CityLit Fest West Panel Discussion and Social

Write Like a Mother Panel Discussion and Social

Gather with other moms-who-write to chat about life as a writer-mom and to connect with a community of other creative parents. We’ll hear from local accomplished writers (who also happen to be moms) to learn about their creative lives in a lively panel discussion. Stay to mingle and socialize and form connections. Drinks and food will be available for purchase.

Thank you to Black Bottle Gastrotavern for sponsoring this event!

Note: This event is one part of the CityLit West Festival. All sessions require registration, even those that are free. Register for other sessions by following the links below:

1:00-2:30pm: "The Work That Makes All Other Work Possible" with Angela Garbes at The Pioneer Collective (Sliding scale pricing. Advanced registration required)

3:00-4:30pm: "How to Write a Family Portrait" with Kristen Millares Young at The Pioneer Collective (Free. Sponsored by Washington Humanities. Advanced registration required)

Meet the Panelists

Angela Garbes is the author of Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change, called “a landmark and a lightning storm” by The New Yorker. Essential Labor was named a Best Book of 2022 by both The New Yorker and NPR. Her first book, Like a Mother, was also an NPR Best Book of the Year, as well as a finalist for the Washington State Book Award in nonfiction. Her writing on care labor and the care economy has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, New York Magazine, and featured on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and Fresh Air with Terry Gross. A first-generation Filipina American, Garbes lives with her family in Seattle.

Kristen Millares Young (she/her) is a journalist, essayist, and author. Her novel Subduction was a winner of the Nautilus and IPPY awards, as well as a finalist for two International Latino Book Awards and Foreword Indies Book of the Year. She is also the editor of Seismic. Millares Young was the researcher for the New York Times team behind “Snow Fall,” which won a Pulitzer. Her essays, reviews, and investigations appear in the Washington Post, the Guardian, and anthologies such as Alone Together. Millares Young lives in Seattle.

A former church kid from the Southwest, Amber Flame’s work is published widely and explores spirituality and sexuality, cross-woven with themes of grief and loss, motherhood and magic, and interstitial joy. A 2016 and 2017 Pushcart Prize nominee and Jack Straw Writer Program alum, Amber Flame’s first full-length poetry collection, Ordinary Cruelty, was published in 2017 through Write Bloody Press. While serving as Hugo House’s 2017-2019 Writer-in-Residence for Poetry, Flame completed her second book of poetry, titled apocrifa, forthcoming from Red Hen Press. A voracious reader and passionate lover of words, Flame has dedicated more than 15 years teaching, training, and implementing programming in education equity, Black media, youth empowerment, and with women and youth impacted by incarceration. Through her work at Hedgebrook, Amber Flame is committed to fighting racism through centering the voices of women-identified Black and brown humans.

Maggie Mertens is a writer, journalist, and editor in Seattle. Her essays and reporting have appeared in The Atlantic, NPR, Sports Illustrated, ESPNw, Glamour, Pacific Standard, Refinery29, and Creative Nonfiction, among others. Her book Better Faster Farther: How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women will publish in June 2024.