Announcing "The Mothering Heights Manual for Motherhood, Volume 1"

Real Moms Write about Motherhood in Debut Collection

"If motherhood did come with a manual, this would be it.” -Coast Kids Magazine

LAGUNA BEACH, CA, APR. 26 – The Mothering Heights Manual for Motherhood, Volume 1: What we wish we knew before we became a (short order cook, shuttle driver, laundress) Mother, a hilarious and poignant collection of essays on motherhood, debuts next month in time for Mother’s Day and summer reading. The book is a culmination of the 2nd Annual Mother’s Day Essay Contest held by Christine Fugate, the popular writer of the Mothering Heights column and blog. Twenty-nine essays and four poems were chosen from over one hundred entries from Israel, Germany, Australia, and thirty U.S. states. “I wanted this to be a celebration of motherhood – and for readers to laugh,” says Fugate, editor of Manual for Motherhood. “But some of the essays were so powerful, they had to be included. While we moms need to laugh, we can also use a good cry.” The essays and poems offer stories, contemplations and advice about what it means to be a mother. Highlights include the mommy drive-by, not making meatloaf, and parenting with a coffee can. Serious topics such as finding an adoptive child’s birth mother, raising a child with Down syndrome and recovering from post-partum depression are also featured. Among the contributors are Us Weekly’s film critic Thelma Adams and novelists Patti Callahan Henry and Patty Friedmann. Fugate, a film and television Producer, is excited to also include writers who have never been published. “I started writing my column in an attempt to understand motherhood. I wanted to publish women who are not professional writers –they write because they want to make sense of motherhood.” Additional essays submitted to the essay contest are featured online in a Mother’s Day Anthology at MotheringHeights.net.The Mothering Heights Manual for Motherhood, Volume 1: What we wish we knew before we became a short order cook, shuttle driver, laundress Mother, edited by Christine Fugate (trade paperback, $12.95 Mothering Heights Press, 2008) will be available May 11th at MotheringHeights.net and June 15th at Amazon.com and bookstores.