Agency author Katherine May has collated a collection of essays on motherhood featuring three Agency authors which has been snapped up by Elliot & Thompson.
The collection, which has the working title, Things Your Mother Never Told You: Twenty Writers Talk Honestly About Motherhood, will feature Leah Hazard, Michelle Adams and a contribution from Katherine herself.
There are a million different ways to be a mother, yet the vision we see in books, on screen and online overwhelmingly fails to represent this commonplace yet extraordinary experience for most of us. It’s time to broaden the conversation.
Things Your Mother Never Told You will overturn assumptions and shatter stereotypes. It will cover deeply personal stories, such as being unable to conceive, adoption, step-parenting, losing a child, single parenthood, and the many ways in which our lives, backgrounds and lived identities affect motherhood.
To coincide with Mother’s Day, the collection will be published in March 2020.
Olivia Bays, Director of Elliot and Thompson, said of the acquisition: “We are all so excited to be publishing this timely and much-needed book, which will challenge perceptions of what it means to be a mother. Bold, challenging and opinionated, it’s packed with amazing writers who are sharing their stories to show the complexity of motherhood and make space for readers to share their own.”
Katherine May writes fiction and memoir, and leads the Creative Writing MA at Canterbury Christ Church University. She lives in Whitstable with her husband, son and two cats, and can be mostly found walking along the beach and – yes – swimming in the sea. In her spare time, she reads, cooks and drinks gin martinis, stirred. Her new memoir, Wintering, is published in February next year by Penguin Random House / Riverhead.
Leah Hazard was born in the United States and studied English and American Literature and Language at Harvard University, before moving to the UK in 1999. She earned a Masters Degree in Directing and had a career in television at BBC Scotland until the birth of her first daughter in 2003 prompted her to change direction and pursue her lifelong interest in women’s health. Leah soon began working as a doula, supporting women in pregnancy and attending numerous births in homes and hospitals across Scotland. The birth of Leah’s second daughter in 2006 prompted Leah to make the leap into midwifery. Leah’s first non-fiction book, Hard Pushed, was published in May this year.
Michelle Adams grew up in the UK and now lives in Cyprus with her husband and young daughter. Her debut women’s fiction novel, Little Wishes, will be published in 2020 with Trapeze, following the publication of two psychological suspense novels with Headline.
