Other People's Mothers: An Evening with Julie Marie Wade

Tombolo Books welcomes local author Julie Marie Wade to the bookstore for a celebration of her beautiful memoir in essays, Other People's Mothers.

This coming-of-age memoir explores the relationship between a daughter, her mother, and the other mothers present in their lives, revealing a young woman grappling with complex messages about who she is permitted—or destined—to become.

Wade will be in conversation with local poet and professor Julia Koets!

More about Other People's Mothers

Relationships between mothers and daughters can often be complicated and fraught. Even in the best of circumstances, many of us may have grown up curious about the mothers of our friends—looking to them, learning from them (for better or for worse), and wondering what it would be like to be a part of their families.

Other People’s Mothers is a collection of interconnected, autobiographical essays that explore the relationship between a daughter, her mother, and the other mothers present in their lives. In this coming-of-age memoir, Julie Marie Wade traces a nexus of female influences on her formative years in the ’80s and ’90s. Through words and actions, the women around her communicate powerful and often contradictory messages about class, religion, education, and morality, holding enormous power over Wade’s journey toward adulthood.

In expanding her exploration of motherhood and daughterhood to include these “other mothers,” Wade takes a new and surprising kaleidoscopic approach to her portrayals of family life. This book reveals a young woman in the late twentieth century grappling with gendered expectations, beauty and body ideals, and complex messages about who she is permitted—or destined—to become.

Julie Marie Wade is the author of many collections of poetry and prose, including The Mary Years; Otherwise: Essays; and Just an Ordinary Woman Breathing. Wade is a winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir and grants from the Kentucky Arts Council and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. She is professor of English and creative writing at Florida International University.

Julia Koets is the winner of the 2017 Red Hen Press Nonfiction Book Award judged by Mark Doty for The Rib Joint: A Memoir in Essays. Her first poetry collection, Hold Like Owls (University of South Carolina Press), won the 2011 South Carolina Poetry Book Prize judged by National Book Award winner Nikky Finney. Koets's essays and poems have recently appeared in Creative Nonfiction, Indiana Review, The Los Angeles Review, and Portland Review. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of South Carolina and a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Cincinnati. Koets is an assistant professor of creative nonfiction at the University of South Florida.

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