Editor's note: China Martens is the author of The Future Generation: Zine-book for Subculture Parents, Kids, Friends & Others (Atomic Book Company, March 2007). Jessica Mills is the author of My Mother Wears Combat Boots (AK PRESS, November 2007). They're both great books, go check them out!

Jessica Mills is a partnered mother of two children, ages 7 and 1. She is also an activist, artist, a touring musician (who plays saxophone with Citizen Fish), and a first time book author. I've been reading her column of the same name in Maximumrocknroll (MRR) for years. We've traded zines, emails, and crossed virtual paths as "mama-writers" (although not in person yet, but will soon!). In 2007, both of us came out with our first books on independent, small presses.

I called her on the phone to chat about the process of becoming a first time author. We come from the same background (zines, mutual aid and DIY community) and so it was really cool to talk with her; after we had gotten our book deals, we also shared the overwhelming fear at a certain point that we were not up to this opportunity. In Jessica's case, she told herself "don't be a foolish loser – this is your dream, take it." For me, I leaned on the support of writer-mama and radical-librarian friends, which helped me through the terror of the process of writing a book, which had always been my dream as well. We have our differences, too: I'm a single mother and she isn't; "Daddy 'Nesto," as their two daughters call him, gave Jessica a lot of support and encouragement for which she is very thankful. Also, instead of having an 18-year-old daughter, like I had, who encouraged me and left me alone to work on my book, Jessica had to write this book with a new baby! --read more >>

They are down. I tiptoe past their doors barely breathing, listening for a sound. Please save your applause, my two boys (3 months old and 2 years old) are sound asleep AND at the same time, no less. With extra bounce, called glee, relief, freedom call it what you like, I fly down the stairs open the front door and place my note on the doorbell. "Please do not ring or knock, babies sleeping, thanks!" Really it says, you touch that f*&%$!g door or bell and I will mow you down. Do not disturb the sacred naptime. Don't you dare.

The high sets in and I am giddy with options, I could call my best friend, email, pay bills, spend an hour on the phone with the health insurance representative, work out on the Stairmaster, do sit ups, drink gallons of coffee and eat cookies, read, write, sleep, sit on the couch and stare out the window, laundry, watch DVDs, cry, pluck my eyebrows, paint my toes, pumice down the calluses on the bottom of my feet, clean every messy, disorganized drawer, shelf, and closet in my house that grates on my nerves, I could paint walls, caulk around the sink, and sweep the floor. I could clean toilets with a vengeance! I could do any of these things, but I don't. I plug my headset into my ears and turn up the iPod, really loud, so loud I can feel KT Tunstall pulsing in my chest and am assured I am killing the eardrums and bringing early on set of senior citizen deafness. My husband would say it's too late. "Huh, what did you say, honey?" " I feel like walking the world, you can tell she is a beautiful girl, beautiful girl…" "Suddenly I see, this is what I want to be, suddenly I see, suddenly I see, why the hell this means so much to me..." --read more >>

"You'll never guess what Jess' dad offered me." Through the phone, I heard the freeway rushing past Tracie's open car window, warbling the sound of her voice.

"What?" I asked, sitting on the edge of our bed, short of breath from rushing my seven-and-a-half-months pregnant self down the hall to answer the call.

"Tickets to the Prince concert."

"What?! No F-ing way."

My wife, Tracie, works with children with autism. Occasionally the grateful parents of one of her clients will bestow upon her an unexpected gift. Well, this time her client Jess had scored an appointment with an impossible-to-see specialist in Chicago on the same day that his parents had tickets to see Prince in Oakland. The little boy's dad called to see if Tracie would be interested in the tickets.--read more >>

At 9:00pm on a Friday, I was busy trying to get my monkeys (Satchel, age 4 and Jiro, age 2) in bed so I could sneak out and interview Kate Crowder, the lead singer of my new favorite band, Two Way Radio (formerly known as Walkie Talkie and briefly as Side Walk Talk). At 9:25pm, I said goodbye to my husband and drove down the street to a local bar where Kate said she'd be hanging out until their 11:00pm show time. As I nervously walked into the nearly empty bar, I saw Kate and her husband/bandmate, Corey, slip out the back door. I picked up my pace and headed towards the door hoping she hadn't forgotten our interview.

"So," I said in my official reporter's voice, "Tell me how you got started singing."--read more >>

Larger than life is not a phrase that means much in terms of Cubans. Everything about us is over the top. I joke with my partner that when you look up "exaggerate" in the dictionary there is a picture of Cuba. I'm never one to represent my experience as the Cuban monolith. I know there is no such thing, but when I share the joke with people who grew up like me, in exile, they get it.--read more >>

I'd always get pissed off when, on IRC in a punk chat room, people would just assume I was white. Even when I gave them my pics, they'd think of every ethnicity but black to guess as my race.

When I would tell them, "Well, I'm half black and half white," they'd be shocked.

"You're black???" would invariably be the reply. "Wow, I've never met a black punk." --read more >>

K Records band Dub Narcotic Sound System had a rollover accident last week in Montana. Please check out the K Records site for updates on their health and information about benefit shows and donations to cover medical costs:

http://www.kpunk.com

Musical Mom - Interview with Lori McKenna
by Naomi Graychase

Lori McKenna blends talent and family into a recipe for success.

It’s a Thursday night in mid-December and Lori McKenna is dressed in jeans and a baggy, black sweater. In these clothes, she could be driving the car pool, or taking her four kids to the grocery store, but instead she’s standing on a stage before a rapt audience of nearly 200, glowing. Her set tonight is a short one. Just a few songs. Then Dar Williams will take the stage as the headliner.

She opens with a love song about her husband of fourteen years, and the young man beside me leans in and says, “I want to be her husband.� He looks at her there on stage, takes a swig of beer and turns back to me, and says, “If I had to be a plumber and have four kids, it’d be okay if she was my wife.�

--read more >>

Singing Things You Can't Speak: An Interview with Corin Tucker

By Maia Rossini

“This Mama works until her back is sore/but the baby’s fed and the tunes are pure�
-Sleater-Kinney, “Step Aside� from the album “One Beat�

Sleater-Kinney’s new album “One Beat� was released on August 20th, 2002 on the Kill Rock Stars label. For those of you who have not heard it yet, do yourselves a favor and go buy it. Not only is it one of the first important musical works to react to September 11th, but it also chronicles the premature birth of lead singer, Corin Tucker’s son, Marshall, and Tucker’s subsequent journey into motherhood. And Mamas, listen, - this album rocks. Hard. Tucker’s voice has never sounded so strong and nuanced, the issues that are covered in the songs are incredibly timely and important, and the closing song on the album, “Sympathy� is some of the most gripping music I have ever heard about the power and anguish of mother love. It is an album every Mama ought to have.

I spoke to Tucker on the phone just before the release of the album.

MR: The first thing I wanted to ask was that since you’re a rock star and a mother, what brand of diapers do you feel keeps your baby dryer than dry?

CT: (Laughs). I’m so bad. I totally will only use Pampers. I have a pampered son. I just, you know, I was not going to go for the cloth diapers.

MR: Okay, that’s not a real question. Really. Let’s start. I’m surprised that more of the world’s art isn’t made by new mothers. I mean, I know we’re all tired, but it’s an earthshaking experience, and it seems that, like romantic love, it should inspire countless, songs and paintings and poems, but really, I am tears in my eyes grateful when I hear “Sympathy� or something like Lauryn Hill’s “Zion� or even something as mediocre as Madonna’s “Butterfly,�, because I’m just so happy to hear an artist who’s actually expressing the power of motherhood. It’s a really rare thing. So, why do you think there isn’t more great art written by and about mothers?

CT: I think that it’s really true that it’s extremely hard to keep your art going when you have to take care of this fragile being. It was really hard for me to keep the band going, fortunately I have band members that would come to my house and Carrie and I would just write here. And I’m lucky enough to have a nanny for part of the time. And I just don’t think that most women have those kind of luxuries. Most women are just keepin’ it together when they have a kid. It takes so much work. I wish that our society was more helpful to the moms, because I think it’s pretty helpful to the babies, but I think that our society as a whole should be more in tune to how hard it is for a new mother.

--read more >>