Alala Mamas is a blog by three skillful and intelligent mamas with MFAs who are stone broke and ticked off about it. The pussy is fury when given a computer and a net on which to publish. Alala Mamas are liberal, sexy and introspective goddesses, right-brained and all-questioning, bereft and nasty. A feminine perspective from the rank and file, marching out of the Great Northwest. Alala Mamas are Storytellers: valid historians, creators of religions, and fibbers. Lovers of naked letters. Poets, Reporters, and Time Travelers. The Alala Mamas leave Truth on these stall walls for all to see and then, sometimes, they piss on it. Truth is: A word after a word after a word is power.
BESS is an angry woman. People have been telling her for years that it’s too bad she’s so angry, but fuck them. After swearing for most of her life she’d never have kids, and having two abortions, she did the annoying, stereotypical thing where she changed her mind when she met the right guy, who happened to be young, tall, and hot. She proceeded to have four children with him, and five years ago they took in two nieces and a nephew. She's a terrible cook who keeps trying. She's often frazzled, always sleepy, and is a big fan of Doctor Who, The Walking Dead, and Saturday Night Live.
BRIGHID is a proud mama, poet, riot grrrl, and medical biller-in-training. She is well-educated, works two odd jobs and is still poor. Having always been the good girl in life, when her marriage of ten years fell apart, she donned a hat of true self seeking and went forth to sample all untasted fruits of the world, be they dangerously immoral or idyllically pure. She is a proud member of Generation X and can quote Plath on a whim. Her areas of interest are poetic craft, frugal cooking, money management, grassroots fundraising and education, post-divorce life and raising a “tween.” She believes education in all its forms is the solution to many problems, be they simple ones in the kitchen to the greater world at large.
In Greek Literature, RHEA was the "inescapable mother" who sat beating a bronze drum to pressure all humans into paying attention to the oracle of the goddess. For our current place and time, this is equivocal to marketing. She’s okay with this (because she hones some digital skills). Rhea is a long-time mama, artist, and storyteller. She grew up in the Midwest, poor and with little hope, so she had three kids before she was 21 (a baby can embody massive hope to a 16 year-old poor girl). Now the oldest of her three kids is 21, and Rhea has divorced and remarried and added another child to the crowd, a daughter now 7 years old. Rhea has made her way through two M.A.’s and will have an MFA in about 7 months (if all goes well). Of course, once she's done, she faces a mountain of student debt and a jobless world. She can’t help but to write about class issues, women’s rights, workers’ rights, parenting, and education, as well as the politics behind ongoing changes in communication and technology.
