The Editors
Marika Lindholm founded the social platform Empowering Solo Moms Everywhere (ESME) to ignite a social movement of solo moms. A trained sociologist, she taught courses on inequality, diversity, and gender at Northwestern University for over a decade. Marika has published scholarly articles; been a regular contributor to Psychology Today, Working Mother, mindbodygreen, and Talkspace; and published essays and fiction in the Daily News, Elephant Journal, the Hill, Ms., Silent Voices, and the Southern Indiana Review.
Domenica Ruta is the author of the New York Times bestseller With or Without You, a memoir about growing up with a heroin-addicted solo mom. Her short fiction has appeared in Epoch, Indiana Review, and the Boston Review. Her most recent book, Last Day, a novel, was written in a postpartum fugue state as a new solo mom to her son. She lives in New York City. You can follow her on Twitter at @DomenicaMary and on Instagram at @domenicaruta.
Cheryl Dumesnil’s books include two collections of poems, Showtime at the Ministry of Lost Causes and In Praise of Falling; a memoir, Love Song for Baby X; and the anthology Dorothy Parker’s Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos, coedited with Kim Addonizio. When she’s not nagging her children to do their homework, she’s pitching baseballs to Kid #1 or singing show tunes with Kid #2, while ignoring a sink full of dirty dishes. Her stint as a solo mom ended in 2017, when she married her soul mate, Sarah, aka the Best Stepparent on Earth.
Katherine Shonk is the author of the short-story collection The Red Passport and the novel Happy Now? Her writing has appeared in Best American Short Stories, Tin House, and elsewhere. An editor for ESME and Harvard University, Katherine lives with her family in Evanston, Illinois, where she is working on a novel about motherhood and immigration.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE: THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT
The Road by Teresa Mei Chuc
You Were Born to Be Loved by Domenica Ruta
from The Light of the World: A Memoir by Elizabeth Alexander
When One Door Closes, Another One Opens by Terri Linton
Notes to My Autistic Daughter by Marianne Peel Forman
I Was the Different One by Nisa Rashid
Return by Dorianne Laux
Teaching My Son to Write: An Abecedarian by Stacia Fleegal
It’s Really Not a Big Deal by Jacob Kronenberg
An Open Letter to Our Sperm Donor by Robin Silbergleid
Dad Day: Death Is a Holiday by Lennlee Keep
How to Pray by Sage Cohen
Butterfly and Sunshine by Marika Lindholm
CHAPTER THREE: A DAY IN THE LIFE
When a Car Wreck Collides with Picking Up the Kids by Melissa Stephenson
How to Comfort a Small Child by Abby Murray
Rules for Being Twenty by Ariel Gore
Evening Guilt by Kristie Robin Johnson
I’m the Woman Who Hit Your Daughter with My Car by Courtney Christine
Life after the NICU by Sarah Netter
My Life as a Refugee by Faleeha Hassan
The Rookie by January Gill O’Neil
This Is Your Life by Fern Capella
Crying It Out by Robin Silbergleid
They Give Awards for That by Lee Nash
CHAPTER FIVE: A CHANGE IS GONNA COME
Now That I Am Forever with Child by Audre Lorde
Coming Out Pregnant! by Staceyann Chin
The Story, for Now by Janlori Goldman
Myths of Botany and Motherhood by Isa Down
Gravity by Kim Addonizio
The Nervous Hospital by Mary Karr
What Remains by Jaimie Seaton
It Will Look Like a Sunset by Kelly Sundberg
Cicadas by Rachel Jamison Webster
My Books on Divorce by Amy Poehler
Today, I Am Mostly Crying by Claire Gillespie
CHAPTER TWO: LEAN ON ME
Finding My Voice, Feeding My Friends by Janelle Hardy
For My Sisters by Sharisse Kimbro
from A Beautiful, Terrible Thing by Jen Waite
Raising a Boy without a Man by Kathleen Laccinole
September 17 by Anne Lamott
Prayer by Keetje Kuipers
The Godfather by Margot Kessler
the lost women by Lucille Clifton
We Are Loved by Amy Rivers
XIII by Adrienne Rich
Tahlequah by Isa Down
All the Single Ladies Jennifer Baumgardner
CHAPTER FOUR: GOOD MORNING HEARTACHE
Why We Stay by VersAnnette Blackman-Bosia
When He Died by Robin Rogers
This Lesson My Boy Already Knows by Georgia Pearle
from The Light of the World: A Memoir by Elizabeth Alexander
Then by Ruth Stone
When Black Lives Matter More Than You Ever Imagined by Deborah Oster Pannell
In a Quiet Moment by Hilary Melton
Heroin, Rain by Anne Spollen
On Home by Lisa Fay Coutley
What I Will Tell His Daughter, When She’s Old Enough to Ask by Meg Day
Grey Street by Angela Ricketts
CHAPTER SIX: ISN’T IT ROMANTIC?
Size Queen by Evie Peck
All Manner of Obscene Things by Kim Addonizio
Origami Wishes by Akesha Baron
How My Daughter Taught Me to Trust Again by Rachel Sarah
Personals by Muriel Johnson
Kaboom by Susan Goldberg
I Don’t Want Your Husband by P. Charlotte Lindsay
How to Love by January Gill O’Neil
You Can’t “Undo” This One by Jessica Bern
I Ask the Impossible by Ana Castillo
CHAPTER SEVEN: HERE COMES THE SUN
Yeah, But by Cheryl Dumesnil
My Birth, My Way by Cate Morrissey
How I Came to Me by Malaika King Albrecht
Teacher and Teammate by Sarah Kowalski
The Sky Is Everywhere by Nancy Sharp
Divorce Cliché by Shannon Lell
Sunday by January Gill O’Neil
Why I Don’t Grieve for My Daughter at College by Ylonda Gault
Deconstructing Kanji by Mika Yamamoto
After He Left by Jeanie Tomasko
I’d Loved Before, but Never Like This by asha bandele