MEET THE MULTIPLES ILLUMINATED ANTHOLOGY CONTRIBUTORS
We spent weeks reading all the wonderful essays that parents of multiples submitted to us for our book, Multiples Illuminated: A Collection of Stories and Advice from Parents of Twins, Triplets and More.
You made us laugh, cry, nod with familiarity and nostalgia, and wish we had more space in the book to include everyone.
We truly appreciate each and every one of you who took the time to pour your heart out onto the page about infertility, pregnancy and the first few years of raising multiples.
We made some difficult decisions as we enjoyed so many of your stories, but did finally choose 20 essays for the anthology, and are in love with each one.
The essays range from heartfelt to hilarious, and most of all, they are honest.
The stories cover various aspects of the journey to parenthood: infertility, trying to conceive, finding out about expecting multiples, pregnancy, labor and delivery, and the early years of life with twins and triplets.
Please meet the contributors of our first volume anthology Multiples Illuminated: A Collection of Essays and Advice From Parents of Twins, Triplets and More, and fellow parents of multiples (in no particular order).
Shelley Stolaroff Segal is a playwright, actor, composer, and essayist living in Greensboro, NC. My Son, her play about autism and race, premiered in NYC and was presented as a TED talk at TEDx East.
Her non-fiction essays and articles have been published in the books, Voices from the Spectrum, Cup of Comfort/Autism, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and the magazine, Autism/Aspergers Digest.
Lexi Rohner wrote her first book at age seven and won a library summer contest for reading the most books.
Her FAQ about life with loud, messy and expensive 7-year old triplets (two with special needs), 18-year old stepson and her children’s 11 grandparents offers one answer: don’t fold anything.
A lifelong competitive figure skater, Rohner left her 13-year hospitality management career to coach skating for 11 years, created a monthly column for SKATING Magazine and found previous experience in voiceover and as a camp director oddly handy for the unexpected adventures of multiples.
Janet McNally is the author of the YA novel Girls in the Moon, coming in Fall 2016 from HarperCollins/ HarperTeen, and a collection of poems, Some Girls, winner of the White Pine Press Poetry Prize.
She has an MFA from the University of Notre Dame, and has twice been a fiction fellow with the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Janet lives with her husband and three little girls (including twins) in Buffalo, where she teaches creative writing at Canisius College.
Allie Smith is a freelance writer and blogger who writes about parenting, autism, books, and travel on her blog, The Latchkey Mom.
She’s an assistant editor for The HerStories Project and a contributing book reviewer for Chick Lit Plus.
Each summer, she takes an epic road trip with four children and documents their adventures in a monthly column for My Forsyth magazine.
Her work has been published by the Huffington Post, Scary Mommy, Full Grown People, The Forsyth Herald, Club Mid, Autism Speaks and various other sites.
Most recently, Allie had an essay included in the anthology, Mothering Through the Darkness.
Kirsten Gant is a freelance writer, barre fitness instructor and mother of 6-year-old triplets and a 9-year-old big brother living in Marietta, GA.
Kirsten’s first children’s book, The Matter of the Moo Cow, was published last spring and is available on Etsy and in many local shops and bookstores.
Kirsten hopes to have her next children’s book, The Matter of the May Mouse, available to the public next spring.
Angie Kinghorn is a freelance writer who has published pieces on Good Housekeeping, Redbook, BonBon Break, and In the Powder Room.
Her work has also been published in four anthologies, including the best-selling humor compilationYou Have Lipstick on Your Teeth.
She was a BlogHer VOTY honoree in 2012. Her dog was not impressed.
Angie adores dark chocolate and the Oxford comma with equal fervor and is not to be trusted in a bookstore with a credit card.
Jackie Pick is a former teacher who is now writing her way through what she nervously identifies as her “second adolescence.”
Her work can be found in The HerStories Project anthology: So Glad They Told Me (Spring, 2016) and on Scary Mommy.
She is the co-creator and co-writer of the upcoming short film Bacon Wrapped Dates, and she occasionally performs in and directs sketch comedy in Chicago.
When she’s not in one of her three children’s school pick-up lanes, she can be found on Twitter apologizing for not updating her blog.
Becki Melchione‘s writing about young adult cancer, infertility and raising twins has appeared in Brain, Child; Literary Mama; Cargo Literary and Kaleidoscope Magazine.
She’s been working on a memoir about choosing hope through cancer and infertility for too long to admit.
Her current home is in the Philadelphia suburbs with her husband, the girls (twins daughters) and the boys (two cats).
Eileen C. Manion grew up in New York and moved to Montreal in 1969 where she got her Ph.D. in English at McGill University.
Since the mid-1970s she has been teaching English at Dawson College in Montreal.
In 1987, she had triplet daughters, one of whom currently lives in Canada, while the other two are in the U.S.
Shanna Silva is an author, freelance writer, and two-time Tony-nominated Broadway Producer.
She writes for Kveller and has a children’s book set for publication in 2017.
In between it all, she is raising 3 amazing and loud boys with her husband, Steven.
Ellen Nordberg‘s stories have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, The Denver Post, The Huffington Post, Scary Mommy, Errant Parent, and numerous anthologies.
She has performed her humorous twin essays in several Colorado Listen To Your Mother shows, and is currently a co-producer of the Boulder show.
She lives outside of Boulder where she spends much of her time rescuing her middle school-age twins’ remote control drones off neighbors’ roofs.
Allie Burdick is happiest when writing or sweating! Her work has appeared in Runner’s World, Women’s Running Magazine, Run Haven and countless other health and fitness publications.
Allie is also a competitive athlete on the Oiselle Volée team and has represented Team USA in a duathlon competition.
When not updating her blog VITA – Train for Life, she is busy with her twin boys and husband, living a big life in the Northeast.
Susan Moldaw works as a chaplain in San Francisco. Her work has appeared in Brain, Child, Lililth, Literary Mama, Narrative, and other publications. She is the mother of triplets.
Before becoming a middle school English teacher, Jared Bond was a stay-at-home dad to his triplets.
While he doesn’t remember much about that first year, he took copious notes so that he could share the experience with other parents of multiples (and himself, once he caught up on sleep).
MeiMei Fox is a New York Times bestselling author who blogs regularly for The Huffington Post and MindBodyGreen, among other publications.
In addition, MeiMei works as a life coach, assisting clients in realizing their most ambitious dreams.
She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with honors and distinction from Stanford University, with a BA and MA in psychology.
MeiMei lives in Hawaii with the Love of Her Life, her husband Kiran Ramchandran, and their twin boys. Her mantra is Fear Less, Love More!
Melanie Sweeney is a writer and mother of a singleton boy and twin girls.
She holds an MFA in creative writing from New Mexico State University.
Birds as Leaves, her nonfiction chapbook on motherhood, nature, and the body, is available from The Lettered Streets Press’ Split Volume Series, and she blogs at Micro-Affections.
Amy Paturel, Amy Paturel, M.S., M.P.H., is an award-winning writer who has chronicled her triumphs, heartbreaks and parenting escapades for Parents, Fit Pregnancy, American Baby, the New York Times and Newsweek.
When she’s not trying to master the art of raising young children without losing her mind, she teaches essay writing and pens service stories about health, fitness, food and wellness for consumer and custom magazines.
Now with 3 boys under 5, Amy lives in bleary-eyed fog, populated by giant LEGO towers, remote control cars, and captivating renditions of “The Hot Dog Dance.”
Janine Kovac was a ballet-dancer-turned-software-engineer when she discovered that her surprise pregnancy was a high-risk twin pregnancy.
Her NICU-related essays have appeared in Pregnancy and Newborn magazine, Raising Happiness, and in the anthologies gies Mamas Write: 29 Tales of Truth, Wit, and Grit and Nothing But the Truth So Help Me God. In 2012 Janine co-founded the 501c3 nonprofit writing group Write On Mamas.
She is the 2016 director for the San Francisco production of Listen To Your Mother, and an event producer for Litquake.
Janine lives with her husband and three children in Oakland, California.
Erika Sigurdson is an Icelandic-Canadian writer, historian, and mother of twins.
Briton Underwood better known as Punk Rock Papa, is a parent above all else.
When he gets sick of being at their beck and call he likes to escape to his page or site.
He writes about any and everything he wants, but mainly about his twin boys or his newest addition – another boy.
He also would like the world to know he has a beautiful wife because the couch isn’t that comfy.
Our contributors come from all parts of the country, and we even have a few writers from other parts of the world!
Their stories prove that no matter what part of this planet we reside in and whatever unique customs we follow, we are connected through the world of multiples.
We can’t wait to share these beautiful stories with you when the book is released in Spring, 2016.
