Shows / This Mama Is Lit!
This Mama Is Lit!
Literary Mama's podcast featuring interviews with mama writers.
literarymama.substack.com
Episodes
This Mama Is Lit!Aga Maksimowska: Learning to Sit in the Chaos
Sam Field and Amanda Fields talk with Aga Maksimowska, author of Becalming, about drawing on the complexities of family life in fiction and revisiting…
This Mama Is Lit!Suzi Q. Smith: Writing Your Own Gospel
Sam Field and Tiffanie Drayton chat with Suzi Q. Smith, author of A Gospel of Bones, about finding beauty in difficult experiences, creating your own gospel…
This Mama Is Lit!Mac Crane: Embracing the Chaos of Perversion We All Have
Sam Field and Tiffanie Drayton chat with Mac Crane, author of Perverts, about challenging the definition of perversion, finding connection, and exploring how…
This Mama Is Lit!Leila Farjami: Healing the Mother Wound
Amanda Fields and Holly Rizzuto Palker chat with Leila Farjami, author of Daughter of Salt, about breaking the chain of familial obligations and healing from…
This Mama Is Lit!Chital Mehta: Stretching Cultural Boundaries in Motherhood
Amanda Fields and Holly Rizzuto Palker chat with Chital Mehta, author of Have You Seen Romit?, about raising children across cultures, stretching marital…
This Mama Is Lit!Jackie Hoermann-Elliott and Jenna Morton-Aiken: Parenting as Graduate Students
Amanda Fields and Caroline Grant chat with Jackie Hoermann-Elliott and Jenna Morton-Aiken, co-editors of the anthology Parenting While PhDing, about raising…
This Mama Is Lit!Shasta Grant: Absent Mothers & Teenaged Girls
Amanda Fields and Tiffanie Drayton chat with Shasta Grant, author of When We Were Feral, about absent mothers, growing up in the ’90s, and raising a teenage…
This Mama Is Lit!Rebecca Morrison: Disordered Eating and Representing Iranian Culture
Tiffanie Drayton and Amanda Fields chat with Rebecca Morrison, author of The Blue Dress, about adapting her memoir into a young adult novel, opening dialogue…
This Mama Is Lit!Kerry Docherty: Faherty Brand’s Cofounder on Being Selfish
Holly Rizzuto Palker and Sam Field chat with Kerry Docherty, author of Selfish, about finding quiet moments of creativity, ambition, and why putting yourself…
This Mama Is Lit!Sona Movsesian: The World's Worst Mom
Holly Rizzuto Palker and Amanda Fields chat with Sona Movsesian, author of The World’s Worst Mom, about parenting twins, normalizing vulnerability and finding…
This Mama Is Lit!Andrea Louie: Toy Len Goon & the Model Minority Myth
Amanda Fields and Holly Rizzuto Palker chat with Andrea Louie, author of Chinese American Mothering: Toy Len Goon’s Legacy and the Myth of the Model Minority…
This Mama Is Lit!Lisa Roe: Sisters, Survival, and Second Acts in Motherhood
Holly Rizzuto Palker and Sam Field chat with Lisa Roe, author of Big & Lily, about sisterhood, second acts, and the ways women learn to rewrite the stories…
This Mama Is Lit!Martheaus Perkins: Lyrical Reckoning & the American Dream
Amanda Fields and Holly Rizzuto Palker chat with Martheaus Perkins, author of The Grace of Black Mothers, about Black motherhood, poetic form, and the…
This Mama Is Lit!Heather Sweeney: Life After a Military Marriage
Amanda Fields and Holly Rizzuto Palker chat with Heather Sweeney, author of Camouflage: How I Emerged From the Shadows of a Military Marriage, about identity…
This Mama Is Lit!Whitney French: Love, War, Memory, and Black Futurism
Amanda Fields and Tiffanie Drayton chat with Whitney French, author of Syncopation: A Novel in Verse, about memory, identity, and what it means to reshape…
This Mama Is Lit!Lara Ehrlich: Rage Against the Patriarchy
Amanda and Sam chat with Lara Ehrlich, author of Bind Me Tighter Still, about domesticity and wildness in motherhood, the fierce love for our children, and…
This Mama Is Lit!Chloe Yelena Miller: Public and Private Grief
Amanda Fields and Eva Langston chat with Chloe Yelena Miller, author of Perforated, about impossible wishes and material fears in parenting and poetry. In her…
This Mama Is Lit!Rebecca Lehmann: Resurrecting Anne Boleyn and Going from Poet to Novelist
Eva Langston and Amanda Fields chat with Rebecca Lehmann, author of The Beheading Game, about rewriting Anne Boleyn through the lens of motherhood, the…
This Mama Is Lit!Chloé Caldwell: Infertility & Queer-ception
Eva Langston and Amanda Fields chat with Chloé Caldwell, author of Trying, about loneliness in infertility, contradictions with IVF in the queer community, and…
This Mama Is Lit!Karen Palmer: DIY Witness Protection
Amanda Fields and Eva Langston chat with Karen Palmer, author of She’s Under Here, about living with an undercurrent of fear and clawing her way out of abuse…
This Mama Is Lit!Robyn Kozlowitz: No One Ever Wins Trauma Poker
Holly Rizzuto Palker and Amanda Fields chat with Dr. Robyn Kozlowitz, author of Post Traumatic Parenting, about using guilt as a teacher, discovering how…
This Mama Is Lit!Michelle Lerner: Complicated Grief
Holly Rizzuto Palker and Eva Langston chat with Michelle Lerner, author of Ring, about defining and treating complicated grief, living with irreparable damage…
This Mama Is Lit!Claire Adam: Leaving the Baby Behind
Amanda Fields and Holly Rizzuto Palker chat with Claire Adam, author of Love Forms, about forced delivery in Venezuela and testing the mother-child bond in…
This Mama Is Lit!Teri Vlassopoulos: Technology, Fertility, and Karaoke
Amanda Fields and Holly Rizzuto Palker chat with Teri Vlassopoulos, author of Living Expenses, about technology creep in modern relationships, fertility…
This Mama Is Lit!Brittany Micka-Foos: Domestic Horror, Discomfort, & Neurodiversity
Amanda Fields and Eva Langston chat with Brittany Micka-Foos, author of It’s No Fun Anymore, about domestic horror tropes and how a neurodiversity diagnosis…
This Mama Is Lit!Domenica Ruta: The Ecosystem of Single Mothers
Amanda and Eva chat with Domenica Ruta, author of All the Mothers, about a new dialectic in motherhood, the specific anxieties of single moms, and the…
This Mama Is Lit!Jessie Harrold: Becoming, Not Broken
Eva Langston and Amanda Fields chat with Jessie Harrold, author of Mothershift, about matrescence - the process of becoming a mother, the four radical…
This Mama Is Lit!Liz Alterman: Humor is My Drug of Choice
Holly Rizzuto Palker and Eva Langston chat with Liz Alterman, author of Sad Sacked, about the perils and freedoms of unemployment, the dichotomy of working…
This Mama Is Lit!Jessica Slice: Ableist Systems and Disability Designs
Amanda Fields and Eva Langston chat with Jessica Slice, author of Unfit Parent, about designing and inventing systems of parenting based on the bodies and…
This Mama Is Lit!Natasha Williams: Love and Schizophrenia
Eva Langston and Holly Rizzuto Palker chat with Natasha Williams, author of The Parts of Him I Kept, about parenting her father through schizophrenia and…
This Mama Is Lit!Abigail Leonard: For Mothers Across Borders
Holly Rizzuto Palker and Amanda Fields chat with Abigail Leonard, author of Four Mothers, about parenting in four different countries, politicizing motherhood…
This Mama Is Lit!Allison Buccola: Cult Following
Eva Langston and Amanda Fields chat with Allison Buccola, author of The Ascent, about the anxieties of new motherhood, renegotiating relationships…
This Mama Is Lit!Monique Clesca: Silence is a Language
Amanda Fields and Eva Langston chat with Monique Clesca, author of Silence and Resistance: Memoir of a Girlhood in Haiti, about reckoning with family secrets…
This Mama Is Lit!50th Episode Retrospective: Fangirling & Finding a Groove
Amanda Fields, Brianna Avenia-Tapper, Holly Rizzuto Palker, and Eva Langston come together to reflect on the evolution of this podcast, memorable guests, and…
This Mama Is Lit!Maggie Smith: My Work is Play
For our 50th episode, Holly Rizzuto Palker and Amanda Fields chat with Maggie Smith, author of Dear Writer, about applying poetic license to writing and…
This Mama Is Lit!Jessica Guerrieri: Addiction and the Shadow Self
Amanda Fields and Eva Langston chat with Jessica Guerrieri, author of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, about motherhood drinking culture, the power of…
This Mama Is Lit!Catalina Margulis: Humor is My Favorite Flavor
Holly Rizzuto Palker and Amanda Fields chat with Catalina Margulis, author of Again, Only More Like You, about a reckoning of journalism, ideas of what a "good…
This Mama Is Lit!Penny Zang: Unfinished Business
Eva Langston and Holly Rizzuto Palker chat with Penny Zang, author of Doll Parts, about writing through grief, the “rights and wrongs” of motherhood, and…
This Mama Is Lit!Ellen Wiles: Coparenting with Friends
Eva Langston and Amanda Fields chat with Ellen Wiles about her second novel, The Unexpected, published in November 2024 by HarperCollins. It follows two best…
This Mama Is Lit!Emma Pattee: Chained to a Dream
Eva Langston and Amanda Fields chat with Emma Pattee, author of Tilt, about parsing capitalism and creative pursuits, powering large-scale climate activism…
This Mama Is Lit!Jill Dopf Viles, DIY Scientist: Cracking the Emery-Dreifuss Code
Amanda Fields and Eva Langston talk with Jill Dopf Viles, the author of Manufacturing My Miracle: One Woman’s Journey To Acquire Her Personalized Gene Therapy…
This Mama Is Lit!Kathleen Glasgow: This Book is Me
Eva Langston and Amanda Fields chat with Kathleen Glasgow, author of The Glass Girl, about her distinct writing process, being a "sad book" author, and writing…
This Mama Is Lit!Lish McBride: Chaos is My Brand
Eva Langston and Holly Rizzuto Palker chat with Lish McBride, author of quirky books for teens and adults, about writing in different genres, navigating the…
This Mama Is Lit!Alicia Elliott: Creating with Intention
Alicia Elliott's debut novel, And Then She Fell, explores how motherhood and mental health collide as an Indigenous young woman confronts her inherited trauma…
This Mama Is Lit!Amanda K. Jaros: Writing in Community
Amanda Fields and Holly Rizzuto Palker chat with Amanda K. Jaros, author of Labor of Love: A Literary Mama Staff Anthology, about mothering and stepmothering…
This Mama Is Lit!Nikkya Hargrove: Born Into My Heart
Eva Langton and Amanda Fields chat with Nikkya Hargrove, author of Mama: A Queer Black Woman's Story of a Family Lost and Found, about raising her half sibling…
This Mama Is Lit!Sandra Chwialkowska: Perfect Victims
Eva Langston, Holly Rizzuto Palker + Amanda Fields chat with Sandra Chwialkowska, author of The Ends of Things, about screenwriting versus novel-writing +…
This Mama Is Lit!Susan Kiyo Ito: Adoption, Birth Mothers, & Reproductive Justice
Amanda Fields and Holly Rizzuto Palker speak with Susan Kiyo Ito, author of I Would Meet You Anywhere, about adoption, the complexities of meeting one's birth…
This Mama Is Lit!Judith Smith: If Not Me, Then Who?
Holly Rizzuto Palker and Eva Langston speak with Judith Smith, author of Difficult: Mothering Challenging Adult Children Through Conflict and Change, about…
This Mama Is Lit!Rachelle Bergstein: In Full Blume
Holly Rizzuto Palker and Eva Langston chat with Rachelle Bergstein, author of The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us, about why…
This Mama Is Lit!Aileen Weintraub: Bedrest Becomes You
Holly Rizzuto Palker and Brianna Avenia-Tapper chat with Aileen Weitraub, author of Knocked Down: A High Risk Memoir, about the sacrifice of motherhood…
This Mama Is Lit!Nancy Johnson: No Margin for Error
Holly Rizzuto Palker and Amanda Fields chat with Nancy Johnson, author of People of Means, about ancestral pride, Black excellence and social reckoning in each…
This Mama Is Lit!Sarah Sawyer: Where Does Girlhood Go?
Eva Langston and Amanda Fields chat with Sarah Sawyer, author of The Undercurrent, about power in girlhood, mystical physicality in motherhood and secrets…
This Mama Is Lit!Lena Khalaf Tuffaha: Love Is An Action
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, a poet, essayist, and translator, works tirelessly to break down language and thoughtfully craft it to match the human condition. She is…
This Mama Is Lit!Ava Chin: Dimensionalizing Paper People
Ava Chin is the author of Mott Street: A Chinese American Family’s Story of Exclusion and Homecoming (Penguin Press, 2023) where she shatters the silence that…
This Mama Is Lit!Nicole Cooley: Climate Catastrophe, Grief, and Cigarettes
Nicole Cooley grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana - the tragedies of Katrina and the climate crisis run deep for her and pour onto her pages. Her most recent…
This Mama Is Lit!Molly Spencer: The Communal Experience of Time
Molly Spencer is an award-winning poet, critic, editor, and writing instructor at University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. Her debut…
This Mama Is Lit!Nancy Reddy: Myths of Motherhood
Eva Langston and Amanda Fields chat with Nancy Reddy, author of The Good Mother Myth, about how flawed social science presumptions have blurred our visions of…
This Mama Is Lit!Tovah Klein: Resilience in Uncertain Times
Anointed the “Toddler Whisperer” by Good Morning America, Dr. Tovah Klein is consistently tapped for her expertise in childhood development by New York Times…
This Mama Is Lit!K.T. Nguyen: Lived Experience as Fiction
K.T. Nguyen’s 2024 debut psychological thriller You Know What You Did has received praise from People Magazine, CrimeReads, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Book…