Mother Is a Place

A story of growing toward motherhood via chosen family, sickness, literature, and nature.

When Amra Brooks' parents split, so did her life—half lived with her queer, punk, addict dad in Los Angeles, and half with her struggling mom in Santa Cruz. With a poetic tone and an eye for rough beauty, Mother is a Place details one girl's dogged search for safety and care, a pursuit that brings her from idyllic literary studies to nannying for an iconic, out-of-control rock star, from her mysteriously collapsing body to the defiant tenderness of motherhood. Says Girlhood author Melissa Febos, Mother Is a Place is "a beautiful and finely told story of becoming, this memoir is both map and guide—to bearing what we are given, the path to home, and all that is possible to build ourselves."Amra Brooks is the author of the novella California. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, Inventory, Khôra, Printeresting, Entropy, This Long Century, and many other publications. She grew up in California and has taught creative writing at the University of California in Santa Cruz and San Diego, and Muhlenberg College. She now lives in Providence, Rhode Island and is a Professor at Stonehill College where she directs the creative writing program and runs the Raymo Literary Series. She offers private writing workshops as well as workshop collaborations with Corporeal Writing. She has a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA from Milton Avery School for the Arts at Bard College.