Mother Knows: 24 Tales of Motherhood

Ann Beattie, Joyce Carol Oates, Richard Bausch, and twenty-one other celebrated American writers contribute to this moving anthology of fiction, compiled by the editors of the Glimmer Train literary quarterly.

In the ten-plus years since Susan Burmeister-Brown and Linda B. Swanson-Davies founded Glimmer Train, they have introduced an astonishing array of talented and innovative authors to a growing readership hungry for inspiring fiction. The stunning stories in this anthology — many of which have never appeared anywhere except in Glimmer Train Stories — explore one of the most complex emotional and psychological ties of all: motherhood, and its many facets.

The writers in Mother Knows include established authors as well as up-and-coming talents like Junot DÍaz and award-winning writers like Robin Bradford, Nancy Reisman, Lee Martin, and Doug Crandell. Their stories demonstrate that motherhood is more than toilet training and tantrum control, as they portray the full, fierce, joyous, and frightening range of experience that marks this state of being.

Mother Knows is a thoughtful and powerful exploration of the most mysterious bond in life.

Susan Burmeister-Brown and her sister, Linda B. Swanson-Davies, have been editing the national literary quarterly Glimmer Train for more than a decade. They live in Portland, Oregon. Their previous anthology, Mother Knows: 24 Tales of Motherhood, is available from Washington Square Press. Susan Burmeister-Brown and her sister, Linda B. Swanson-Davies, have been editing the national literary quarterly Glimmer Train for more than a decade. They live in Portland, Oregon. Their previous anthology, Mother Knows: 24 Tales of Motherhood, is available from Washington Square Press.

Contents

Foreword

Karen Outen • What's Left Behind

Dianne King Akers • Small Speaking Parts

Monica Wood • Frost: A Love Story

H. G. Carrillo • Leche

Susanna Bullock • 4149A

Diane Chang • Mother Knows

Richard Bausch • Weather

Michael Frank • In the Bed of Forgetting

Ayse Papatya Bucak • Hitch

George Makana Clark • Backmilk

Ronald F. Currie Jr. • Visiting Your Grave

Jennifer Seoyuen Oh • January

Junot DÍaz • Invierno

Nancy Reisman • The Good Life

Karenmary Penn • Rift

J. Patrice Whetsell • The Coconut Lady

Nathan Long • Tracking

Margo Rabb • How to Find Love

Joyce Carol Oates • The Missing Person

Doug Crandell • Colored Glass

Lee Martin • Love Field

Ioanna Carlsen • Going Home

Robin Bradford • Bob Marley Is Dead

Ann Beattie • Solitude

The Writers