Wild with Child, Outlaw Mothers:

Feminist Representations of Maternal Power

Edited by Elana Finestone and Rebecca Jaremko Bromwich

Call for Contributions

We are looking to curate an inspirational collection of feminist representations of maternal power.

For decades, feminist academic researchers, such as Dr. Andrea O’Reilly, have questioned the
limiting representations of pregnant women, mothers and motherhood as either “good”, bad” or
“monsters”. The co-editors are seeking submissions that creatively challenge these often stifling and
oppressive representations. While there is a growing body of maternal feminist literature on this topic,
there is a dearth of accessible presentations of it. The co-editors are therefore seeking submissions
that build on this academic work in a format that is accessible to the public and, in particular, people
with lived experience of pregnancy and motherhood.

The co-editors conceived of this project as a means to build accessible, empowering and celebratory
visual texts and written counter-narratives about how we imagine those who are pregnant as well as
mothers. In particular, this book was inspired by the co-editor’s disappointment in the available
maternity photo shoot options capturing demure and stoic pregnant heterosexual women.

Submissions are sought from a wide range of fields that help us curate an accessible and inclusive
space to re-imagine how those with pregnant bodies and mothers from diverse backgrounds can
relate to their new bodies, lives and circumstances while navigating their social worlds. This will be an
illustrated anthology of creative texts that captures the fun and freshness of dismantling
heteronormative, classist, ableist and racist tropes. These tropes tend to be at the forefront of
mothers’, and pregnant people’s, lives—which are not only oppressive but also boring. We are
seeking images, writing, and other creative works that we can bring together into a lively book that will
bring readers across disciplines inspirations, new ideas, new perspectives, and joy.

For this collection we welcome submissions from scholars, activists, and artists, and people with lived
experience of pregnancy, motherhood and/or mothering across a wide variety of disciples. We
encourage creative works, art pieces, photographs, and alternative modes of presentation that
represent, or consider representations of, mothering, motherhood, and the pregnant body, as
powerful.

Please send 150 word abstract and/ or submission proposals to Rebecca Jaremko Bromwich at
Rebecca.Bromwich@carleton.ca by March 1, 2022. Full submissions, with a page limit of 10 pages,
will need to be completed by November 1, 2022.