"EXTREME PAIN, EXTREME JOY" Book Release & Signing

In conjunction with our current exhibition, , join HCCC and celebrated authors Maggie Shannon and Angela Garbes for a special book release for the limited-edition run of EXTREME PAIN, EXTREME JOY and a conversation on the intersections of motherhood, caregiving, labor, and art. This event kicks off a collection of programs surrounding the Designing Motherhood exhibition, for which Mother Tongue has acted as a Houston community partner. The evening will offer insight into powerful narratives of birth and the evolving conversations around how motherhood is portrayed and understood through art and media. Enjoy complimentary cocktails and a book signing!

Mother Tongue, the magazine known for disrupting the motherhood media landscape, expands into book publishing with the release of its first book, EXTREME PAIN, EXTREME JOY. Shannon’s award-winning photo series began as documentation of midwife-led home births after much of the US went into lockdown in early March, 2020. This body of work has been recontextualized in book form, complete with a foreword by renowned author Angela Garbes (Essential Labor, Like a Mother), an artist Q&A with critic Gem Fletcher, and a slew of never-before-seen images that together create a timeless meditation on this fundamental human experience.

About Maggie Shannon
Maggie Shannon is a photographer specializing in portrait and documentary work. She tells stories of small communities and their social rituals in order to elevate marginalized voices and build a more inclusive world. Her approach is rooted in honesty, empathy, and endless curiosity.

Hailing from Martha’s Vineyard, Shannon received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in Photography, Video and Related Media. Shannon was selected as a 2018 PDN Emerging Photographer and was named one of Magnum’s 30 under 30 (2015). She is a member of Women Photograph and her work has appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic, Die Zeit, Wall Street Journal, Time, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, People and The New Yorker. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Roy and their daughter Charlotte.

About Angela Garbes
Angela Garbes is the author of Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change, called “a landmark and a lightning storm” by The New Yorker. Her first book, Like a Mother, was an NPR “Best Book of the Year” and a finalist for the Washington State Book Award in nonfiction. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, Washington Post, and has been featured on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and NPR’s Fresh Air. She lives with her family in Seattle.

About Mother Tongue
was founded by co-editors Melissa Goldstein and Natalia Rachlin in 2021 and is designed by its Creative Director, Vanessa Saba. In its pages, the magazine has explored everything from America’s fear of aging women to the sci-fi future of birth and featured in-depth conversations with cultural figures including Kim Gordon, Catherine Opie, Erica Chidi and Miranda July, among others. It has published the work of leading writers including Kate Baer, Samantha Irby, Kimberly Harrington, Salamishah Tillet and poet Maggie Smith, as well as photographers such as Magdalena Wosinska, Victoria Hely-Hutchinson, Bethany Mollenkof, and Michelle Groskopf.

Host or Publisher Houston Center for Contemporary Craft