Summer Reading, Writing, and Regenerating

sharing some motherhood-related work I published elsewhere, with a special offer

The painting on the cover is by Beverley Dale and I LOVE it.

Greetings. I can’t believe it’s been so long since I last wrote. These summer months just melt right on by. The weeks have certainly not been idle, but the energy that has gone into them has been spent elsewhere. Though I believe a good deal of what I’ve been doing will circle back to Mama Dentata, in its own time.

One of the many things disrupting my workflow is that I went camping. First time I’ve gone in years, and first time my son has ever been. We rented a tipi in the Netherlands. It was much colder and rainier than anyone would have expected for the peak of summer - which is not ideal when your tent has a big hole in the top of it by design. But it was fantastic all the same.

On our second morning, during a break in the rain, I thought I’d have a go at chopping some wood. And while I was trying to split one final, unusually stubborn lump, I lopped off a piece of my own g**d**m finger. Only a little piece, mind you. But the bandage makes for clumsy typing.

My body seems to be doing an excellent job of regenerating its missing bit, and I hope to have all ten fingers to type with again in the near-ish future. In the meantime, I thought this would be a good occasion to share something else exciting (and far less gruesome) that happened this month. A feminist journal based in the UK called Radical Notion put together a whole issue devoted to motherhood. And they asked me to write a book review. And I am delighted to be able to say that something I wrote, having to do with motherhood, can now be found in a beautiful, newly-published volume, in the company of work from many formidable female thinkers, makers, and doers - including fellow Substacker

Milli Hill

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Very glad it wasn’t Mary Harrington’s book they wanted me to review. I have way too much respect for her & would have found the prospect way too intimidating.

You can peruse the table of contents on the RN website. And if it piques your interest, they are running a special promotion right now. You can get a discount on the motherhood issue with the code ‘MOTHER9’ through the 12th of August. Yes, the 12th is tomorrow. But quite late is still better than too late, right? And even at full price, the PDF version is only £6, which is very good value for a high quality publication put together by an impressive, international, all-volunteer staff. Especially when it includes graphics like these:

mystical vulva-portal collages await!