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How Writing Novels Prepared Me for Motherhood - The Atlantic

theatlantic.com · 1,517 words · saved by 1 readers

Creating art requires a suspension of disbelief, a narrowing of vision to the present moment, an openness to the unexpected. So, too, with caring for a tiny human being.

All stories are about transformation, even the ones that aren’t. The passage of time inevitably brings about transformations big and small, obvious and invisible. As a writer, I seek out change in my stories; as a professor, I urge students to pay attention to it. Though I was ambivalent for years about having children, the allure of transformation is what eventually led me to become a mother. Beneath my ambivalence was a quiet hum of curiosity; few things in life, after all, both promise and threaten to be utterly transformative. But like many female artists, I was afraid that having a baby w

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