Writing Motherhood: Tapping into Your Creativity as a Mother and a Writer by Lisa Garrigues, a workshop leader in memoir and personal narrative, offers an inspiring yet pragmatic approach to subject matter for writers who are also moms. While encouraging women to mine material from their early years as mothers pregnancy and birth, baby names and first words her focus is on giving women the sustained belief in themselves they will need to write at every stage of parenting. Garrigues reminds her readers that writing is the vehicle that will take you where you want to go, so that along the way you must often put down the book and pick up the pen. (And apropos of our subject, there’s also a chapter titled Mothering our Mothers, and two shorter pieces How Writers Write about Their Mothers and Every Day is Mother’s Day: A History of the Holiday. )
Valiant Women is a vital and engrossing attempt to correct the record and rightfully celebrate the achievements of female veterans of World War II.
