Show Info
The Philadelphia Listen To Your Mother Show will be held:
Friday, May 11th, 2012, at 7 pm
at
The William Way Community Center
1315 Spruce Street
Philadelphia, PA
Buy Tickets:
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CAST
Andi Buchanan is a New York Times bestselling author whose latest book is the young adult novel GIFT. Her other work includes The Daring Book for Girls, Mother Shock, and six other books. She lives in Philadelphia with her family. You can find out more about GIFT, and the Minecraft map based on the novel, Open Your Gift.
Angela Canales is a high school educator, freelance editor, translator and writer. She earned her master’s in Writing Studies from St. Joseph’s University, and her story “Out of Nowhere” was included in the 2009 anthology _The Best of Philadelphia Stories: Volume 2_. At an early age, she chose to be a “nullipara”— a woman who has never given birth — but not because the word sounds like an as-of-yet undiscovered species of marine life.
Molly Connors was appointed the first Poet Laureate of Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, where she lives and works. Duties included organizing poetry workshops for children and adults, hosting community readings, hijacking the town 4th of July parade by riding around in a ‘77 Suzuki Samurai decorated with $20 worth of dollar store red white and blue stuff and throwing haiku at the unsuspecting public, and the occasional commissioned work. Molly’s poems have been anthologized in Meridian Unbound and Seedlings and published in periodicals such as Kalliope. She has given featured readings in series by the Painted Bride Quarterly, Meridian Writers Cooperative, dot dot dot, C&C Writers Series, and art @ 360.
Amanda Domergue is 31 years old and resides in Phoenixville, PA with her husband Brett, who looks so much like Cole Hamels it’s annoying, her 16 month old son Gavin and her 2 tail-less cats. They tell people that they sold their tails on Ebay. And people believe them. Amanda is the writer of modgblog and creator of the perfect DVR schedule. Amanda enjoys weekends at J.Crew and weeks buried in baby poop. She likes to think that she is a modern day hippie, breastfeeding advocate and cloth diapering know it all. But really, she’s just a regular girl with some extra strength ideas. Amanda has her Bachelor’s from Penn State University and her Master’s from Bravo’s The Real Housewives.
Liz Henry is the writer, mother and hellraiser behind the blog The Six Year Itch. She is a featured columnist for NBC/Universal’s iVillage and the humor blog Aiming Low. She also runs her own marketing boutique, Geek Her Media. When she’s not writing you can find Liz sipping a Big Gulp and shaving her rogue chin hairs. She lives with her daughter and partner in Bucks County.
Blogger and Educator Brandi Jeter is the single (for now!) mother of an adorable, precocious toddler. She has worked for many years as a drama and playwriting Teaching Artist, as well as managing out of school time programs for a non-profit that serves impoverished children in families in Philadelphia. A theatre enthusiast, Brandi wrote and produced the family plays, “The Ugly Princess” and “The Ugly Princess’ Christmas Extravaganza”. The plays, about a beautiful princess with a quick temper are in no way autobiographical. Mostly. Brandi is passionate about celebrating her daughter, encouraging women to stop apologizing for being fabulous, and love. Simply. Follow her lovefest at her Mama Knows It All.
Cecily Kellogg has been writing since she could hold a pencil, but it wasn’t really until she discovered the first person narrative that is blogging that she found her voice. Her blog of eight years, Uppercase Woman, has been given nice awards and stuff but is mostly just the home for her musings and her political rants. She is well known in the mom blogging community and does social media strategy for Philadelphia-based AboutOne.com, and writes for Babble’s MomCrunch.
While fretting over her graduate research on Emma Lazarus’ literary fight against anti-Semitism, Shoshana Martyniak found herself pregnant with her second child. A bit surprised, she refocused: leaving her almost decade-long writing instructor job to run a monthly Jewish publication, she became, quite literally, the VOICE of the Delaware Jewish community. When she’s not editing someone’s writing, searching for the perfect cover photo, or avoiding the supermarket, she can be found toting her baby around her very real American Shtetl. In her spare time, she’s been known to teach a class or two on Judaism for Christians. She dreams of being a more consistent blogger for her sites Shvaygshosh and ZavtikPregnancy, but she finds her Things That Make Shosh Uncomfortable board on Pinterest and her @shvaygshosh Twitter account pretty entertaining distractions. Some day, she hopes to write a book entitled Eight Hours of Screen Time: An uncrunchy mom’s guide to playground guilt. She lives in Wilmington, Delaware with her very own Giant Gentile, seven-year-old son, baby daughter and lackadaisical American Bulldog.
Charles O’Hay is the recipient of a 1995 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fellowship in poetry. His poems have appeared in over 100 literary publications, including The New York Quarterly, Gargoyle, Brooklyn Review, and South Carolina Review. His first full-length collection of poems and photographs—Far from Luck—was published in 2011 by Lucky Bat Books. Charlie enjoys watching the fights, urban photography, jazz standards, and blues.
When Helen Reese isn’t working at her job as social worker at the Philadelphia Ronald McDonald House, she spends her free time making the rounds at coffee shops near her home on the Main Line, where she does most of her writing. She recently completed her first novel, Project Ex, which was inspired by her own experiences as a single mother returning to the dating scene following her divorce. She is currently working on a stage play and plans to launch her blog –Exhausting, Exasperating & Exhilarating– soon. She’s found happiness, but definitely not normalcy or predictability, in her second marriage to photographer and free spirit, Steve Reese. Together they have two sons, two daughters-in-law, two daughters, one son-in-law and three grandchildren.
Jo-Ann Rogan was the lead singer of the infamous punk band from the 90′s, Thorazine and she is married the guitarist from her band. They live in Philadelphia. She now spends time as a dive bartender in Philadelphia at the famous McGlinchey’s Bar and is a freelance jack of all trades. She has a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology from Temple University that she earned in between tours with the band. She blogs at Punky Mama about her wild redhead special needs sons and trying to make her diverse worlds collide.
Relentlessly in search of the world’s best peppermint mocha, six foot and plaid clad Dresden Shumaker blogs daily at Creating Motherhood. A graduate of RADA, Stella Adler Conservatory, and a former Hollywood insider, Dresden now spends her days working in PR and new media and her evenings negotiating with her three year old son about the number of toys he may bring into the bathtub. Dresden is a single mom and lives in a multigenerational home in Philadelphia.
Kathy Snead has never recovered from hearing a woman in her consciousness raising group say, “Once you’re a mother, you’re never not a mother.” She has two grown children who are thriving despite the fact that she left her husband when they were preschoolers. Kathy lives in the food and restaurant heaven of South Philly and currently works for a law firm.
Sandra Telep is a West Philly Mama (not born and raised, but she does spend most of her days on the playground). She is a former professional activist turned stay-at-home-mom. Sandra is happily married to her best friend; they have a precocious toddler, pug and another on the way (baby, not pug). She blogs about her day to day life as a queer, Latina, feminist reclaiming family values at West Philly Mama and tweets at @westphillymama.
Jennifer Weiner is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of nine books, including Good in Bed, In Her Shoes, which was made into a major motion picture, and Then Came You. A graduate of Princeton University, Jennifer lives in Philadelphia with her family. To learn more, visit JenniferWeiner.com.
