1st Edition

Another Mother Curating and Creating Voices of Adoption, Surrogacy and Egg Donation

By Shanta Everington Copyright 2023
190 Pages
by Routledge

190 Pages
by Routledge

190 Pages
by Routledge

Another Mother gives voice to women who become mothers through the routes of adoption, surrogacy and egg donation, and their silent partners – the birth mothers, surrogate mothers and egg donors – who make motherhood possible for them. Exploring experiences of motherhood beyond the biological mother raising her child, Everington draws on interviews and a range of interdisciplinary approaches... Read more

Part I: Introduction

1. Birthing the book

2. Politics and power

Part II: Experimental life writing

3. Alison’s story

4. Charlotte’s story

5. Shanta’s story part II

6. Rubi’s story

7. Robin’s story

8. Lorraine’s story

9. Shanta’s story part III

10. Margaret’s story

11. Contextual note

Part III: Conclusion

12. Contributing to new understandings of motherhood through expansion and analysis of life writing forms

Biography

Shanta Everington is Associate Lecturer in Creative Writing at The Open University, UK, where she gained her PhD in Creative Writing. A creative and critical writer working across a range of forms, much of Shanta’s writing explores recurring themes of difference, identity and belonging. Previous books include the novel Marilyn and Me (2007), narrated by a young woman with a learning disability who models herself on Marilyn Monroe, and young adult novel XY (2014), set in a dystopian world where humans are born intersex with gender assigned at birth. She is also a Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow (2021–23) and a member of the National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE).

"Through its use of interviews combined with a range of creative and editorial methods, the book brings to life stories relating to 'motherhood' that go beyond the biological mother ... Each chapter charts a different individual's experiences and includes donation, recipients, adopters, donors or mothers whose children were adopted, mothers through surrogacy or surrogates. The intimacy and the depth of exploration make it deeply moving, enriched all the more by the author's own experiences, impressions and poetic creations woven in the fabric of her interviewees' stories."

Appeared in Donor Conception Network Journal winter edition.