Writer Mother Monster: Creating Community for Writer-Moms, with Scribente Maternum, “I’m for women being just a little bit selfish.”

“I’m for women being just a little bit selfish.”
This special episode explores how to create community around motherhood and writing with the co-founders of Scribente Maternum, a community of writers that explores our emotions as mothers, provides space to recharge, facilitates connections with other writers, and inspires personal and collective action. Featuring Rachel Berg Scherer, Carla du Pree, Caytie Pohlen-LaClare, and Elizabeth Doerr.

Scribente Maternum at scribentematernum.com.

Writer Mother Monster is an interactive interview series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice.

Transcript

Writer Mother Monster: Creating Community for Writer-Moms, with Scribente Maternum

January 12, 2020

In this special episode of Writer Mother Monster, Lara Ehrlich speaks with community writing group Scribente Maternum to offer actionable advice for how writer moms can seek out, create, and participate in writer-mom communities. Scribente’s cofounders share their perspectives on writer-motherhood, particularly how their personal experiences inspired them to found Scribente Maternum. And we hear about the Scribente Maternum retreat and what writers can expect to gain from attending.

Scribente Maternum is a community of writers that explores our emotions as mothers, provides space to recharge, facilitates connections with other writers, and inspires personal and collective action. The organization is hosting its first retreat for writer moms this February. Learn more at scribentematernum.com. 

Lara Ehrlich  

Hello and welcome to Writer Mother Monster. I’m Lara Ehrlich, and I’m excited to host a special episode this evening about creating community around motherhood and writing with my guests, the cofounders of Scribente Maternum. 

Before we introduce tonight’s panelists, I want to thank you all for tuning in and letting you know that you can now listen to Writer Mother Monster as a podcast on all major audio platforms, or read the interview transcripts at your leisure on writermothermonster.com. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider becoming a Writer Mother Monster patron or patroness on Patreon. Your support helps make this series possible. 

Please also chat with us during the interview. Your comments and questions will appear in our broadcast studio, and we’ll weave them into our conversation. Now I’m excited to introduce tonight’s panelists, the founders of Scribente Maternum, a community of writers that explores our emotions as mothers, provides space to recharge, facilitates connections with other writers, and inspires personal and collective action. The organization is hosting its first retreat for writer moms this February. Welcome, Elizabeth, Rachel, Caytie and Carla.

I’d love to just go around in the order that we see you here on screen and introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about yourself and about your children and, in some cases, grandchildren.

Carla Du Pree  

My name is Carla Du Pree. I’m the executive director of CityLit Project, a small, literary nonprofit in Baltimore, Maryland. I’m a fiction writer, but I heavily support writers of all kinds. I have three children, mostly adult children, who have all returned home in this pandemic. I have a 29-year-old daughter; twin boys, who are 26 years old; and a 6-year-old grandson, who is very, very active in my home with virtual kindergarten.

Lara Ehrlich  

Thank you, Carla.

Rachel Berg Sherer  

Thank you so much for having us. My name is Rachel. I am also a writer professionally. I write a lot of history and English textbooks. I also write materials that teachers use for classroom use, lesson plans, that sort of thing. And I also help other writers get their projects finished. I also have a boy and a girl. My son is 8 and my daughter is 6. We’re also in the midst of distance learning kindergarten, and it’s entertaining.

Elizabeth Doerr  

I’m Elizabeth Doerr. I am also a professional writer. I mostly freelance with organizations and brands that need regular communications, but I also have a background in journalism and creative writing. I wish I had more time to do that kind of writing, but as we’re probably going to be talking about today, I have one son, who’s 3 1/2. We are luckily not in the homeschooling nightmare, which is really freeing in some sense.

Caytie Pohlen LaClare  

I’m Caytie Pohlen LaClare, and I am the founder of a couple different businesses. Better Smarter Stronger is one of the sponsors for Scribente Maternum, and it’s an organization that is built around reminding women that they are the experts of their own lives. I am a mom of four. I have a daughter who’s 30, a son who’s 28, another son who’s 17, and my youngest son is 15. I’m also grandmother. I have a grandson who just turned five months today.

Lara Ehrlich  

Congratulations! I’m so thrilled to have you all here. The work that you’re doing is so vital and necessary, as we’ll talk about, and you all individually are such inspirations, so thank you again for joining us. And of course, we’ll get into a discussion about community and writer-motherhood, but first, tell us a little bit about Scribente Maternum. 

Rachel Berg Sherer  

Scribente Maternum is really a community of writer moms. We are hosting our first event in February, but our events are just one element of what we do. We are really striving to create a community and a network and resources that give moms who are also writers a place where they can share their unique experiences. There is this awesome tension that exists between being the on-call parent and a creative professional. 

We realized when we were looking for something like this community that it just didn’t exist. Everyone was either complaining about having children and how they could never write, or—maybe not moms—talking about how life just churned along as usual and it was no problem. We found this really unique sort of dichotomy of being both inspired by and distracted by our children. Living with that balance and finding the time to still be creative and be moms is why we’re here with Scribente Maternum.

Lara Ehrlich  

That’s really inspiring to hear, and it’s something I’ve heard from a lot of the mother-writers I’ve had on the show—that dual challenge and yet joy and inspiration of having children. I think often when we think about writer-motherhood, we think about the challenges: how hard it is to find the time or to prioritize our craft when we’re torn in so many different directions. But the joy is something that has surprised me when talking with so many mothers. That is a really vital part of writer motherhood. And Elizabeth, before the interview, you and I were talking about the impetus for Scribente Maternum and inspiration behind it. Can you tell us a little bit about your experience?

Elizabeth Doerr   

The nuggets of inspiration for this really started at the AWP Conference in Portland in 2018. I met Rachel there, and Rachel met Carla there. It was kind of this beautiful amalgamation of inspiration around motherhood and fatherhood and all of that. Rachel was a panelist on a women writers’ panel, and she and I connected and became friends and really bonded over that tension that she talked about earlier, the challenges between motherhood and fatherhood. Our friendship grew from that. She connected with Carla as well. 

Then, at that same conference—and Lara, I think you and I were in the audience of the same panel, and maybe Carla was there as well—there was a panel on parent writers and their challenges. It was mostly a panel of dads and one mother, I think, and I just came out of that more frustrated than anything, because it just did not feel true to what my experience was. 

I feel that constant guilt for just taking time for myself and getting away to be by myself. I have that weight. I think Carla and Caytie can speak to this more because they have older kids, too, but I feel like I’ve talked to some other mothers whose kids have also grown, and there’s still this kind of weight that mothers carry, this invisible weight. 

This conversation started at that AWP Conference with Rachel, and then last spring, somehow a writer’s retreat for mothers came up, and it just snowballed from there, and we connected with Carla. Caytie brings event management experience, and she was the one who really inspired us to do this now, in COVID, virtually, which, in some ways, is actually kind of perfect, because it’s the hardest, it’s the worst, and it’s the best time to do it. We all need that time for ourselves in a way that we maybe didn’t know before, or really didn’t feel to the degree that we do now. 

It’s proven to be an opportunity to do it during this period of time. And also, doing it virtually is really great because it’s not as intense, we can involve more people than we could for an in-person retreat, it can be less expensive, and it’s more accessible. We’re hoping this creates a really strong community of writer moms. So that’s where it started and how it’s going.

Lara Ehrlich  

That’s awesome. I think you’re right: this is a perfect time to do it. I know I need to retreat, and it’s not quite possible to travel anywhere right now, so this is the perfect time to do it and the perfect way to do it. A little later in the show, we’ll get to who the guest speakers are and all the details of the retreat and the dates and so on. 

Yes, Elizabeth, I was at that panel at AWP, and it was my experience as well. I came excited. I devoted a certain number of pages of my notebook to take notes and come away with all these great, inspiring tips and actions, and I really didn’t take much of anything away from it, I think, because it was a panel mostly of men, and fathers’ experiences are very different from mothers’ experiences as writers. Let’s talk about that a little bit. It’s particularly relevant for this show, since this is a show for writer moms, not for writer parents. What is, in your experience, specific about writer motherhood, rather than writer parenthood. We’re both parents and mothers, so we can speak to both.

Carla Du Pree  

I don’t think you ever turn off either one. You’re always a mother, and you’re always a writer. Even if you’re not actually doing the act of writing, when you’re with your children, you’re always thinking about these different personalities, how they show up in the world, how they announce themselves. I think it’s very hard to separate the two. 

One of my favorite quotes, something my mom used to say, is “When children are young, they’re around your feet, and as they grow older, they’re around your heart.” 

We all know in the pandemic, women are being put upon—they’re at home with their children, they’re doing a good part of the homeschooling while still maintaining their jobs. That’s a lot. I read something I think was on your site, Lara, that said that women are pushed back years from the workplace, because many of them have quit their jobs or have lost their jobs. 

The wonderful thing about this retreat is it’s a space where we want to hold them, we want them to embrace their motherhood and embrace the writer in them. CityLit Project has always supported writers at every stage of their journey, and when Elizabeth and Rachel brought this concept to me, I kept thinking, Well, why not? Why not try to figure out how to support mothers in this crazy time, when you’re trying to adjust a lot of things?

Lara Ehrlich  

Absolutely. I don’t mean to generalize, because mothers are not a monolith and neither are fathers and neither are parents, but something I’ve heard from a lot of guests is that feeling of “once we have children” and the understanding of a new depth of emotion, sometimes violent emotion, in the sense that we become, as one guest said, like a mama bear, ready to inflict violence on anyone who would hurt our child. 

I know I felt that very strongly from the moment my daughter was born. I would take her, say, to a friend’s house, and the friend might want to hold her, and the physical anxiety I had when someone else was holding my child was something I had never experienced, and it’s something that my husband didn’t share with me. He said, “It was fine when she held the baby. It didn’t really bother me.” I think that is, on a really primal level, a difference between a mother and a father, and that when you’re writing, you still maintain, as Carla said, that sort of primal connection with your child. It’s hard to code shift in that way. 

Caytie, can you tell us a little bit about your experience as a mother writer, and what makes it different than, say, a parent writer.

Caytie Pohlen LaClare  

Full confession: I’m not a professional writer, although I have to do writing for the work that I do, whether it’s blog posts or marketing pieces or things like that.

Rachel Berg Sherer  

Caytie, that’s writing. You’re a writer.

Caytie Pohlen LaClare  

That’s a female thing, right? Making excuses. 

What I’ve found is that when we talk about balance, it’s not ever exactly 50/50; you’re going to give more time to your children, and your writing is going to drop down for a while, but then you might have times where you can do a little bit more writing and if you have a partner or someone who can take over some of the childcare aspects, that allows you to do that. I don’t think it’s ever 50/50. It’s a give and take, and it might balance over a year or a few years. 

The other big thing I would say is it’s really important to not deprive yourself and just shove it away and not do it at all, to completely ignore it. That doesn’t necessarily make you a better parent. What it makes you is frustrated, and it can come out, as Rachel’s dad likes to say, sideways. It can come out in different ways. I think we all need to cut ourselves some slack in how we approach it, and carve out the time to do it, but not beat ourselves up if it isn’t that way every single day or every single week.

Lara Ehrlich  

You mentioned beating ourselves up and the guilt and the tendency to shove things down. Do you all feel like that’s a quality specific to women and mothers, to do those things? Is that something that you’ve experienced fathers doing, whether it’s your spouse or friends?

Elizabeth Doerr  

I think it’s a natural thing for women in particular, not even in parenting roles, to be raised and socialized to kind of take the burdens of the world on our shoulders, generally speaking, and I think that transfers over to parenthood. 

I was having a conversation with one of our facilitators, talking about it in the context of even women who are not mothers, by choice or whatever, there’s still this kind of societal judgement and weight around motherhood that is in those women as well. I personally think it is around socialization and how we’re brought up to be serving of the world and, therefore, our kids. There might be some fathers or men who feel differently, but I know in my relationship, we have very different experiences with that emotional load and emotional labor, and sometimes when I talk about the guilt that I feel, he’s kind of like, “Well, why?” I don’t know why it’s there, it’s just there.

Rachel Berg Sherer  

It’s a burden, but at the same time, it’s a blessing. We feel a closeness with our children that our husbands or partners don’t necessarily feel. My son, who’s turning 9 next week, is tall enough that when he stands next to me, he’s the same height as when I used to carry him in a little baby carrier. When he gives me a hug, I’m like, sniffing his hair, and my husband has no idea why this is a big deal. I’m like, he still smells like a baby!

Lara Ehrlich  

I think you’ve all brought up really great points. I’m wondering if we could pivot to the importance of carving out that time and how we deal with the guilt. We’ve acknowledged some of the challenges inherent in being writer mothers. What are some of the strategies you’ve found to acknowledge those challenges and get your work done? How do we hold ourselves accountable for devoting the time and the effort to our craft?

Carla Du Pree  

Women that I know that are mothers try to get up early—I have some friends who get up as early as four o’clock in the morning to make the time to write. I’m an older mom with older kids, so at some point, I learned that if I was happy, they would be happy. If I fed my spirit, it meant that I could be theirs. 

It was important to make time to write, which is very difficult and not always the way I want. Sometimes I get up early and there’s nothing to write. And sometimes, I feel like the way I feel about each of them—very strongly, that warrior mom, I’m right there with you—that adds to the work. How you feel about them, some of the changes they take you through, especially the older ones—that feeds your work. I’m not even sure I answered that question.

Lara Ehrlich  

You definitely did, Carla.

Carla Du Pree  

That’s what you do. You show up in the morning. I light my candle, have my cup of tea, and I sit there, and I make it work. It’s not ideal. Some days, I’m dead tired. Some days, it just doesn’t show up for me. 

But I also like to change the concept of what is writing. You know, writing can be the physical act of writing. But to me, writing also means paying attention, observing the world in a different way and listening to people with a different ear, taking time to really absorb and observe what’s around you. That’s writing to me. And that’s not necessarily something that you have to pinpoint or structure. You know, this hour of the day could be all day. And we listen to children, the way everything is new to them. They’re like walking scribes. We have to listen and pay attention and be in that moment.

Elizabeth Doerr  

Yeah, speaking on that, Carla, I feel like I’ve become a better writer in some ways since having a kid because I’m paying attention to what he’s observing from the world—because as adults, we take some of the things that are going on in the world for granted. When we travel with my kid, he notices things that I would have walked right past. I think that’s a huge example of how they are sources of inspiration. If we see the world through their eyes, they’re our viewpoints and inspiration.

Rachel Berg Sherer  

I’ve become so much more efficient since I had children. I can’t just sit and daydream and write, so I have my ongoing notes app on my phone, where I quick type when something comes to mind. My whole process has changed. I find myself outlining entire essays in my head because I am with small children, and I don’t have time to sit and write. 

I also remember at that same AMP Conference where we all met each other for the first time, Carla, you talked about how you tried to have an office in your home away from your children, and you spent time and money to make that office just gorgeous, and you were just back at the table because that was where the inspiration and the energy was. I love that.

Carla Du Pree  

Toni Morrison used to say, “around my feet.” Children at her feet, and she was still working.

Elizabeth Doerr  

As far as practical, logistical, setting aside the time, I’m very externally motivated, so having a group that holds me accountable, with deadlines or someone telling me that I need to get something done, is how I will force myself to make time. Because the time is there; it’s just a matter of looking for it. For me, that was part of what I was looking for and my reasons for doing this. I wanted community that could help provide inspiration, motivation, and also accountability. That’s hugely valuable, because it gives me this extra component to make me do it.

Lara Ehrlich  

Yeah, definitely. I want to come back to community in a second. But Caytie, first, if you had an actionable, strategic point you could share with everyone.

Caytie Pohlen LaClare  

Well, I think the biggest thing is the flexibility piece. Carla said getting up early, Rachel thinks about it as the day goes on, Elizabeth has external groups. It also changes depending on where you’re at; a baby or toddler is different than elementary kids or high school kids. I think that’s the biggest thing to keep in mind, as it continues to evolve. And just when you think you’ve got it down, it changes again, because they are in a new stage as well.

Lara Ehrlich  

Yeah, definitely. Elizabeth, you mentioned holding oneself accountable to deadlines and getting work done. Can you talk a little bit more about what a community generally offers a writer, particularly a writer mom, and then we’ll come back to Scribente Maternum.

Elizabeth Doerr  

I think community can offer a lot of different things, and I think everyone comes to it for different reasons. I think that by having either a small or a large group of people, you have people who are likeminded, who have similar experiences, while that might diverge, we have that defining factor of being a writer mom, that connecting point. 

Then, beyond that, we can learn from each other. I think a community for me is a place to find inspiration, motivation, encouragement, accountability, but also, it’s a challenging space, too. I think that’s something that I really lean into. 

I have a background in social justice education and working in anti-racism, where you lean into the really hard questions—you don’t stay away from them. I think that goes for really strong communities, where you’re asking hard questions, you’re creating connections over challenging each other and challenging yourself and diving into questions that are difficult. 

There’s also this sense of catharsis about being able to identify with each other and just talk about what you’re dealing with and what your challenges are, in a group of people who are going to understand and also be like, “We hear you, we feel you. Maybe everyone’s at a different place, but we know.”

Carla Du Pree  

Thank you for saying that, Elizabeth, because I think part of it is that you look at the title of our retreat, and we want people to understand that motherhood is messy, it’s challenging, it’s not perfect. In fact, I was a perfectionist until I had children. I realized they taught me you will not be perfect, and you will not have that perfectly clean house, you will not have this rigid schedule—no. To be able to let go of those walls that kind of separate us and know that no, it’s not going to be perfect. It won’t be. But life isn’t either. And neither is writing. Quite frankly, that first draft is usually horrible. 

We wanted a real space where mothers could actually be mothers and embrace that motherhood and the idea of rage in motherhood—because there is that, too. Like, “How dare you take up all this time, when all I want to do is this one little thing.” And all the things that come with being a mom, too. We needed a space for that.

Lara Ehrlich  

A space to be monsters, right?

Everyone  

Yeah.

Lara Ehrlich  

Can you all talk about where you discover communities? So Scribente Maternum, obviously, is one great place to go, ready-made, to find a writer mom community. Have you all found writing communities that have spoken to you? And where did you find them? 

I can say I found a very small community in two mothers who I met at a conference who became my confidants and my motivators and my inspiration, and we can email one another and talk and do Zoom to keep each other going, essentially. That’s a community on one scale, like a small, friend group community. Scribente Maternum is a larger community without borders. Can you talk a little bit about what people can do if they’re looking for a community?

Elizabeth Doerr  

I’m a natural extrovert. I need to get energy from other people. So, community is like my way of life. I’m also a serial Facebook group starter. I’m part of all of these Facebook groups that are not necessarily writing communities but mom communities. One of the mom groups that I’m a part of, I started with a friend, because we wanted people in our neighborhood to meet people in our neighborhood. Our kids were infants at this point, but within six months, we were up to, like, 150 people. I think it was something that people were seeking. They wanted people nearby. Facebook has its flaws, but that was a really good way to do that. 

As far as a writing community, I got a master’s in writing, and part of the reason I did that program was because I knew I wanted to be a writer but didn’t know anybody who was a writer. That was my way to get into that community or to find community in that. I don’t think you necessarily have to do a full master’s program, but you can take writing classes and find the spaces where writers meet.

Carla Du Pree 

At our CityLit events, we really are strong on finding your community. When we have an event, even in a virtual event, we realize that sometimes community happened after the event. We call it the Writers Room, where we invite the featured artists to leave the room when they wanted to or stay, and we just talked. And it’s almost like you don’t have to know a person, you just need to know that they’re trying to do the same thing you’re trying to do—fill that empty page, make space to write down what you’re thinking, creating a world on a piece of paper and making sure that when I write this world and you read it, you’re in that world. That, to me, is magical. 

We hold large events and small events, but each time, we want people to tap into the idea that they’re not walking that path alone, and eventually, they come to enough community affiliated events that they start to get together or meet each other. It’s a wonderful thing to find a writer who really identifies with the way you write or a poet whose work you really want to support and become writer friends or literary friends from that. There are all kinds of ways to build community. It’s not just one way. It could be an event. I personally had a group of writer friends, five of us, and we would meet when we could. We all were mothers. Incredible group. We don’t meet often now, but to this day, I know that I can pick up the phone at any point in time and have a conversation with any one of those woman writers. That’s treasure to me.

Lara Ehrlich  

Carla, this might be a question for you, but also for all of you about Scribente Maternum. When curating that community, you want to open it up to those who are in need of that connection, but you also, I assume, want to maintain a certain tone and an openness and a non-judgmental quality to that community. 

Can you talk a little bit about how you do that? That’s sort of an open-ended question. I’ve been, like Elizabeth, part of a number of Facebook groups for writers and for mothers and for writer moms, and some of the mother groups can turn quite nasty. Judgmental women are our own worst enemies. How do you avoid that when creating a group specifically for women, specifically for mothers who are writers?

Carla Du Pree  

I don’t know if I could tolerate that, to be honest. When you’re a mother, you experience a lot of things. Sometimes your children say things to you that totally diminish you, and you walk in a different way. Even when I see a woman struggling with her bags on the street, all I can think about is that’s a mother trying to get her groceries home. To me, a lot of this is tolerance and empath, you know? Not necessarily walking in someone else’s shoes but feeling past your own world. Get out of your own space to understand what that looks like. 

Having never belonged to a group where that kind of thing existed, I think I’d probably have to say a few things. I always think is there’s a way to tone that down, and there’s a way to invite those people out of the room, because it shouldn’t change the intention of the group. If the intention is to hold each other up in a space, where maybe elsewhere in the world, you’re not held up, then they need to go. I will not tolerate that. We won’t tolerate it. 

With Scribente Maternum, we hope that our large group events are as powerful and wonderful as our smaller ones. People don’t believe this, but I can be an introvert when it comes to my work. I’m the social animal that many of us are, but there’s an introvert side, if you’re a writer, the side that turns inward. I think there should be space for that. You don’t always have to fill the space with words. Sometimes it’s about listening and taking in what you can.

Caytie Pohlen LaClare  

Part of what we are doing with Scribente Maternum is on Mighty Networks, we have the community. We’ve taken it off of someplace like Facebook, and we’ve got it on Mighty Networks, a place where people, who are part of this group, can go and bring up a question. Rachel has been really great about doing some writing prompts, or thoughtful things to prompt us to have dialogue. 

Being a parent can be isolating, being a writer can be isolating, so knowing that there’s a place that you can go where there’s other people who are maybe having similar experiences and giving those words of encouragement—"Yeah, you’re not the only one. I feel that way too.”—sometimes just knowing that somebody else is going through the same thing, it’s huge. It helps you feel like a part of that group but also not so alone in your own in your home, in your individual world. That’s a really important piece of what we’re doing. 

During the retreats, there will be small group breakouts, where we will intentionally put people together, and over the course of four weeks, they will stay with their second cohort and hopefully develop a deeper bond that can extend out beyond the retreat.

Lara Ehrlich  

While we’re talking about the retreat, can you tell us a little bit more about it? Who are the speakers? What are the exact dates? Tell us a little bit about the shape of what people can expect if they attend.

Rachel Berg Sherer 

It’s the four Saturdays in February beginning on Feb. 6. We’re trying to be very mindful of time zones and not waking our friends on the West Coast up at 5 a.m., so it goes from noon to 2:30 Eastern time, a reasonable hour for those on the West Coast. It’s two and a half hours together every Saturday. 

Our first speaker on Feb. 6 is Maria Broom, another Baltimore resident. She’s a Fulbright Scholar, she’s an actress, she’s a reporter—I mean, she’s just the most wonderful, amazing person. She does a lot with meditation, how to find stillness, how to find calm—things that are great for moms, especially moms who write and whose brains are always writing, always going, always thinking. She’s just an absolute blessing. 

Other authors and writers, there’s M.M. De Voe, whose first solo book is coming out in February, and it’s all about finding the balance and time between parenting and writing, so that’s just perfect. She is also the founder of Pen Parentis, which is an amazing organization that helps writer parents continue their craft and hold themselves accountable with their writing. S

he’s also training our small group facilitators, so when we do have those small group experiences each week, you won’t just be thrown into a group and hope that it runs well—to your point about what happens if people get off track or aren’t respectful. 

Also Karen Houppert, who teaches at Johns Hopkins, also in Baltimore. Elizabeth and I don’t live in Baltimore now, but we have lived in Baltimore for a while, too. I’ll let Elizabeth speak a little bit more about Karen. We’re also rounding out our retreat with some real action steps that we can take, going forward.

Elizabeth Doerr  

Karen Houppert is a personal mentor of mine, and she is the associate director of the Johns Hopkins Master’s in Writing program. She’s just an amazing educator and writer. She has several books, nonfiction books, and she’s an amazing journalist. She was the editor in chief of Baltimore City Paper before it went away, like many of our independent weeklies. I wrote for her at Baltimore City Paper for a while, and she’s just amazing and very connected to this topic. That’s the defining factor between everybody that’s coming to this: we’re all very connected to this topic, and it resonates.

Lara Ehrlich  

It sounds like such an amazing event. I’m looking forward to attending, I hope that our listeners today will attend with me. If you could suggest one takeaway that someone might take away from the retreat, what would you hope it would be? 

Rachel Berg Sherer  

One I can think of is this idea of space—of headspace, of physical space, giving yourself the gift of space, and leaving the retreat, not just with those two and a half hours of space but with the desire and the recognition that you deserve to find space throughout the week, going forward.

Elizabeth Doerr  

I think folks can come away with a writing goal, too. We have this focus toward the end on actionable items, and a big part of that is creating the space, but also having a clear goal on what you want, as far as your writing goes—next steps, which means something different for everybody. We’re not going to define that for attendees, but it could be having a regular journaling practice or working on a manuscript that you’ve had sitting on your desktop for a while. I think that very practical thing appeals a lot to writers who want to take the next step on whatever they’re working on.

Caytie Pohlen LaClare  

To add to that, I think one of the things people will take away is the value of time and the value of having some kindness towards yourself in allowing or setting that up as best as you can. This retreat is more about taking care of the whole person. This is not specifically, like, how to be a better writer or a writing workshop. It’s more about taking care of you as a mom, taking care of you as a writer, helping you find community, helping you experience, for four weeks, the value and importance of having that space.

Carla Du Pree  

My thought is to one, make sure that we define mothers in all its aspects—it could be foster mother, it could be adopted mother. Any way that you describe motherhood, we’re not putting those labels on you. You define them the way you see fit. I’m embracing that motherhood as it is. To me, part of this is being a little selfish. It’s okay to take that time. Yeah, two and a half hours every Saturday, sorry—I’m claiming. We’re just talking about four Saturdays out of one month. The hope is that the intention is set that those two and a half hours that you spend each of those weekends means that you’ll make and find the time after February to do it over and over again, as you see fit. We will build that space to be the writer. 

I think of mothers always as creative beings—from you created a miracle to your growing a miracle. You have so much to offer, and it’s so important to hear your stories. More than anything, when I think about Black mothers writing, I remember I was on a goose hunt, trying to find stories that had characters that look like my children. That was a huge thing. So for me, I’m supporting every writer of color, every Black mother, every mother, period. If you can tell that story, we need to hear them, we need to see them. Your children need to read them and meet them. And I’m for women being just a little bit selfish, just making sure that they make that time to do that work, too. Because it’s just as important.

Lara Ehrlich  

Yeah, I love that you say we’re doing this for ourselves, we’re being selfish in a good way, but also for our children. I think, Carla, that’s a great point, that we want our children to see us as a whole person, a whole woman, beyond just their mom, that we are seen as creative people, and we’re setting that example.

Carla Du Pree  

If I could speak to that, my son was older when he read a segment of my work. It was like, a year and a half ago. He actually was stunned. He had this idea of who I was, but he didn’t know writer me. And I’ll never forget, he read my stuff, he walked into the room, and he said, “Mom, this is you?” And it’s like that—like, yes.

Lara Ehrlich  

My last guest, Melanie Conroy-Goldman, said something that I’ve been thinking about, which is that it’s a gift to give your child access to a part of you that they wouldn’t have experienced growing up with you as their mother, that our book is sort of a window into a part of ourselves. If we need to think of it that way in order to set aside two and a half hours, then maybe that’s okay.

Rachel Berg Sherer  

We’re better parents right now, too, when we set aside time for ourselves. Like the metaphor of securing your own oxygen mask before you try to help somebody else. You can’t help anybody if you are exhausted, if you’re depleted, if you’re not fulfilled, if you’re resentful because these tiny humans are taking everything you have. We’re better mothers when we step away and do what we need to do to make ourselves feel whole.

Elizabeth Doerr  

That’s kind of where the theme of this this retreat came from, cultivating your creativity and community. The first week will be about sitting in this moment of grief because we have to acknowledge Covid and what’s going on and what grief means, in that sense. Then, the next week will be about self-care and telling ourselves, we need this. Week three is about collective care—when we restore our health, what can we be for our families and the world? We’re not just serving ourselves or our children or our families; we’re here to be a part of the world, to make this world a better place, and what that means in your sphere of influence. The last is really about those actionable steps. A really big part of what we’re leaning into is self-care, being present in the world in a way that fulfills us and the people around us.

Lara Ehrlich  

I think this is exactly the right time to have that reminder. I, for one, and I’m sure all of you and our listeners feel completely depleted at this point, with not just writing or motherhood but the pandemic. And as Carla said, those figures of how many mothers specifically have been impacted by this time we find ourselves in. I definitely need to retreat. I need to take that big step away from all of the responsibilities of my life and reflect back on myself for a little bit every weekend in February and see what comes of it. I think we’ve come to the end of the hour, but I want to invite you all, if you have any final, parting words, or listeners, if you have any final questions, please feel free to put them in the chat. But I’m going to open the floor back up for any final thoughts.

Carla Du Pree  

Show up.

Rachel Berg Sherer  

In every sense of the word, right?

Carla Du Pree  

Really.

Caytie Pohlen LaClare  

I would say, you’re not alone. Wherever you are out there, wherever you are on your journey, you’re not alone. There are other people going through the same thing, so reach out.

Lara Ehrlich  

This is a great place to start.

Carla Du Pree  

I’d like to say, too, there’s really two pandemics going on here. One is the racial pandemic. One is the virus pandemic. And I think this is a safe space to talk about that, too. I know as a Black mother, it’s been a hard couple of years. I think there’s room for that discussion, too.

Lara Ehrlich  

Thank you for saying that. And as you said earlier, too, for mothers and all the iterations of what that word can mean, it’s a welcoming, open space that I think we all are in desperate need of right now. I know I am. I’ll be there, and I encourage everyone else to join. You can find more information at www.scribentematernum.com. And I just want to thank you all again so much for joining me tonight. This has been such a great conversation, and the work you’re doing is so important. Thank you all so much.