For this original, often provocative book, Kerry Clare has assembled essays that face down motherhood from the other side of the picket fence by some of Canada’s finest young writers. There are women who have had too many children or not enough. There are women for whom motherhood is a fork in the road. And there are those who have made the conscious choice not to have children and then find themselves defined by that decision.

The M Word: it means something to every woman. Exactly what it means is rarely simple.

“This is a powerful collection of stories by Canadian women of various ages, and every woman will benefit from reading it.”
– Quill & Quire

“The M Word: Conversations about Motherhood, a powerful, female-driven anthology of short personal essays, poems, and illustrations, tells the many stories women so rarely share. … The M Word is a meditation on the fickle emotional uncertainty awarded to mothers. It breaks down the walls of maternal isolation and offers companionship to anyone who has not had the fairy-tale journey to motherhood. These stories show us that the extraordinary gift of motherhood cannot be accepted without relinquishing something spectacular.”
– National Post

“That’s what makes The M Word so surprising, and also moving, gripping, funny, and, occasionally, really uncomfortable to read: the writers put it all on the table, all the confusion, ambivalence, difficulty, suffering, hope, despair, and insight that swirl around people’s different experiences with motherhood, whether they are or aren’t mothers, however motherhood is defined, and whether their situation arose from choice or accident, gift or tragedy. As many of the writers observe, there’s a popular public story about motherhood that is all bliss, smiles, and cuddles. For many of them, there is plenty of bliss, but that’s rarely the whole story and often not the story at all. The M Word doesn’t try to tell one story: it allows, even insists, on the coexistence of many different ones.”
– Open Letters Monthly

“There is a strong Canadian tradition of public discourse on motherhood, from the late journalist June Callwood’s interviews with unwed teenaged mothers to Marni Jackson’s memoirs, and anthologies like Double Lives and Between Interruptions. The M Word adds 25 thoughtful voices to the mix … You won’t keep this book; you’ll pass it on to friends whose current vocation is changing diapers, or to friends who want a child, and those who don’t.”
– Herizons

“A book about motherhood that includes those who never gave birth? Those who’ve been pregnant but never held a child? Halleluiah! Finally: a conversation with no ‘us versus them.’ Here is only ‘us,’ those who desire to ‘be connected by this understanding of what it is to love and celebrate your children.’ The M Word offers what mothers (new and old) need most: to know we’re not alone.”
– Winnipeg Review

“Anyone grappling with the role of mother is certain to find themselves somewhere within these true stories of pregnancy, IVF, adoption, stepchildren, infertility, miscarriage, SIDS, multiples, dead children, teenagers, abortion and, above all, stories of the searing joy found within the wholeness of a mother’s devotion.”
– National Post

“Whether you’re a mother by choice or by circumstance, a woman without childlren by choice, circumstance or tragedy, or simply someone who has yet to decide which path to take, you’ll find yourself in one of these stories. And not always the ones you’d suspect.”
– Atlantic Books Today

“As I finished reading it, a close friend found out that she was pregnant for the first time. As we celebrated her pregnancy, I hesitated to pass the collection along to her. Superstitious and hoping to pretect her, I worried about giving her essays on loss and trauma and regret. But women deserve to hear a conversation about motherhood that is as beautiful and scary and messy and complex as motherhood itself. When her experiences of motherhood strays from the accepted stereotype, if it hasn’t already, she’ll know that she is not alone.”
– Library Mama

“Stop everything. Withhold judgement for a minute. I promise you The M Word is not like any book you’ve read about motherhood.”
– The Fernie Fix

“Rather than attempting to resolve issues once and for all, or to glorify and idealize a madonna-like figure, The M Word presents in alphabetical order a wide variety of the experiences of women who have embraced, eschewed or endured the experiences of motherhood in its many, different realities … This book was a pleasure to read.”
– Kitchener-Waterloo Record

“The M Word felt like a kind of emotional labour for the three days I was reading. This is a motherlode of deeply personal truths, generous and courageous souls, bearing witness to lives shaped, if not defined, by, well, ‘life with a uterus,’ as the foreword suggests.”
– Telegraph-Journal

“Would I recommend this book? I think so, but with a caveat. I turned to this to find communion, and a road map. To find other mothers facing things my partner and I are facing. In facing so many possible stresses, dangers, and unknowns, what the world needs is more complicated and probably ‘uncomfortable’ representations of motherhood … So yes, I would recommend the book. I would say, it’s a start.”
– Lemon Hound

“I’m not normally drawn to mothering books but I like Kerry Clare’s work, so it was impossible not to be drawn to her anthology, The M Word: Conversations about Motherhood, I knew I’d be in the hands of good taste and good writing, even if, as a Childless Woman, I couldn’t actually relate. Well, what happened was this: I found myself not only enjoying the read, but relating. In a major way. Because, as it turns out, the essays are both about mothering and not mothering, about the exultant and the reluctant, the non-mothers by choice, the stepmothers by circumstance, women who will do anything to become a mother and those who will do anything to not. and in every scenario, the difficulties, joys, fears, the way life is changed for the better and sometimes for the not entirely better. There are celebrations, regrets, and such honesty that it’s really quite impossible not to relate.”
“The M Word is a book I would have benefited from reading when I was a young mother more than 30 years ago.”
– Coastal Spectator

“These open-hearted essays are all fascinating and absorbing, and sometimes heartbreaking. Ultimately these writers are speaking, as they take care to point out, for no one but themselves, and they do it tremendously well.”
– Slightly Bookist

“I’ve just spent a couple of days with a collection of essays about motherhood. About life with a uterus, as Kerry Clare puts it. It was like slipping into this wonderful story circle, 25 articulate women speaking honestly of being — or not being — a mother.”
– Borrowing Bones