Laurie Lisle

1. Please tell us a bit about yourself and your work.
Besides Without Child, I have written two biographies of women artists (Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of Georgia O’Keeffe and Louise Nevelson: A Passionate Life), a book about the education of girls (Westover: Giving Girls a Place of Their Own), and two memoirs, one from the point-of-view of a gardener (Four Tenths of an Acre: Reflections on a Gardening Life) and another from the point-of-view of a writer (Word for Word: A Writer’s Life). A chapter from Without Child, 'Recognizing Our Womanhood, Redefining Femininity', was published by Rutgers University Press in an anthology, Childfree Across the Disciplines: Academic and Activist Perspectives on Not Choosing Children.

2. Has writing always been a focus for you or was it a Plan B?
When I was 18 and at a girls’ boarding school, I realized that I wanted to become a writer. My first job out of college was working for a newspaper in my home town of Providence, Rhode Island. After that I moved to New York City and worked for magazines, including Newsweek. Then I began writing books, mostly in my home in the hills of northwestern Connecticut.

3. How do you explore ideas or find inspiration for your work?
Ideas for a book often come to me suddenly after percolating in the back of my brain for a while. I gravitate to individuals and ideas that fascinate me. Then I research my topics deeply before I begin to write.

I first began thinking about writing Without Child as I approached the age of 40. It was evident that childlessness was not only a silent issue in my life but also in the lives of many of my friends. The lack of an experience was a significant event in itself. I searched women’s literature and letters, reviewing cases when women’s celibacy and consequent childlessness was sanctioned by religion, explored situations in which they were unable to conceive or carry, and where they chose to innovate childless marriages. I also studied the work of social scientists, eager to discover the experiences of my childless predecessors and peers.
 

4. What does the process of writing involve for you?
Writing for me is a process of discipline and desire. I write regularly on weekday mornings. As I work on a manuscript longer, I develop a compelling desire to express myself and a tenacious will to publish.

5. And what does writing then also give you in return?
I experience a strong sense of satisfaction about learning a lot about my topic, expressing myself, and then seeing my words in print. As I wrote in the introduction to Without Child, “my willingness to tell the truth as I experienced it has been difficult but compelling and ultimately cathartic.”

6. Has seeing your work in print changed how you view yourself, and also how you view your NoMo status?
After writing biographies in the third person, writing Without Child in the first person and in the authority of my own voice was exciting and fulfilling. I felt empowered as a writer.

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 was pleased by many thoughtful reviews from serious readers and, as a result, became comfortable as a woman who had not given birth. “This is not only an excellent book, but a true act of courage,” wrote Stephanie Dickison, Canadian Women's Studies. “At last, an intelligent analysis of the powerful societal pressure upon women to become mothers, and a searching description of how the decision not to bear a child may result from
any number of choices, neither selfish nor irrational," wrote Professor Carolyn Heilbrun, author of Writing a Woman’s Life. “The enormous contribution of childless women to our cultural heritage is astonishing, but we have rarely drawn intelligent conclusions from this fact. Laurie Lisle has written a timely book assuring us that the true definition of womanhood need not include childbirth.”
 

8. How do you feel about the current representation of childless and/or childfree people in literature?
Many books are written about admirable women without children, who are too numerous to name. Their successful lives are much more important than their childlessness and, in fact, it is often not even discussed.

 

9. What would you like the publishing world to know about non-parents, both as writers and readers, and our stories?
I would like publishers to know that books about childfreedom, as some call it, appeal to an enormous market of writers and readers who either don’t have children or know those who do not.

10. What future plans do you have, especially for your writing?
To write and post more essays on Substack.