"I’m a better mother because I take time for myself to do things that are important to me."
FRONTIER author Erica Stern on giving ideas space to gestate, how caregiving benefits from creativity, and parenting as an exercise in relinquishing control
Hello there! Welcome to Write More, Be Less Careful, a newsletter about making space for creative practice in a busy life. My newest book, The Good Mother Myth, is out now!
This is a good creatures interview, a series that explores the intersection of caregiving and creative practice. If you know (or are!) a good creature whose work we should feature, send me an email—you can just reply to this newsletter.
Today’s interview is with Erica Stern, whose new book Frontier is out now. I met Erica when she stopped by a book signing I was doing at AWP, and when she started telling me about her book, which she described as birth plus a wild west ghost story, I knew I needed to hear more. Here’s a little more about the book:
From the chaos of the delivery room, Frontier opens into a parallel narrative: a Wild West ghost story. There, a mother who didn’t survive the ordeal of childbirth roams her old homestead, tethered to the family she left behind. In this otherworldly hybrid memoir, Stern careens between this haunted past and the present horror of the hospital as she waits for her own son to wake up in the NICU.
I’ve read *a lot* about the history of birth, and I am so excited to read more from Stern. And lucky us, her book is out TODAY, so we don’t have to wait!
Below, we talk about the encouragement she got from a mentor while she was pregnant with her first, why she thinks it’s important for her kids to see her prioritizing her writing, and a reminder that, despite what publishing sometimes makes us think, 40 really isn’t old to be a debut!
Who do you care for?
I care for my three kids, ages 9 (almost 10), 7, and 22 months. We don’t have any pets, and I have a terrible track record of keeping plants alive. Apparently three kids is the limit in terms of what my husband and I can handle.
What kind of creative work do you do?
I’m a writer. I write fiction, essays, and memoir. I don’t really have any non-writing creative pursuits, though I’m jealous of people who write and play music or write and create beautiful artwork. I went to grad school at SAIC (The School of the Art Institute of Chicago) and there were some amazing interdisciplinary artists there. Their work really expanded my sense of what’s possible, even if I stick with words on the page. I’ve also been lucky enough to attend writing residencies, and I always gravitate towards the visual artists and love to hear about their processes and see their work in the studio. Right now, with young kids, I don’t have enough hours in the day for much more than reading, writing, and caregiving. But sometimes I daydream about taking up piano or ceramics or something, so we’ll see!
What are some ways care-giving fosters creativity and vice versa?
I love the way this question is worded, because so often these two are pitted against each other. On the one hand, I get why; it’s hard to find time to create when parenting young children, and there have been months-long stretches where I wrote almost nothing. But fallow periods are important. Good work sometimes needs time to gestate. Just because I wasn’t physically writing doesn’t mean I wasn’t mulling over ideas either overtly or subconsciously. I think some work really benefits from this kind of breathing room and can’t be rushed. In that sense, caregiving can be a really beneficial break from the solitary work of writing.
There’s also the very important fact that having children gave me the actual material for my work. Frontier would not exist if I hadn’t had a child. When I was pregnant, a writing mentor told me something along the lines of: the world deepens after kids and all of these new avenues for creativity open up. It was such a pivotal moment of empowerment for me, to realize that I didn't have to view being a mother as an impediment to being a writer. And I’ve thought back on that conversation a lot in the years since, as I wrote about becoming a mother and motherhood and the two pursuits have become so deeply intertwined.
I think the reverse is also true, that caregiving benefits from creativity. I’m a better mother because I take time for myself to do things that are important to me. While sometimes I feel guilty when I need or want to write instead of playing with my kids, I know that they are benefitting from seeing me engaged in an artistic pursuit I’m passionate about. This is especially important, I think, as a mother to three sons. Kids need to see women in all sorts of roles, and I’ve always felt like it was important for me to show them that I’m a multifaceted person, not only a caretaker. As they’ve grown older it’s been fun to see how excited they are about my work. My oldest, for example, had me introduce myself to his school librarian and offer to talk to his class about being a writer. And my middle kid is jealous that I haven’t written a book about him.
When I was pregnant, a writing mentor told me something along the lines of: the world deepens after kids and all of these new avenues for creativity open up. It was such a pivotal moment of empowerment for me, to realize that I didn't have to view being a mother as an impediment to being a writer.
What does a day in your life look like as a creative and care-giver?
Each day is different for me, and it’s changed over time, as my kids have grown, and then after I had a baby when the two older ones were in elementary school. Right now, I have days when I have some childcare for my little one and days when I don’t. I make sure to get work done during the times when I have childcare, often from coffee shops in my neighborhood, and then I have much lower expectations for the other days–like maybe I’ll get some work done when he naps? And I’ve gotten good at multitasking too. So right now, for example, I’m working next to him while he plays. But also, sometimes I use the free time to relax or sleep or exercise. I try to balance my days, and over time I’ve come to see how important breaks and rest are for me. I can’t force the creativity, and I can’t work when I’m completely drained.
So much of balancing a creative life and caregiving is realizing how that so much is impossible to plan for, and how much being a parent means relinquishing control in ways large and small. Barrelhouse contacted me about publishing Frontier right after I’d had my third child. He was actually still in the NICU (he was born early, under very different circumstances from my first son’s birth which is the subject of Frontier) when I got the email from my editor, Lilly Dancyger. So there I was, embarking on major revisions to the book with a newborn at home. I didn’t have any formal childcare—partly because he was so young, and partly because it’s a lot of work to find affordable, quality care—so I relied on a patchwork of very generous family and naptime writing and scheduling time for me to edit on weekends and evenings when my husband could take over with the kids. It was tough, and it often I felt like I was playing tetris with my days, trying to slot productivity into every nook and cranny. But I finished the book, and I’m really proud of the end product and also the path I took to get there. I think that writing and caregiving are so intertwined in Frontier as a book, and so it’s fitting that the process reflected that.
What are some creative milestones you’re looking forward to? Or ones you “missed” due to the both/and aspects of your life?
For a while I felt late to writing milestones. Frontier is my first book, and I’m 40. So much of the publishing ecosystem emphasizes youth, and I’ve had to be patient and come to terms with the fact that age-based awards and recognitions are a construct (that often works against women) and that it really doesn’t matter how old I am when I have my book debut. And also, 40 isn’t really that old! I still have plenty of time to write more.
Relatedly, I’m working to let go of this idea that I need to produce, produce, produce. I will almost certainly write fewer pages because I’m a parent than I would if I had no kids. But I wish as a society we stopped focusing so much on quantity, because it’s not the most important facet of creative work by a long shot. I wouldn’t have written the book I wrote without having had a kid, and I know that my other work, fiction included, is inflected with my experience as a mother.
What’s changed about your process? About your medium or genre?
So much! Before I had kids, I considered myself entirely a fiction writer. I wrote short fiction throughout college and grad school, and that’s where I felt most comfortable. Once I had my Jonah, though, and went through the difficult experience of his birth, I was drawn to write about it. I went back to finish my MFA when Jonah was about a year old, and I immediately found that I could not write anything else.
It’s funny to me that my debut is a memoir, albeit with a fictional thread throughout. I never saw that coming. But writing Frontier and getting it out into the world has taught me to be open to the process, and not get so hemmed in by labels and boxes that the world sometimes seems so intent on solidifying. The writing will take the form it needs.
Erica Stern is the author of Frontier: A Memoir and a Ghost Story (Barrelhouse Books, 2025). Her work has been published in The Iowa Review, Mississippi Review, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere, and she's received support from the Vermont Studio Center and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. A New Orleans native, she lives with her family in Evanston, Illinois. Her website is https://www.erica-stern.com/.
You can find Erica on Instagram at @ericasternwriter and on Substack at ericastern.substack.com. You can listen to her discuss Frontier on the New Books Network Podcast.
Order a copy of Frontier from your favorite independent bookstore, at Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or via Barrelhouse.
You can also catch Erica at one of the upcoming events for her book:
Thursday June 5 at 6:30 pm in Chicago at Volumes Bookcafe in conversation with Julia Fine
Wednesday June 18th at 6:30 pm in New Orleans at Blue Cypress Books in conversation with Marguerite Sheffer
Tuesday, June 24 at 11:30 am, Story Time for Caregivers at Astoria Bookshop in Queens
Wednesday June 25 at 6:30 pm at Lofty Pigeon Books in Brooklyn in conversation with Shayne Terry
Her website, erica.stern.com, will have all of the most up-to-date event information.
Write More, Be Less Careful is a newsletter about why writing is hard & how to do it anyway. I’m so glad you’re here.
If Write More has helped you in your creative life, you can support me by sharing it online or with a friend, or by ordering my new book, The Good Mother Myth.
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Great piece. I was older than you Erica when I had my first book published - it's never too late!
I’m so excited to read your book, Erica! (I briefly met you and your sister at the memoir reading at AWP.) And I’m *thrilled* that you’re doing Story Time for Caregivers with Nicole, after you shared the idea for it in Cassie’s newsletter. You absolutely inspired me and I’m working hard to make a similar reading series happen here in Oakland. If you’ll ever be headed out this way—even after immediate pub time—please let me know! Enjoy your book release! 💫