Writer Mother Monster: Kim McLarin, "Writing was a way of imposing myself, of making a world that was hostile and wanted to render me invisible or dead acknowledge me and deal with me."

“Writing was a way of imposing myself, of making a world that was hostile and wanted to render me invisible or dead acknowledge me and deal with me.”
(April 22, 2021) Kim McLarin is a journalist, playwright, novelist, memoirist, literary critic, essayist, and co-author of a memoir by Malcolm X’s daughter Ilyasah Shabazz. She has two children, ages 21 and 23, and describes writer motherhood in three words as “contradictory, depleting, enriching.” In this episode, Kim talks about writing to change the world, navigating the expectations of white-middle-class motherhood, why writing seems less urgent now than in her youth, and why she “didn’t expect to be loved by America.”

Writer Mother Monster is an interactive interview series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice as we make space for creative endeavors.

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