Caitlin Grace McDonnell BAD MOMS I always cry on airplanes. Thought it was the movies. But when I cried at Bad Moms, I wondered if it was the booze. Tiny bottle of Titos and Mr.& Mrs. T. Or maybe it was being up above my life, so that I could see its topographies, the patterns like farm circles, slopes and narrative arcs. Or was it the turning over of my fate to a stranger I couldn’t see, closed behind a locked metal door, whose voice may well be a lie. I didn’t mind until I became a mom. My…
Author: Mom Egg Review
MER Bookshelf – January 2026 Curated by Melissa Joplin Higley Forthcoming books with flair! Susan L. Leary, More Flowers, Trio House Press, February 2026, poetry With lyrical acuity, philosophical insight, and deep reverence for girlhood, womanhood, and the wildly intelligent spirit that is the female imagination, Susan L. Leary’s newest collection, More Flowers, unfolds as self-interrogation, tribute, and template for survival. At its center is the figure of the mother, whose fierce brutality in navigating the world offers the speaker ambition, tender affirmation, and a necessary understanding of her origins. In particular, images of nature abound: at each turn,…
Mothers and Family This year, MER is examining the ins and outs of mothers with families, both online and in our forthcoming print issues. Often mothers are the nuclei of families—of the legacies, obligations, and stories that orbit around us. Family of heritage, family of birth, family of choice, our greater human family: our families can be sources of support, of exhaustion, of love, of pain. Our families can pass down to us lore or trauma. We are exploring creative writing that addresses our role as mother in these unwieldy units, how we embroider with and untangle these familial…
Jessica Yen Houdini When your second child has been thrashing for twenty-one minutes in their bassinet, you finally recognize, with a clarity you could not have possessed with your eldest, that your infant is so achingly overtired they are physically unable to drift into slumber. Two newborn phases and three pregnancies have acquainted you with the peculiar combination you now recognize in your flailing baby: the muscles that throb with exhaustion even as the mind skips and glides, churns and crashes. As you watch them drift into deep slow breathing, only to flop onto their back and scream in…
Jen Bryant Lessons My son hunches over a math worksheet, brow furrowed in concentration. He solves an addition problem quickly, then reconsiders, doubling back. I watch as he erases carefully, then pencils a new answer over the gray smudge left behind. Pink eraser shavings dot the back of his small hand. For the past few weeks, we’ve been doing our homework together on the back porch, taking advantage of a string of warm fall afternoons. I’m supposed to be working on my own paper, due tomorrow. Instead, I peer across the patio table at my son, waiting to see…
Tracie Adams All My Love, Monitored and Recorded There never seemed to be a good time to see the jail’s number on our caller ID. The phone ringing didn’t surprise us, but it sure pissed us off. Our oldest son, adopted at age eleven, would call from jail, usually while we were eating dinner or having a family game night with our other three kids. “You have a collect call from an inmate in Pamunkey Regional Jail. This call is being monitored and recorded for security purposes. Please refrain from discussing the inmate’s case, as any and all communication…
Nettie Reynolds Crossing the Canyon In June 2011, a month after my divorce was finalized, I packed up the car in Austin, Texas, and took the first of what would become many trips with my two kids—my nine-year-old son, my eleven-year-old daughter—and our pug. We had always wanted to see the Grand Canyon, and that summer I decided: we would go. Just the three of us, finding a new path. The Grand Canyon is still forming. The Colorado River didn’t carve it in one dramatic gesture—it shaped it slowly, over millions of years, with flood and drought, ice and…
Melissa Fraterrigo Mother-Daughter Osmosis Last week, my daughter Eva and I walked to the neighborhood swimming pool a few blocks from our house. The sun glinted off the water’s surface as Eva and I tossed our towels on lounge chairs. She took off her t-shirt and shorts, her long limbs and muscular thighs as strong as any engine you might find beneath a hood. At fourteen, she’s nearly the same height as me but with a splattering of freckles across her nose. Some family members say Eva looks just like I once did. Eva grabbed a pair of goggles…
Jennifer Harris One Hundred and Forty-One Miles I was walking up 19th Street in Dupont Circle listening to Sinead O’Connor’s You Cause As Much Sorrow on my iPhone. She’s saved under my “Goth Alt” list, which, if you must know, is mislabeled. It’s really an indie-folk list. But sometimes I mix up words. You should see my computer files. You would think I was a spy or something. Everything is coded for stealth. I hadn’t listened to Sinead in a while. When I do, I am transported to Tucson and the 1990s. Hotel Congress on East Congress Street where…
Kresha Warnock Becoming a Mother-in-Law I listen to the baby cry in her room. It’s 7 a.m., I’m up, and I wonder if I should go get my little granddaughter. Her dad, my son, worked late the night before. He’s a cop and last night was the fourth of July, and he had to make sure everyone stayed safe, didn’t get too drunk at the big fireworks display at Gas Works Park, down by the water in Seattle. This is Saturday and her mom gets up early every workday and deserves what the Brits call a “lie-in.” I’m visiting.…