FEATURING:
Claire Vaye Watkins
Kaitlyn Greenidge
Matthew Salesses

Sponsored by GrubStreet's Muse & the Marketplace conference

The idea that parenthood is a barrier to art creation is outdated, even dangerous—that we create in spite of having children rather than making complex work productively informed by parenthood in all its glory, sorrow, and ambivalence. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought parenting issues to the forefront of the national conversation, and the result has been that the discussions around parenthood specific to writing have evolved, too. Novelists Claire Vaye Watkins (I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness), Kaitlyn Greenidge (Libertie), and novelist and essayist Matthew Salesses (Craft in the Real World) will talk about the struggles, triumphs, stereotypes, and assumptions of writing as parents in the current literary and cultural moment. Moderated by Kelly Luce, author of Pull Me Under and the editor of The Commuter, Electric Literature’s weekly literary magazine for poetry, prose, and graphic narrative. Their discussion will be followed by an audience Q&A.

Busting Myths About Parenting and Writing