Join Writers & Books this fall for Tuesdays with BOA Editions, the iconic Rochester-based publisher of poetry and literary works by such authors as Lucille Clifton, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Bruce Weigl. Tune in on Tuesdays, September-October 2020, for our virtual readings and conversations with some of today’s most exciting authors.

Tonight Elana Bell reads from from her new book Mother Country .

Mother Country examines the intricacies of mother–daughter relationships: what we inherit, what we let go, what we hold, and what we pass on to our own children, both the visible and invisible. As the speaker gradually loses the mother she has always known to early onset Parkinson’s disease, she asks herself, “How do you deal with the grief of losing someone who is still living?” The caregiving of a child to her parent is further compounded by anxiety and depression, as well as the pain of a miscarriage and the struggle to conceive once more. The narrator’s journey comes full circle when she gives birth to a son and discovers the gap between the myths of motherhood and a far more nuanced reality.