Gail McCormick

1. Please tell us about yourself and your work.
Born and raised in the United States, I moved from the Midwest to Seattle after receiving a bachelor’s degree in journalism. At age thirty-five I married another transplant from Michigan and, at the same time, started graduate school to pursue a career as a psychotherapist. My husband was also establishing a new career, so we were in no hurry to start having children. But two years and two miscarriages later, it looked like that window might be closing, so we pursued fertility treatment. We endured many tests and two years of unsuccessful treatments. At that point, due to my age and the negative impact of the treatment process on my mental health, we decided to stop. After making the difficult and painful choice to give up that dream, we were shocked to discover I was pregnant again. This time we saw a heartbeat on the ultrasound screen. But that heartbeat vanished by the end of the first trimester, and once again we were devastated. We knew, without a doubt, it was the end of the fertility trail for us. That story is in my memoir.

My work as a therapist was deeply rewarding, but that didn’t make grieving my own terrible loss any easier for me. I couldn’t imagine a meaningful future. While still grieving, my husband and I volunteered as a host family for the Children of Chernobyl, a humanitarian aid organization that brought children from Belarus to Seattle for summer reprieves from radiation exposure. We were paired with eight-year-old, Russian-speaking twin sisters who had a profound impact on our lives. During their first summer visit, they became the children we could never have and the seeds were planted for a deep relationship now over twenty-five years and four generations strong. Still living in Belarus, the twins are now grown women with children. Our bonds with them, their children, and their extended family remain strong and provide the kind of intimacy I had hoped to have with children of my own. That doesn’t mean I don’t still feel grief at times.

Two years ago, at the age of seventy, I retired from my private psychotherapy practice. I now spend a lot of my time writing, traveling, and enjoying nature, and I provide pro bono psychological evaluations for refugees seeking asylum.

2. Has writing always been a focus for you?
Writing has been a focus for me for most of my life, in different forms. My first career was in journalism. I started out as a newspaper reporter and writing for a trade magazine. After moving to Seattle, and with the help of a mentor, I launched a career as a self-employed biographer. Clients hired me to conduct interviews with them to capture their most meaningful experiences, relationships, and life lessons to leave as a biographical
legacy for their descendants. I loved hearing people’s stories and witnessing the healing power of reviewing one’s life through a lens of meaning and purpose. That work inspired me to earn a master’s degree in counseling so that I could work on a deeper healing level with a more diverse population. During my 30+ years' career as a psychotherapist, most of my writing consisted of journaling, until I was introduced to creative non-fiction writing by two amazing women I call my “story doulas”. They facilitate a weekly writing circle that I have attended for more than ten years now. It was through their eyes that I began to see my own legacy story unfolding in my writing. My memoir, Zoya’s Gift, is that story. At the heart of that story are the Belarusian twins who sparked to life a different dream.

3. How do you explore ideas or find inspiration for your work?
As a memoirist and a person who thrives on meaning and purpose, my life experiences and inner world are a constant source of inspiration. I believe every life is a work of art.

4. What does the process of writing involve for you?
I begin with a blank page and a topic or experience I want to write about. I struggle to find a pathway into the story. Eventually, I get something on the page, something I may or may not like, which doesn’t really matter. I send what I’ve written each week to my writing group, where I will get questions, suggestions for additions and revisions, and other feedback that inform my next steps. It takes multiple weeks of revisions. Each revision deepens the story and adds a new layer of details and descriptions to bring the story to life.

5. And what does writing then also give you in return?
It’s a process that allows me to metabolize and make meaning of my life and experiences. Writing has gifted me with a bigger, more coherent understanding of myself and my legacy. It keeps me connected to myself.

6. Has seeing your work in print changed how you view yourself, and also how you view your NoMo status?
I’ve seen my name in print many times through the years, before my loss of motherhood. But seeing my most personal story in print is a completely different experience. My memoir was released only two weeks ago, so I’m just beginning to see how sharing this story with the world might change my view of myself and my NoMo status. I am aware of growing into a new level of revealing my vulnerability and pain and claiming my legacy of reaching across cultural divides, peacemaking, choosing family, defining motherhood and family for myself, of love and loss, and healing.
 

7. Tell us about the wider reception that you’ve had to sharing your story - has it changed how others have viewed you and your identity as a non-parent?
I don’t yet have a good sense of how my book might have changed others’ view of me and my being a woman without children. I have numerous friends who don’t have children, either by choice or circumstance. Those friendships have buffered me, somewhat, from the stigma of not having children. I think some of them might be surprised by the pain I have revealed in Zoya’s Gift. My sister, who has three children and seven grandchildren, told me, after reading my book, she hadn’t understood how painful my journey to have children had been (though I had tried to convey that to her at the time), and was sorry that she hadn’t been more supportive. One of my nieces sent me a message on Mother’s Day this year to let me know she was thinking about me. I don’t know whether she was honoring the grief I might be feeling or acknowledging my “honorary mother” status. I look forward to receiving more feedback from readers.

8. How do you feel about the current representation of childless and/or childfree people in literature?
The majority of the books I read are non-fiction and written by women. In that category, there are many books about women who don’t have children, although that isn’t usually the point or focus of the book. There is a scarcity of literature that highlights, normalizes, and celebrates the creation of meaningful lives by people who, by choice or circumstance, are not parents. In mainstream media, the pronatalist bias is pervasive. Too many filmmakers and scriptwriters rely on the birth of a baby to resolve stories of hardship and loss. It’s hard to believe they could be that socially unaware and lacking in creativity. We’ve got a long way to go to bridge that gap. One motivation for writing my memoir was to contribute to dismantling the painful, stigmatizing stereotypes of women without children.

9. What would you like the publishing world to know about non-parents, both as writers and readers, and our stories?
I would like them to know we represent a huge, growing population of readers/writers/consumers who are underserved and stigmatized by pronatalist biases. We are looking for realistic depictions of creative, positive, fulfilled adults without children in literature and other media.

10. What future plans do you have, especially for your writing?
My nephew and niece have asked me to write stories about my life and our family history as a biographical legacy. To me it is a great honor, especially as a woman without children, to be recognized as a family elder with stories that can inform and guide future generations. I’m currently working on that project, and I plan to continue working on a collection of stories I have drafted about my relationship with Divine Feminine spirituality.