About

The Fertile Source, the literary e-zine for Catalyst Book Press, is expanding its offerings. Our focus is two-fold, to offer writing courses for mothers who write and to develop a mentoring program for writing moms. At Mother, Writer, Mentor, we hope you’ll find a place to share the layers of your experiences with one another in a safe writing community full of members aspiring to be the best mother and the best writer possible.

Those of us who have come through those early years of sleepless nights and phantom manuscripts know that the most empowering support for maintaining a vision of wholeness and possibility when it comes to the dual role of motherhood and writing comes via the solace of the words and direct experiences of those who have gone down the path ahead of us.

Come join a community of actively writing mothers sharing similar life transition challenges and a simultaneous love of words. As we write and work together, we’ll maintain a connection to our dual focus of rearing children and writing. While we are in the process of developing our content, we’d like to start by offering our introductory classes at a reduced rate. (See course offerings for rates).

Your Guides

Jessica Powers with her son at five months old

Jessica Powers writes for young adults under the moniker J.L. Powers. Her latest young adult novel, This Thing Called the Future, was named as a Best Book of 2011 by Kirkus. She is the founder and editor of The Fertile Source, Catalyst Book Press, and The Pirate Tree and believes strongly in the power of writing for both personal and public transformation. Powers has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas-El Paso and has been teaching college-level writing and creative writing since 1996.  Her personal author blog can be read at her website, www.jlpowers.net. A frequent contributor for New Pages, she is currently teaching for Skyline College in California and working as a curriculum consultant for Stanford’s Center for African Studies.

Tania Pryputniewicz on vacation with her 3 children

Recent poetry and prose by Tania Pryputniewicz is forthcoming or appeared on-line at Autumn Sky, Blast Furnace, The Blood Orange Review, Connotation Press, In Her Place, Literary Mama, Linebreak and Stone Canoe, Online. Her photo poem montages (created in collaboration with Robyn Beattie) have been published by The Mom Egg (She Dressed in a Hurry, for Lady Di, 2009) and Prairie Wolf Press (Nefertiti on the Astral, 2011). Pryputniewicz earned an MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Poetry editor since 2009 at The Fertile Source, she blogs at Feral Mom, Feral Writer and is currently a member of A Room of Her Own Foundation’s interview team for AROHO Speaks, Writer to Writer. She lives in the California redwoods with her husband, three children, kitten, Siberian Husky, and four feral cats. Visit her website for links to photo poem montages and forthcoming work.