S2E12 - The Body as Genre: Amanda Montei's Touched Out Touches on Motherhood, Misogyny, Consent, Control, and More

Written By Kaitlin Solimine
 
 

“The way that we think about art, about care work or housework or maintenance labor is interconnected in the sense that these are spheres of society that are often deemed unproductive. Obviously, first and foremost, we need to resist that notion because it's the most important work that we do. I do think of writing as a kind of care work in that sense. It's like a tending. It's tending to our narratives and our cultural understandings of things.

I think it's very easy, especially in the motherhood/parenting sphere, to get wrapped up in our demands and the policies that we need –and absolutely, we need all of that. But there's a reason that that's not happening. I think it's because we need a bigger shift of understanding. We need new language for articulating the way in which women's bodies are exploited and used from a young age through and beyond parenthood.”

~ Amanda Montei

We’re so grateful to share this conversation with Amanda Montei whose book Touched Out: Motherhood, Misogyny, Consent, and Control lands on bookshelves on September 12th, 2023. Kaitlin and Amanda have had the pleasure of being connected through Amanda’s writing workshops and also through the Artist Residency in Motherhood community where they've staged their own collective residencies alongside other mother-writer-artists in the Bay Area.

Amanda is also the author of Two Memoirs, published by Jaded Ibis Press, and a collection of prose, The Failure Age, as well as co-author of Dinner Poems. Her writing and criticism explore literary and cultural representations of gender, work, care, sexuality, feminism, creativity, and the body. If you're eager to connect with her, she also teaches creative writing at organizations such as Catapult, Corporeal Writing, Hugo House, Writing Workshops, and Write or Die.

Amanda and Kaitlin talked about:

  • Amanda’s trajectory as a writer, where it intersects with her postpartum experience, and how this postpartum experience impacted her creative work, including her latest book.

  • Exploring the question of the representation of home and our bodies, particularly women's bodies in connection to the home.

  • How writing, art, and care work can be a social justice practice, and how narrative can disrupt the false narratives that we unconsciously carry around.

  • How Amanda is able to practice and sustain creativity as a practice of connection.

More about Amanda Montei:
Website: https://www.amandamontei.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amanda.montei/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amontei/

Pre-order Amanda’s book Touched Out: Motherhood, Misogyny, Consent, and Control: https://bookshop.org/a/86159/9780807013274 

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Kaitlin Solimine
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S2E13: Mom Rage is a Weathervane—Minna Dubin on Maternal Anger and Structural Inequalities in American Society
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S2E11 - The Transformative Power of Poetry and Parenting: How Eugenia Leigh's Creative Process Rewrites the Page Itself