About Us
MUTHA Magazine
Exploring real-life motherhood, from every angle, at every stage.
“A great motherhood resource for when I don’t want to be told things that I’m doing wrong, I just want to hear someone’s personal story. It’s totally a judge-free zone.” – Biz Ellis, One Bad Mother
“I love how the narratives in MUTHA Magazine remind you that everything changes–but not maybe all of the things you’re worried about.” – Ann Friedman, Call Your Girlfriend
“Fills the void for those who have experienced pregnancies or motherhood in ways that might fall outside of Leave it To Beaver.” – Marcia Brenner, Ms. Fit Magazine
“A space where all types of mothers can have a voice [in] prose as well as some of the finest comics about modern motherhood.” – Whit Taylor, Nat. Brut
“For creative, thinking parents.” – Milda de Voe of Pen Parentis
Who Makes MUTHA?
Editorial Team
Meg Lemke is the Editor-in-Chief of MUTHA. She is also the comics and graphic novels reviews editor at Publishers Weekly. Her past roles include chair of the comics and graphic novel programming at the Brooklyn Book Festival, series editor at Illustrated PEN and curator of youth and comics programs at the PEN World Voices Festival, and program developer for the French Comics Association. She has been a book editor at Teachers College Press at Columbia University, Seven Stories Press, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, The Seattle Review, The Atlanta Review, The Good Mother Myth, and Seleni, among other publications. She lives with her family in the dense mother-zone of Park Slope, Brooklyn. Find her @meglemke.
Cheryl Klein, Senior Editor, also writes the “Hold it Lightly” column, which appears monthly(ish) in MUTHA. She is the author of Crybaby (out in 2022 from Brown Paper Press), a memoir about wanting a baby and getting cancer instead. She also wrote a story collection, The Commuters (City Works Press) and a novel, Lilac Mines (Manic D Press). Her stories and essays have appeared in Blunderbuss, The Normal School, Razorcake, and several anthologies. Her work has been honored by the MacDowell Colony and the Center for Cultural Innovation. She blogs about the intersection of art, life and carbohydrates at breadandbread.blogspot.com. Follow her on Twitter @CherylEKleinLA
Jen Bryant, Editor at MUTHA across ages and stages, is our expert on parenting a teen, as well as special column editor of the Teen MUTHAs Rise Up series, which focuses on diverse essays and interviews about young MUTHA-hood. She also runs MUTHA Insta. Her work has appeared in Ms., BUST, The Sun Magazine, Hipmama, and elsewhere. A native of the South, she currently resides in the Midwest.
Ezra Stone, Editor/Poetry Editor, is currently on hiatus until 2023. Ezra is a writer, educator, and trauma therapist living in Gainesville, Florida. They are the author of THAT WHICH GIRLS CONJURE WILL HELP THEM SURVIVE (Guillotine, 2018), Domestication Handbook (Rogue Factorial, 2012) and self/help/work/book//The Story of Ruth and Eliza (Birds of Lace, 2014). Their work has appeared in Women’s Studies Quarterly, finery, Adrienne: a poetry journal of queer women, Necessary Fiction, and elsewhere on Mutha. Read their love letters 4 psychic survival at ezrastone.net.
Columnists
Aya de Leon writes the column “Ask Aya,” and teaches creative writing in the African American Studies Department at UC Berkeley. Kensington Books publishes her feminist heist series, Justice Hustlers: UPTOWN THIEF in 2016 (winner of Independent Publisher and International Latino Book Awards), THE BOSS in 2017, and THE ACCIDENTAL MISTRESS in 2018. She also authored the children’s picture book puffy: people whose hair defies gravity. She has received acclaim in the Washinton Post, Village Voice, SF Chronicle, and The Establishment. Her work has also appeared in Ebony, Guernica, Writers Digest, Huffington Post, The Toast, Quartz, Essence, Bitch Magazine and on Def Poetry. She is also at work on a children’s picture book to help talk to children about racism, a black girl spy YA novel called Going Dark, and an adult spy novel about FBI infiltration of an African American political organization. She blogs and tweets about race, gender, and culture at @AyadeLeon and ayadeleon.com.
Jade Sanchez-Ventura and Ro Agents-Juska create the column Home is Where We…
Jade is a writer and radical educator. She works in memoir and her personal essays have been published across an array of online literary journals, and in print with Slice Magazine and Seal Press. She’s been awarded the Slice Literary Conference Bridging the Gap award, a Disquiet Literary Conference fellowship, and she is a Hertog Fellow. As an educator, she is very good at being continually wowed by her students and their words on the page. Though she has ties to many countries, she has always made her home in Brooklyn, New York. Find her on Instagram @jade_m_sv.
Ro’s passion lies in capturing the strange + the beautiful moments that can be found in everyday experiences. She is a spontaneous shooter, a storyteller inspired by simple moments and movements that can be incredibly revealing and evoking.
Ro’s photographs have been featured in VOGUE, NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, BIG, CAPRICIOUS, MARTHA STEWART, NEW YORK MAGAZINE, THECUT, HARPERS BIZARRE, HOUR DETROIT, MASS APPEAL, NYLON, TOKION and more.
Tara Dorabji, a semi-regular contributing editor/columnist at MUTHA, is a writer, strategist at Youth Speaks, mother, and radio journalist at KPFA. You can read Her Single Mom Secret in the bestselling new release about motherhood, So Glad They Told Me. Additional work is published in Al Jazeera, Jaggery, Tayo Literary Magazine, Huizache, Good Girls Marry Doctors (Aunt Lute 2016), Center for Asian American Media, Mutha, Censored 2016, and Midwifery Today. Tara is working on novels, set in Kashmir and Livermore. Her projects can be viewed at dorabji.com.
Shout out to the original MUTHA…
Michelle Tea founded MUTHA Magazine, and then went on to other adventures—including having and raising her IRL baby, which you can read about, also here. We thank her for giving birth to MUTHA and remaining a supporter (and a huge inspiration). Her celebrated, ground-breaking books include Valencia, Against Memoir, Black Wave, and many others—she’s prolific and incredible and follow her here for tour updates and new releases.
Harris Kornstein, Website Manager, is a PhD student by day, artist by night, drag queen on the weekends, and works freelance in between supporting artists, non-profits, and small businesses with their design and communications needs. Learn more: harrisdesignssometimes.com.
A Note:
Comments currently are sent directly to writers of an article, they are not publicly published. We love comments, feedback and thoughtful critique but mean or snarky comments will not be shared. For real. Note that moderating may take time, so please be patient. Thanks!
Want to write for MUTHA? See Submissions Guidelines.
Read an interview on our submissions process here at Duotrope.