Writing Mothers

The collection is organized in three movements that mirror the interdependent narrative acts of reflecting, re-imagining, and re-writing. By reflecting, we refer to conscious engagement with experience that makes meaningful connections between past, present, and potential futures, provides context for who we understand ourselves to be, and guides our awareness of the narratives shaping our lives. Only after we become conscious of tired narratives and ontological frameworks that no longer serve can we be free to re-imagine our experiences, to re-create and reconstruct the very foundations of meaning on which the emplotment of our lives is based. Finally, by re-imagining, we create opportunities to re-write all dimensions of experience (temporal, personal, and cultural) in ways that reclaim and redeem the narrative composition of our lives. When these narrative acts are engaged, we write alternate realities and open futures into existence. Each narrative act is illustrated in the collection by stories that most exemplify its function and power. As editors, we embarked upon this journey seeking answers, but we have come to realize that open questions and ongoing dialogue create the possibility for open futures. Our stories—those lived, those told, and those yet to be written—engage us in a quest to reclaim, to restore, and to transform our personal and social mothering spaces, leading us toward liberating social, cultural, and institutional narratives.