Fed Up With a Lack of Diverse Children’s Books, Queer Parents Write Their Own

Articles, Books, Media, Writings

Article HERE – from Bitch Magazine

“The lack of books centering on queer stories and kids of color is well documented. Every year, the Cooperative Children’s Book Center counts up how many newly published children’s books are by and about people of color. The results are depressing, but would be no surprise to parents like Bergman: In 2013, just eight percent of new books were about people of color and only seven percent were written by people of color. “

About the Author

Sarah Mirk

Sarah Mirk is a Portland, Oregon based editor and writer who currently serves as the online editor at Bitch Media. She can be found on twitter @sarahmirk

 

Baba, a name I call myself

Articles, Writings

Article HERE – from lesbiandad.net

“When I tried it on for size, I noticed some of the pre-parental tensions dissolving. With a name, I began to feel as if I was an actual thing. A somebody! Not a hyphenated mom, a kind-of-mom, a non-bio mom, an also-ran. But an actual, bona fide thing. My own turf. Some elbow room. The name Baba christened my earlier, inchoate musings about a lesbian fatherhood, and in so doing helped crystallize them.”

About the Author

Polly Pagenhart has been writing about her lesbian and gender-queer parenthood since soon after becoming a parent. Her essay “Confessions of a Lesbian Dad” appeared in the Lambda Literary Award–nominated anthology Confessions of the Other Mother (Beacon, 2006), and she’s been publishing her blog Lesbian Dad, since 2006.

ANDREA LAWLOR on Why Hart Doesn’t Have Two Mommies

Articles, Writings

Article HERE – from Mutha Magazine

“So one of the biggest decisions of my life came down to a missing word. If I’m not Mom, who am I? I didn’t like the idea of my kid calling me by my first name, as if I were the manny. I wanted a title, to be a noun. I began asking friends and acquaintances how they’d solved this problem. Most of the lesbian or queer couples I knew with kids used some variation of Mom and Mama, even for the butches. Most of the gay and/or trans guys were using variations on Daddy or Papa. I am already Papa to our cats, so I was drawn to that word, but claiming it outright felt like too much of a project for me, and also perhaps a nonconsensual experiment we’d be doing on our child [2].”

About the Author

Andrea Lawlor, a recent graduate of UMass Amherst’s MFA program, teaches writing at Mount Holyoke College, edits fiction for Fence, and has been awarded fellowships by Lambda Literary and Radar Labs. Lawlor’s poems and stories have appeared in jubilat, The Brooklyn Rail, MiPOesias, The Millions, and Encyclopedia, Vol. II. For sporadic tweets, follow @anderlawlor.