WA.—On May 14, 2011, at 5 p.m., Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle’s Capitol Hill area will sponsor an author event for the anthology, TORN: True Stories of Kids, Career & the Conflict of Modern Motherhood (ISBN: 978-1-60381-097-5, $18.95; 288 pp.), edited by Samantha Parent Walravens. Elliott Bay Book Company is located at 1521 10th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122. Contributor Kezia Willingham will discuss the book and read an excerpt from her story, “Is this the American Dream?”The release date for TORN is May 1, 2011, just in time for Mother’s Day.
"TORN offers up the finest imaginable gift for today's moms, no matter whether you work or stay at home: the comforting truth that we all juggle life and kids as best we can, and that moms ride this nutty 'mommy wars' roller coaster together."
--Leslie Morgan Steiner, author of Mommy Wars and New York Times Bestseller Crazy Love
"A fascinating look at Mothering 2.0."
--Willow Bay, Senior Editor, The Huffington Post
“TORN is a poignant look at how a generation of mothers is trying to forge its own identity while honoring the legacy of 60s and 70s feminism.”
--Neal Pollack, Vanity Fair columnist and author of Alternadad and Stretch
Real Mothers. Real Careers. Real Conflict: Striking the right balance between career and motherhood is one of the most stressful, heart wrenching tasks facing women today. In TORN: True Stories of Kids, Career & the Conflict of Modern Motherhood, 47 women examine the conflict between the need to nurture and the need to work, and reveal their creative solutions for having the best of both worlds.
The stories in the collection offer hope and inspiration, but they also reveal the messy realities of modern motherhood and life's inevitable crises, both small and large: from breast pump mishaps to battles with cancer; diaper blowouts to debilitating depression; competitive cupcake baking to coming home from war. Also included are highly topical stories of mothers serving active military duty in Iraq and Afghanistan; and stay-at-home mothers being forced back to work after a long hiatus because of the economic crisis.
Samantha Parent Walravens is an award-winning journalist, writer and mother of four children. She started her writing career as an editor for PC World magazine, where she covered business and technology, and launched the magazine’s first website, PC World Online. She left journalism to chase the “Internet dream” in the mid-1990s, helping to grow a small Silicon Valley software start-up into a multi-million dollar public company. You can find Samantha online at www.samanthawalravens.com.
Kezia Willingham is a former high school dropout, single mother, and welfare recipient, who has a bachelor’s degree from Oregon State University and a master’s in social work from the University of Washington. She resides in Seattle, where she works for the Head Start program and is an advocate for immigration reform. She is married with three children.
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