Read the whole post here.

What? A lively conversation about the struggle and juggle of motherhood today. Free and open to the public.

Where? Books Inc., 2251 Chestnut Street, San Francisco

When? Tuesday, May 3 at 7 p.m.

Who? Samantha is editor of the new anthology, Torn: True Stories of Kids, Career & the Conflict of Modern Motherhood; Caroline is co-editor of Mama, PhD: Women Write About Motherhood and Academic Life, and Stacey is a Wall Street Journal editor and founder of Discussion Divas

But after a couple years of fairly mindless dead-end work, she decided she needed a change:

“It was then that I decided to become an electrical engineer, convinced it would be my ticket out of intellectual petrifaction. Choosing electrical engineering wasn’t a well-informed decision; in spite of having an engineer dad, I’d never actually figured out what engineers did. My dad didn’t talk about his job, and my own observation was that mostly what he did was tinker on his Corvettes. … I assumed that if I got an engineering degree, I too would learn the secrets of working on cars. I now know that this particular goal would have been better served by an auto-shop class.”

The goal might not have been expertly considered, but the journey certainly was, and Jennifer’s essay describes her careful route, via community college (where she met her husband), then a junior transfer to UCLA for her degree in electrical engineering, then a spreadsheet-organized plan to be a grad student mom:

“As I’d hoped, being a mother and a graduate student turned out to be a great combination. I had plenty of time with Riley, and enough time away. I did brain things, and I did mom things. If she was sick and I needed to be home with her, no one cared that I didn’t show up for class; I never had to call in sick or apologize for missing a big meeting. I didn’t have to hoard my vacation and sick days like a candy bar on a desert island. I didn’t have to worry whether my co-workers (or my boss) thought I was a flake. Later on, when I tried juggling an engineering career with one, then two, then three kids, I realized just how much harder it was to be a working mom than to be a student mom.”

Today, Jennifer writes, “Your email. . . made me want to tell you how writing my Mama PhD essay has affected me.  As you know I was a fighter plane and sports car groupie long before I became an engineer, and if I’d had a clue what I was doing I should have chosen to become a mechanical engineer rather than an electrical engineer (EE’s don’t take classes in stuff like aerodynamics since we’re too busy studying circuits and semiconductor physics and that sort of thing).

“Writing my essay for Mama PhD reminded me of my original love of overpowered machinery and it made me sad that I never learned about the stuff that interested me — so I recently registered for an online class in airfoil design. I’m happy to report that, unlike when I was in grad school in the mid 90’s, lots of excellent engineering schools have online grad-level courses now. This is great for people who work and also, of course, for moms!

“The only question is whether I can remember the prerequisite material fast enough to keep up. It’s slightly terrifying. Oh, and writing the essay also made me really want to go back to driving a ferocious sports car rather than a minivan.  Still working on that one.

Some time later, Jennifer sent me another update, demonstrating how flexible working student moms need to be: “I switched classes from Airfoil Theory to Dynamics because of a work conflict (well, not only did I switch classes, I switched colleges, since I needed a later start date).  I’m really excited. But I know I will be severely overwhelmed.”

Jennifer is one of several contributors to the book who do not hold PhDs — some of them are still working on the degree; some are deciding whether to finish it; some, like Jennifer, never wanted that particular degree, or needed it to pursue a career in their chosen field. But all their stories shed light on the challenges of combining motherhood and academic work, and we’re happy Jennifer’s story is in the book. And now we’ll look forward to seeing her airplane designs.

I hadn’t really thought about the constraints of space and materials that visual artists work with until I watched Pamela Tanner Boll’s moving new documentary, Who Does She Think She Is? (2008), which introduces us to several mother-artists and asks why, when making art and raising children are both crucial for our culture, it is so hard to do both. The film wants us to know about these mothers making art, and it puts their stories in the larger context of all women artists. Like all women, women artists find their work less well-known and less well-compensated than the work of their male contemporaries. Like all mothers, mother artists endure isolation from their peers, sleep deprivation, and myriad claims on their time which make it difficult to continue their careers. But they do.

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The filmmakers are celebrating the DVD release by organizing house parties around the country on November 8th. Want to join them? You can buy the DVD at a 10% discount with a special promotional code for Literary Mama and Mama, PhD readers; just go the DVD online store and enter the promo code LitMama.

There’s more information about the house party idea here and here. Check it out, and then gather  your friends for a screening!

She writes in her essay of weighing her job options:

I thought of a brilliant colleague who moved to Nevada for a tenure track position, and was miserable. And another who worked at a big research university in the middle of Ohio who was also struggling to find her way. I thought of a professor at Emory who never wanted to be in Atlanta, who hadn’t bought a house or an apartment because she felt like her time there was just temporary. Ten years later, tenured, she was still in Atlanta. Instead of living her life, she was waiting to leave. She hadn’t married or had children. My husband, James, and I talked about our options for hours: we decided that we weren’t willing to move somewhere we didn’t want to live just for a job. We made the decision that we would make over and over again: our family, our children, and our quality of life all came ahead of academic success. It was a decision that would soon catapult me out of academia and into a more flexible, child-friendly, and risky career.

Today, Jennifer and her family are thriving. She reports:
“Since spending a year teaching on a Fulbright fellowship–as described in Mama, Ph.D.–I have been completely on the wagon and making a living by writing and editing full-time. I’ve co-authored a book with my husband, The Baby Bonding Book for Dads (visit the book’s blog), which we were working on during our time in West Africa, and I have published articles in a wide variety of major magazines and newspapers since my return. Recent articles include a profile of a Salt Lake City entrepreneur who stared a no-menu no-prices restaurant for More magazine, a 6,000-word piece on the debate about vaccines for Mothering magazine, and a cover story for the November issue of Smithsonian magazine about Niger’s last herd of West African giraffes. I was also profiled in that issue by Smithsonian’s editor-in-chief, Carey Winfrey, and the article, “Looking Up,” was selected for inclusion in BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE WRITING 2009. I’ve also been doing a lot of traveling and travel writing, for both the Oregonian and for Disney’s family.com, and I have recently been on assignment at Crater Lake and in Paris, London, the Big Island, and Kauai. Get links to recent articles, media appearances, and events at my website. Finally, I am expecting my fourth child this November.”

Jennifer’s essay offers an excellent example of a viable out of academia, and she continues to advise writers on developing a freelance career, so visit her website for more information.

My friend and fellow mama-writer, one of the most savvy internet book marketing women I know, Christina Katz, is once again running her Writer Mama Back-to-School Giveaway where she gives away one book or magazine subscription every day in September. On September 25th, I’m delighted that Mama, PhD will be included in a trio of anthologies edited by Literary Mama editors Shari MacDonald Strong and Amy Hudock.

Our books — Mama, PhD: Women Write About Motherhood and Academic Life; The Maternal Is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change; and Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined–will be up for giveaway on September 25th. To see a complete list of what you can win, visit Christina’s Writer Mama blog. You can enter every day if you want, so bookmark her site and visit again and again. Good luck!

My first reaction to Mama, PhD, a provocative collection of 35 personal essays and commentaries by 42 women about motherhood and academic life, was a powerful desire to do just what I’ve begun to do here: tell my own story. Edited by Elrena Evans and Caroline Grant, the book features deeply personal and engaging essays that bring to life many facets of this topic: the internal fracturing that comes with considering whether or not to have a child, vivid descriptions of the body’s blossoming during pregnancy, poignant accounts of how it feels to be sidelined by insensitive comments, the heartbreak of leaving one’s child in someone else’s care, the infamous fog of Mommy Brain. In addition, much of the writing is peppered with winsome humor, including laugh-out-loud descriptions of wedging a pregnant body into a desk-chair combination of the type that graces most university classrooms (Evans) or of fielding potential names for a baby from mostly male undergraduates (Sheila Squillante).

Please click on over to Literary Mama to read the rest!

We encourage contributors to consider the changing cultural perceptions, representations, and expectations associated with fatherhood, and to explore the impact of such changes on their identities as teachers and scholars. Increasingly, fathers are taking on a more intense role with regard to child-rearing than ever before. How do today’s male academics view their participation in the parenting process? How is this changing the nature of the job? Has the evolving role of the father in contemporary society changed the job itself?

We also welcome essays that focus on how the evolution of fatherhood is changing the face of academia. Have we seen any concrete changes on college campuses to encourage the “professor as interactive father” schemata? What is the climate like for male professors who “want it all”? Are they able to balance fatherhood and the road to tenure? What gives?

Editors:
Mary Ruth Marotte, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of English and the Director of Graduate Studies in English at the University of Central Arkansas, where she specializes in women’s studies and critical theory. Her book, Captive Bodies: American Women Writers Redefine Pregnancy and Childbirth, was released by Demeter Press in October 2008. She lives in Conway, AR with her husband and three children.

Paige Martin Reynolds, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Central Arkansas. Her specializations include Shakespeare, British Renaissance Drama, Performance Studies, and Elizabeth I. She has written articles published or forthcoming in SEL: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, ANQ: American Notes and Queries, and 1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era. She lives in Little Rock, AR with her husband and daughter.

Length: 1,500 to 4,000 words.

Format: Essays must be typed, double-spaced, and paginated. Please include your name, address, phone number, e-mail address, and a short bio on the last page.

Contact: Mary Ruth Marotte at mrmarotte AT hotmail DOT com for more information

For more information about the conference, including a full list of participants, please visit the website.