared with Analog, Daily Science Fiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, the YA Review Network, Umbrella Journal, District Lit, 2river View and Strange Horizons (among many others others), and in anthologies such as the Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide, Hungry Hearts, Among the Shadows, and Speculative Fiction 2015. From their home in the Hudson Valley, they save Girl Scout camps, write songs, climb trees, and have better taste in music than you do.

If you appreciate what you hear, consider becoming a patron/ess of Writer Mother Monster. Depending upon your level of support, you can tell me who you want to hear and topics you’d like to hear about, send me questions for guests in advance of interviews, receive a letter of thanks, a signed book–and more! Thank you for contributing to WMM’s sustainability. www.writermothermonster.com/donate/

Welcome to a special live episode of Writer Mother Monster, a community and conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice. The show is typically streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, and then released as an audio podcast on all major platforms--but today's episode is in-person at the 2023 CT Lit Fest, hosted at Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut.

Today's guest, Dr. Janet Garcia-Hallett, is a criminal justice professor at the University of New Haven's Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences. She earned her PhD in criminal justice from Rutgers University-Newark in 2017. From 2017 to 2021, she worked as a criminal justice professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. At this point, during the pandemic, Janet made the decision to move back to the East Coast to be closer to family and a support network. As an Afro-Latina mother, Janet has maintained a personal interest in mothers' experiences before, during, and after incarceration. Her non-fiction book, INVISIBLE MOTHERS: UNSEEN YET HYPERVISIBLE AFTER INCARCERATION is based on interviews she conducted throughout New York City with formerly incarcerated mothers of color. Her book shares mothers' stories and explores how mothers of color navigate motherhood post-incarceration. Although Janet was first drawn to this work due to her upbringing in Harlem, she continues to study the impact of the criminal legal system and advocate for communities of color. Janet has 3 children ages 7, 4, and 2,, and she describes writer-motherhood in 3 words as Versatile, Determine, Badass.

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Learn more at writermothermonster.com

If you appreciate what you hear, consider becoming a patron/ess of Writer Mother Monster. Depending upon your level of support, you can tell me who you want to hear and topics you’d like to hear about, send me questions for guests in advance of interviews, receive a letter of thanks, a signed book–and more! Thank you for contributing to WMM’s sustainability. www.writermothermonster.com/donate/