This Mama Is Lit!

<p>Amanda Fields and Tiffanie Drayton chat with Whitney French, author of <em>Syncopation: A Novel in Verse</em>, about memory, identity, and what it means to reshape yourself in a fractured world.</p><p>In <em>Syncopation: A Novel in Verse</em>, in the aftermath of a Memory War, society is fragmented into new cultures, castes, and coalitions. Set against a backdrop of retrofitted food garages, microchip-sorting factories, and hyperloop terminals, this novel-in-verse emphasizes memory as the highest currency and love as dangerous, unruly, and singed with hope.</p><p>The protagonists are O and Z, two young women searching for purpose in a world where a decades-long earthquake reverberates, and the population scrambles to hide from deadly acid rain. Descended from space pirates, O is drawn to the sky, while Z is earthbound, a skilled forager with connections to the black market. The two become travel companions and lovers, and are conflicted between choosing their values or each other.</p><p>In this speculative novel, French offers readers an intricate future-world that resonates powerfully with our own, as it explores a people gripped in the war-torn politics of migration, memory-keeping, labor, and survival.</p><p>Whitney French is a writer, educator, and publisher. She is the editor of the award-winning anthology <em>Black Writers Matter</em> (University of Regina Press, 2019) and <em>Griot: Six Writers’ Sojourn into the Dark</em> (Knopf Canada, 2022). Whitney is a Black futurist who explores memory, loss, technology, and nature in her work. She is a certified arts educator and an assistant professor in creative writing at the University of British Columbia. She is also the co-founder and publisher of Hush Harbour, the only Black queer feminist press in Canada.</p><p>Socials & Links</p><p><a target="_blank" href="http://whitneyfrenchwrites.com/">Website</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/whitneyfrenchwrites/">Instagram</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.hushharbour.com/">Hush Harbor</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://bookstore.wolsakandwynn.ca/products/syncopation"><em>Syncopation: A Novel in Verse</em></a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://linktr.ee/WhitneyFrenchWrites">https://linktr.ee/WhitneyFrenchWrites</a></p><p></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://literarymama.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">literarymama.substack.com</a>

<p>Amanda and Sam chat with Lara Ehrlich, author of <em>Bind Me Tighter Still</em>, about domesticity and wildness in motherhood, the fierce love for our children, and feeling like we’re always falling short.</p><p>In <em>Bind Me Tighter Still</em>, the youngest of three siren sisters, Ceto, is weary of an existence driven by hunger. She trades her tail for legs, marries the first man she meets, and bears a daughter—only to discover that domesticity is just as mundane as sirenhood. In search of something more, she flees with her daughter Naia to the ocean, where she establishes a mermaid burlesque called Sirenland and reinvents herself, performing as a siren in a tank built into the limestone cliffs overlooking the sea. She hires and trains human women to perform with her, and Sirenland becomes a national roadside attraction. Her daughter Naia performs as well, until she turns 15 and begins to resist the world her mother has created.</p><p>Lara Ehrlich is the author of the story collection <em>Animal Wife</em> (Red Hen Press, 2020) and the novel <em>Bind Me Tighter Still</em> (Red Hen Press, 2025). Lara is also the host of <em>Writer Mother Monster</em>, a podcast that has featured more than 100 conversations with writer<strong>–</strong>mothers navigating the tension between artistic ambition and caregiving. Her writing has been published in <em>StoryQuarterly</em>, <em>Hunger Mountain Review</em>, <em>SmokeLong Quarterly</em>, <em>Literary Hub</em>, and others, and she is the writer in residence at Connecticut College. She is the founder and director of Thought Fox Writers Den and lives with her family in Connecticut.</p><p><strong>Socials and Links:</strong></p><p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.laraehrlich.com/">www.LaraEhrlich.com</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.thoughtfox.org/">www.ThoughtFox.org</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.facebook.com/lara.ehrlich">https://www.facebook.com/lara.ehrlich</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/lara.ehrlich/">https://www.instagram.com/lara.ehrlich/</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://redhen.org/book/bind-me-tighter-still/">https://redhen.org/book/bind-me-tighter-still/</a></p><p><strong>Mentioned in the episode:</strong></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/712958/nobodys-girl-by-virginia-roberts-giuffre/"><em>Nobody’s Girl</em></a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hans-Christian-Andersen-Danish-author">Hans Christian Andersen</a></p><p>Disney’s <a target="_blank" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097757/"><em>The Little Mermaid</em></a></p><p></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://literarymama.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">literarymama.substack.com</a>

<p>Amanda Fields and Eva Langston chat with Chloe Yelena Miller, author of <em>Perforated</em>, about impossible wishes and material fears in parenting and poetry.</p><p>In her second full-length poetry collection, <a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/perforated-chloe-yelena-miller/82b209874d841ce2?ean=9781957755649&#38;next=t"><em>Perforated</em></a><em>, </em>Miller’s<em> </em>poems span the grief of public and private losses. The poems are situated in both the US and Italy, ruminating on topics such as immigration, climate change, school shootings, and 9/11.</p><p>Chloe Yelena Miller is a writer and teacher living in Washington, DC, with her partner and child. She’s the author of <em>Perforated</em> (2026) and <em>Viable</em> (2021), both published by Lily Poetry Review Books, and the poetry chapbook <em>Unrest </em>(Finishing Line Press, 2013). She co-founded and co-directs <a target="_blank" href="https://www.brownbaglit.com/">Brown Bag Lit</a>, an online writing community. Miller teaches writing and literature through University of Maryland’s Global Campus, Politics and Prose bookstore, and New Directions in Writing. Miller has a Bachelor of Arts in Italian language and literature from Smith College (1998) and an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College (2003.)</p><p><strong>Socials and Links</strong>:</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://chloeyelenamiller.substack.com/">Substack</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/chloeyelenamiller/">Instagram</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://bsky.app/profile/chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social">Bluesky</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.brownbaglit.com/milkjournal">Milk Journal</a></p><p></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://literarymama.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">literarymama.substack.com</a>

<p>Eva Langston and Amanda Fields chat with Rebecca Lehmann, author of <em>The Beheading Game</em>, about rewriting Anne Boleyn through the lens of motherhood, the punishment of powerful women, crafting a queer love story, and bringing poetry to the novel-writing process.</p><p>Rebecca Lehmann is an award-winning poet and essayist. She has an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was a Maytag Fellow. She is the author of three collections of poetry: <em>Between the Crackups</em>; <em>Ringer</em> (which won the AWP Donald Hall Prize); and <em>The Sweating Sickness</em>. Her writing has appeared in <em>American Poetry Review</em>, <em>The Kenyon Review</em>, NPR’s <em>The Slowdown</em>, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day. She lives in Indiana with her family, where she is an associate professor of English and Gender and Women’s Studies at Saint Mary’s College. <em>The Beheading Game</em> is her debut novel.</p><p>In<em> The Beheading Game</em>, Anne Boleyn wakes up the day after her execution, sews her head back on, and seeks vengeance on Henry VIII.</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://rebeccalehmann.com/book/">Author Website</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/rebeccalehmannauthor/">Rebecca Instagram</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/crownpublishing/">Crown Publishing Instagram</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/786110/the-beheading-game-by-rebecca-lehmann/">Preorder The Beheading Game</a></p><p></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://literarymama.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">literarymama.substack.com</a>

<p>Eva Langston and Amanda Fields chat with Chloé Caldwell, author of <a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/trying-a-memoir-chloe-caldwell/56dc7cb417f6ab1c?ean=9781644453476&#38;next=t">Trying</a>, about loneliness in infertility, contradictions with IVF in the queer community, and the rawness of writing in the moment. Over the years that Chloé had been married and hoping to conceive a child, she’d read everything she could find on infertility. But no memoir or message board reflected her experience; for one thing, most stories ended with in vitro fertilization, a baby, or both. She wanted to offer something different.</p><p>Chloé Caldwell is the author of the national bestselling novella, <em>Women</em> (recently reissued by Harper Perennial) and the books<em> I’ll Tell You In Person</em>, <em>The Red Zone</em>, and <em>Legs Get Led Astray</em>. Her latest book, the memoir <em>Trying</em>, is out now with Graywolf Press.</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.chloesimonne.com/about/">Author Website</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/chloeeeecaldwell/?hl=en">Instagram</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://chloecaldwell.substack.com/">Substack</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.scrappyliterary.com/">https://www.scrappyliterary.com/</a></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://literarymama.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">literarymama.substack.com</a>