Motherhood Memoirs: Mothers Creating/Writing Lives explores the burgeoning genre of motherhood memoir through literary critique and autotheory. We aim in this collection to continue a conversation about mothering, life writing and autotheory, each a field with its own rich history, in the nexus of the motherhood memoir. This collection says, in response to the naysayers who have made it difficult for women writers to get serious attention in the academy, that motherhood memoirs belong in the canon. The authors here examine and critique motherhood memoir, alongside the texts of their own lives, while seeking to transform mothering practice highlighting revolutionary praxis within books, or, when none is available, creating new visions for social change. Many essays here interrogate the tensions of maternal narrative the negotiation of the historical location of writer and readers, narrative and linguistic constraints, and the slippery ground of memory alongside the tensions of the objective scholar and the reader who engages with and identifies with texts through her intellect and her emotional being. The contributors explore a variety of experiences in their own lives and in published memoirs, including grief, postpartum depression, the medicalization of birth and mothering, and parenting autistic children. There are also chapters about types of writing not traditionally considered memoir, such as lesbian mother blogs, graphic memoirs and zines, and guides to writing motherhood memoirs. Despite the wide reach of experience and text here, all of the chapters grapple with common questions: How does motherhood shape our lives, and how does writing sometimes searingly honest writing about those lives transform the individual experience and institution of motherhood? While voices and format necessarily vary in these essays, their critical acumen is enhanced by the lived experience of the authors. Their chapters are compelling in terms of their theoretical knowledge and ability to connect writers from diverse back grounds and places into a coherent grouping that deserves critical attention. - from Amzon