Sarah Lightman – “Biblical Women Ageing Disgracefully”

“Biblical Women Ageing Disgracefully,” paintings by Sarah Lightman, is showing in the UK at Chester Visual Arts in July. Lightman explains that these are “…paintings…of familiar figures, once painted by ‘masters’ of Western art, and trapped in scenes from my own life: Bathsheba is tired of the dishes; Eve’s lost in the pile of laundry; Mary struggles with parenting and experiences an unexpected perimenopausal bleed on holiday. In this exhibition of carefully observed watercolour paintings, I plait religion, humour, and satire to spotlight women’s lives, struggles, and ageing bodies.”

Read more about the artist and this project (including an analysis by Dr. Dawn Llewellyn) and see the classical paintings that inspired these paintings here.

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Interview of Domenica Ruta, Author of All the Mothers

An Interview with Domenica Ruta, Author of the Novel All the Mothers, by Nicole Haroutunian

About a chosen family of mothers who have children—initially unbeknownst to them—with the same man, All the Mothers by Domenica Ruta is by turns devastating, hilarious, and paradigm-shifting. Structurally ambitious and narratively propulsive, the novel follows women making bold, courageous choices, forging their own paths, and showing up for one another. READ HERE

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An Interview with Domenica Ruta, Author of the Novel All the Mothers,

by Nicole Haroutunian

“What I love about the structure is the Russian nesting dolls of different stories emerging.” Domenica Ruta

About a chosen family of mothers who have children—initially unbeknownst to them—with the same man, All the Mothers by Domenica Ruta is by turns devastating, hilarious, and paradigm-shifting. Structurally ambitious and narratively propulsive, the novel follows women making bold, courageous choices, forging their own paths, and showing up for one another. READ HERE

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MER Bookshelf June 2025

Featuring new books by Pramila Venkateswaran, Amy Small-McKinney, Shannon K. Winston, Cindy Veach, Chelsea Fanning, Tamara Jong. Curated by Melissa Joplin Higley.

Our Latest Issue: MER 23!!!

Get the issue:

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Watch both of our recent launch readings, and see other readings, interviews, and online conversations on our MER YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@merliterary.

MER Submissions Open for Literary Works on “Mothers and Family.”

One month left to submit. We’d love to read your sharpest work on Mothers and Families!

Full guidelines and link to submit (exclusively through Submittable) here: https://themomegg.submittable.com/submit

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Sarah Mirabile-Blacker

Something New - Haiku

One of the greatest things I’ve struggled with since becoming a full-time mom has been staying in touch with the parts of me that shaped my life before taking on this role. My son was born three years ago and my daughter was born last year, and as so many new parents know, it feels like a complete metamorphosis has taken place. When I say that I’m referring most to a metamorphosis within; that is, it’s as if all the components that formed my personhood before kids have given way to my new, singular mom identity.

This is not a surprise, and it’s no exaggeration. In large part that’s because of the stunning swell of love that grew within me the day my kids were born. You might know it – an all-encompassing, heart-tickling, spirit-stirring love that manifests in holding, hugging, comforting and playing, but also planning, worrying, organizing, and an extreme lack of sleep. I do know that I’m many things and relate to people in as many ways. I’m an educator, meditator, runner, and reader. I’m a wife, friend, daughter, and sister. But for reasons both particular to me and universal to those of us with kids, I find it a constant challenge to partake in the activities I loved before this stage.

Here’s where writing haiku comes in. Before this year I knew relatively little about haiku, even as a college English major and as someone who finds poetry to be a life-giving currency. But a few months ago I started writing haiku about my children – more specifically, writing one or two about them each day – and I’ve found it so transformational that I’ve decided I’m going to continue. I’ll write haiku about my kids every day for one year.

Before kids, I wrote frequently, though always in much longer formats. But in recent years I just haven’t had the time to write as much as I’d like. I’ve often started writing a story and then the following happens: I’ll forget about it (lack of sleep?), abandon it (it’s taking too long to complete) or reject its mediocrity. This, however, is why writing haiku is so ideal. They’re not only powerful expressions of emotional and moving moments, but they are, by definition, beautifully brief. This, I’ve found, is my pathway back to writing. It’s a way I can braid together the writer and mom parts of my identity. Articulating the countless interactions I have with or observe in my children, through a small number of words with a burst of feeling.

One of the first haiku I ever wrote came from watching my daughter on the tram. As we rode back from the grocery store, I noticed how easily her world expanded:

baby finger points
lands upon a stranger's arm
sweet jolt of surprise

Later I wrote another after hearing giggles from her stroller:

pigeons on the line
booties shaking side by side
she laughs as they slide

It was also around the time my son got back-to-back viruses, and I hurt at the reality that I couldn’t simply fix it:

it’s always the same
pink circles beneath his eyes
my heart sinks; he’s sick

Reading those lines now brings me back to that despair. But it’s comforting to see how quickly things usually do change. When his birthday arrived just one week later, my son was back to impersonating a t-rex:

sweet belly laughter
ripples and grows to a roar
my boy dinosaur

One bonus effect of knowing I’m writing each day has been paying closer attention to my kids in all their fullness. Moments that might have passed unnoticed before become deeper in the context of poetry. Another surprising result of engaging in this project has been realizing how much these creative expressions mean to me as an outlet. As someone with chronic anxiety, the writing has been a welcome focus. For a short time each day, it pauses that constant inner chatter, and creates distance between my experiences and reactions to them. Being more reflective in this way has also brought on more gratitude, for both my children and my partner, for other parents who share honestly, and for the village of support that we have as expats with young children.

Take the week that my son started riding his balance bike to school. I wrote two poems about the quarter-mile commute to his daycare:

one push and he’s off
red bike weaving as he glides
toddler flying by

mama, look at this
he moves like a darting fish
thrilling in the ride

Then I got to thinking about our daycare journey more generally. When my son started going, everyone said he’d grow because of it. He was eighteen months at the time and until then we’d always been together. As I held his hand inside mine and we approached on his first day, I was waddling more than walking at eight months pregnant. By then I could no longer keep up with my son the way that I wanted. It was a challenging pregnancy and a super hot summer and I’d recently fainted. Without family living nearby, and knowing deep down our son was ready, we’d applied to a facility down the block and fortunately been accepted. The building looks identical to the others in our neighborhood; slanted rooftop, rectangular windows, stucco walls and a cobblestone patio. And right there in the front, on a colorful dangling canvas, a smiling green seahorse welcoming you in.

But on that first day, though I went in feeling my son could really develop there, I also felt an awareness – quite acutely – of my heart racing in my chest. This was a place we were excited about; I knew I was privileged in that way. And I also knew how many parents were doing this dance with me. But I still felt a painful mix of guilt, uncertainty and fear. Did I really need to leave my son and place time and space between us? Yes, the answer was yes, at that stage in my pregnancy I did. But what I can see now (as opposed to then) is how mutually beneficial it's been. For both my son and myself, it’s been about letting go and maturing. Every time I drop him off, I still wonder if he’ll be okay. It’s not a point of pride that worry usually drives my thinking. I’m working on being open about the nervous buzzing in my chest, but I still often turn obsessively to trying to control, plan and predict. I’m sober and in recovery, where I’ve learned to see these patterns of behavior. But seeing is one thing; letting go is much more difficult.

Letting go and trusting; it’s what we’re continuing to practice. As a result of what I now call my “haiku mindset,” I’m thinking more about the things we’ve both learned from daycare specifically. My son is gaining tons of skills and insights about relationships. He’s speaking German, climbing ladders, and can put on his own boots. He’ll try new foods with the condition that his friends are sitting next to him. Campfire awareness is a theme on days they trek out to the forest. On one particularly hot day, he learned to squirt folks at the water fountain. He can open the garage to park his bike when we arrive each morning. He even knows the code to open it up again in the afternoon.

He’s also learning that people come and go, as leaders change and children graduate. He’s fallen many, many times and learned that games quickly change to rough. He’s quick to scoop up all his toys when he sees a friend approaching, so needless to say, sharing will be a project. All of this I’ve paid attention to much more because of writing. As I’ve also started paying attention to those feelings in myself. Like when I leave my son at daycare and step out into my neighborhood, and there’s still a moment every time when I can’t breathe for a second. There’s just so many things that can happen in a day; there’s his peanut allergy and what if he’s pushed and does he skip down staircases? But I’m trying to lean into this idea of trusting in others and community, both for kids and for myself and for the future that’s always coming.

When I look back at the haiku that I’ve been writing more recently, I can see the ways I’m starting to parent myself better. That starts with admitting, for example, uncomfortable feelings I’d normally bury. Around Christmas, for example, I remembering writing this:

are they overwhelmed?
the real question is am i?
that i now admit

The real magic happens when I share these poems with family and friends. When they too share their highs and lows and ways they’re happy or struggling. The connections that emerge when we’re truly being honest are as deep as any I’ve ever experienced.

Writing haiku each day is of course just one way to achieve this. I will admit the last time I tried a challenge of this sort, it was running every day between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, and by the end of that experience I ended up with plantar fasciitis. But by necessity this time I’ll be a tad less obsessive, and if I can’t write a poem one day, I’ll take it easy on myself. Still I’m out here trying, and it’s become a beloved practice. Something new – haiku! - I’d highly recommend it.

Sarah Mirabile-Blacker is an educator, writer, runner, and mom, with a particular passion for language. She and her husband moved from their home state of New York to Switzerland in 2018 and have been exploring the trails outside of Zürich ever since. They have two kids, August (3 years) and Nina (1.5), who were both born into this expat experiment they’re living.

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MER Writers and Artists: Mom Egg Review hosts a conversation between Portuguese-American writer  Katherine Vaz, and Portuguese artist Madalena Pequito. Katherine reads from her new novel, Above the Salt and explores how family stories intersect with her fiction. We see and discuss a subset of Madalena’s work that highlights a central female figure, and we discuss how our own sense of doubt fuels art that can be, ultimately, a tonic for a troubled world. Click to watch the video on our MER YouTube channel. Or read more on our website here: https://merliterary.com/2024/08/13/mer-writers-and-artists-katherine-vaz-and-madalena-pequito/

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