(Pandemic) Motherhood, Labor and Loss

The pandemic changed every aspect of our lives, from work, to schooling, to family life. As widely reported, mothers were some of the most challenged during this time, leaving the workforce in record numbers to care for their children with little governmental and societal support. What are the stories and experiences of mothers during this time.

Organizers Shannon Gibney, Kao Kalia Yang and Catherine Squires, editors and contributors to the groundbreaking anthology What God Is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss by and for Native Women and Women of Color (University of Minnesota Press, 2019), will read from their work alongside additional community members. New work on pandemic mothering will also be shared and discussed. Book sales will be handled by Moon Palace Books and a signing will follow the presentation.

About the Organizers

Shannon Gibney is a writer, educator, activist, and the author of See No Color (Carolrhoda Lab, 2015), and Dream Country (Dutton, 2018), young adult novels that won Minnesota Book Awards in 2016 and 2019. Gibney is faculty in English at Minneapolis College, where she teaches writing. In October 2019, University of Minnesota Press released What God is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By and For Native Women and Women of Color, which she co-edited with writer Kao Kalia Yang.

Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong-American writer. She is the author of the memoirs The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, The Song Poet, and Somewhere in the Unknown World. Yang is also the author of the children’s books A Map Into the World, The Shared Room, The Most Beautiful Thing, Yang Warriors, and From the Tops of the Trees. She co-edited the ground-breaking collection What God is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By and For Native Women and Women of Color. Yang’s work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the PEN USA literary awards, the Dayton’s Literary Peace Prize, as Notable Books by the American Library Association, Kirkus Best Books of the Year, the Heartland Bookseller’s Award, and garnered four Minnesota Book Awards. She lives in Minnesota with her family. Kao Kalia Yang teaches and speaks across the nation.

Catherine R. Squires is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of multiple books, including Dispatches from the Color Line (2007) and The Post-Racial Mystique (2014), and edited the collection Dangerous Discourses: Feminism, Gun Violence & Civic Life (2016). In 2017, Squires was named a Bush Fellow. Her fellowship focused on understanding intergenerational trauma, culturally relevant healing practices, embodied story sharing and gentle movement. Through these explorations she became a certified yoga instructor and has ventured into memoir writing as a practice of healing and re-connection. She lives in St. Paul with her family and is always on the lookout for interesting birds.