Literary Mama's SPECIAL MOTHERS DAY ISSUE!!

Literary Mama, an online literary magazine (http://www.literarymama.com), features writing by mother writers about the complexities and many faces of motherhood.

This Mothers Day, Literary Mama will publish a special issue devoted to MOTHERS WRITING ABOUT THEIR MOTHERS. The fiction department is joining the fun...While our usual "slant" is towards fiction about mothering from the mother's POV,
this is your opportunity to submit stories about mothering from the child's POV.

We seek:

* Short fiction of less than 6,000 words.
* Stories about mothering from the child's POV.
* Submissions written by writers of all ages WHO ARE ALSO SELF-IDENTIFIED MOTHERS: biological, non-biological, step, transgendered, grand, or adoptive. * Reprints okay (so long as you have the rights).
* Simultaneous submissions okay as long as you notify us if accepted elsewhere.

Please send submissions in the text of an email along with a brief cover letter to Ericka Lutz, Fiction Editor, fiction AT literarymama.com. Mention that your submission is for the Mother's Day issue.

Deadline: March 25

Remember: your manuscripts are always welcome. Please see http://www. literarymama.com/submissions for our
regular guidelines.

I don't plan on seeing The Passion of Christ because I hate watching violent, gory movies. I could barely sit through Mel Gibson's movie, The Patriot. But I did read with interest today that just like any other Big Hollywood Movie nowadays, the film has licensed merchandise based on the torture and crucifiction of Jesus.

I am not making this up. You can buy things such as necklaces made from pewter nails just like the ones Jesus (and gazillions of other people who were brutalized by the Romans) had pounded into their hands. The packaging has the movie's logo and lettering on it.

This is just....wrong.

I wrote an article a while back about the booming "Christian lifestyle industry. It was one of the most disturbing social trends I've ever researched. I hate the idea of a "Christian parallel universe" where true believers can buy Christian themed versions of just about any product or service you can imagine.

Have you checked out the wonderful webzine, The Philosophical Mother? If not, you should.

I am the Commentary Editor at LiteraryMama.com, a wonderful new online
literary journal chock full of great writing of all kinds related to the topic of motherhood (including poetry and fiction).

I am currently actively seeking provocative commentary pieces for my section. I want stuff that really takes a position. The topic can be micro/highly personal or global or anything in between. The only stipulation is that it has to be related to motherhood in some way.

But... an essay on something like why you have no intention of ever becoming a mother would be just as welcome as one about why you think more people should have seven kids like you do. I would really love to get more submissions that tackle the politics of parenthood, as well as more material from men. So the motherhood topic is not really as
limiting as you might think.

What I'm currently getting a lot of from writers is actually more literary creative nonfiction - some really great stuff but not the op-ed pieces that I want. (We do however have a creative nonfiction
section and I will happily direct you to that editor if that's more up your alley).

We are not currently a paying market, but I can tell you in all sincerity that the exposure for writers who are published at LiteraryMama.com is significant. We are getting lots of traffic, a
moderate amount of press attention, and I know for a fact that several writers have been contacted by editors at major magazines after their pieces ran in LiteraryMama.com.

Please forward all submissions to kgranju@yahoo.com. Length should be under 2K words and I prefer to receive submissions as Word attachments. I will consider reprints. Feel free to forward this message.

We had a very scary incident happen this past weekend and I'm sharing it with other parents to remind you to keep your guard up.

We went to Bristol, VA for a horseshow on Saturday. We arrived Friday nght and spent the night at a hotel and then went to the arena on Saturday morning about 8 am. It was out in the middle of nowhere.

So when we drove up, I reminded the kids not to wander off or go to the bathroom themselves, etc, etc.

About fifteen minutes or so after we arrived, Jane (who is 8 years old and weighs less than 50 lbs) left the arena to go to the car and get her boots. I did not realize this and was busy saddling up her pony, etc. So a few minutes later her trainer, Susan comes walking over carrying Jane, and Jane was just sobbing quietly in her shoulder and shaking. Susan had apparently encountered Jane when she ran back into the arena saying that man in the parking lot had approached her and tried to call her over and get her to climb on a four wheeler he was driving. Wisely, she turned and ran as fast as she could back into the arena.

She was VERY shaken up. Whatever this guy's motives, he set off all her instinctual alarm bells. She was just really frightened. I called the police and had the arena management announce to all the other parents there what had happened, which they did not want to do. I insisted. Jane described the guy as having long blond hair and a cowboy hat. He was smoking and driving a four wheeler, which she said she saw come up to the arena off the road.

So the police arrived and were just wonderful. They talked to Jane for a long time and told her that she did exactly the right thing and that they were very proud of her. Then they went looking for the guy. Amazingly, he was still driving his four wheeler around the area. He immediately admitted approaching and talking to Jane but he claimed he was trying to shoo her out of the parking lot. The police said he was definitely lying - that he was shifty and strange and defensive. Obviously they couldn't arrest him because he hadn't committed a crime, but they told him to stay away from the arena.

Then they came back to tell me they found him and while they were there, another parent came fwd and told them that he had approached their child in the parking lot as well. The police told us that he was definitely up to no good - that he might have wanted to snatch Jane but more likely would have just exposed himself or something. They told us to tell all the parents we saw to watch out for him. They took an incident report and said that since that is a very rural area, they would let all the police officers know to keep an eye on the guy.

Jane was very shaken up but I think she felt validated that no one tried to tell her that it was nothing or that she didn't need to be frightened. Everyone told her how smart she was to just turn and run and not agree to go closer to the guy. She didn't ride quite as well as
usual, although she won a number of ribbons. But you could tell she felt rattled.

I was too. It was really upsetting. If I saw this man, I swear to you that I would be likely to physically attack him. I know this probably would not be a good idea but seriously, I don't think I could stop myself. And he would come out the loser, I can assure you.