Fabiana Formica

1. Please tell us a bit about yourself and your work.
I’m a writer, performer, and lifelong seeker who grew up between Italy and the United States. My debut memoir, Childless: A Woman and a Girl in a Man’s World, explores the journey of a woman who longs to be a mother but ultimately decides not to go through it alone and, given her age, must find a different kind of purpose and voice in a world that often equates womanhood with motherhood. The book blends memoir, spirituality, and literary analysis, focusing on the therapeutic process of healing and grieving childlessness as a single woman.

2. Has writing always been a focus for you or was it a Plan B? 
Writing was always a thread in my life. In a former career, I worked in journalism, but authorship came into full focus as I began to confront the reality of my childlessness. I’d always wanted to study literature and only came to it in my early forties when I enrolled at a city college to study English. Two years later, I began writing my book. In that sense, it was both a calling and a necessary response to grief. Writing gave me a way to channel the
emotions of loss, make sense of the pain, and reclaim agency. With my book, writing became my therapy, my way out, and my offering to the world.

3. How do you explore ideas or find inspiration for your work?
I find inspiration in the intersections of themes and fields: memory and the body, the sacred and the mundane, personal struggle and collective patterns. My choices are informed by research and observation, as well as by conversations, dreams, literature, psychology, and lived experience. I draw deeply from spirituality and psychoanalysis. On a practical level, running in nature is often where ideas take shape and visions emerge. I’m especially drawn to work that contributes to healing polarization, in the hope of improving relationships and, consequently, day-to-day lives. More broadly, I apply the work to my own self, seeking the union between opposites. I tend to see paradoxes and feel called to bridge my own polarities
into a sense of oneness. Ultimately, love is my source of inspiration and creativity.

4. What does the process of writing involve for you?
The process of writing involves a connection to source, a deepening of the self, as if I were shedding layers of clothing and lying down naked on the page. It requires deep listening and a sense of offering, a devotion to my own soul that asks to speak, to be seen, or to share an experience. There is also the question of purpose: why do I need to write this? Is it necessary? With my book, the words poured out of me. I couldn’t hold them back; they
demanded to come through.

5. And what does writing then also give you in return?
So much! Writing builds identity. It’s a process of discovery. I often arrive at meaning through the act of writing itself: by unravelling my thoughts on the page, by stretching an idea until it turns into wisdom or knowledge. Sometimes the writing becomes a fantasy, and that fantasy holds so much character that my mind becomes visible – thought patterns, beliefs, clues to my own psyche. Then I step back, re-read, and prepare to receive whatever message my conscious or unconscious mind wants to offer, sometimes through dreams, sometimes through conversations. Writing then becomes a mirror, a map, and a kind of trinity: the physical world (paper, pen, computer, the act of writing, but also my body), the psyche (my mind), and the spiritual realm (my heart, inspiration) working together. In itself, this process is incredibly exciting and profound, sacred. If love could be manufactured, I would say that the process is akin to the production of love.

6. Has seeing your work in print changed how you view yourself, and also how you view your NoMo status?

The answer to the first part of the question is: no. Unfortunately, much of the production of my book involved not writing. That’s the hard part – it can distance you from the art and from the beauty of writing itself. After completing the manuscript in August 2024, I spent 8–9 months preparing for publication: hiring personnel for artwork, going through multiple rounds of editing to catch every typo, organizing and executing a fundraising
campaign, building a website, advertising on social media... the list goes on and on. Lucky are the writers who only need to write, and who can profit from their work without having to do all the rest alone. The reality of independent publishing is often debilitating and requires an entirely different set of skills, many of which have nothing to do with the creative process. On the positive side, I own all the rights to my book outright. That gives me full creative control, which feels like a great freedom.

As for how I view or feel about my NoMo status, the process of creating a work of art that, especially in its early stages, became a kind of substitute for the child I had wanted, was tremendously empowering. Writing, creating, and making artistic choices gave me a sense of purpose and direction, a form of gratification and stimulation that I found invigorating, and in many ways, “distracting” from the grief. I felt alive and incredibly inspired, both in the writing and, despite the hardships, throughout the publication process (although the latter part of the journey is not one I’d be eager to repeat).

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?
Most of the reception so far has come from close friends who backed my campaign and who’ve known me for some time, and from the childless community. I haven’t yet received feedback from all the people who pre-ordered my book during the campaign, so I wouldn’t be able to gauge their impressions or how it may have impacted their view of me or my NoMo identity.

That said, the support from within the childless community has been very helpful and encouraging. Jody Day of Gateway Women, for instance, organized and hosted a masterclass that included writer Y.L. Wolfe in the conversation; we spoke about being childless, single, and feminist. Others, like the NoMo Book Club and the notsomummy blog, have published reviews and shared the book across their social media platforms. I’m very
grateful for this early support, and to those who pre-ordered the book.

8. How do you feel about the current representation of childless and/or childfree people in literature?
I think we often forget, or are simply unaware, that many celebrated writers are, or were, childless. Contemporary writers like Sandra Cisneros, Rebecca Solnit, Amy Tan, and others before them — like Anaïs Nin, Virginia Woolf, and Zora Neale Hurston — were all childless women whose work profoundly shaped literature. And yet, their childlessness is rarely acknowledged as a significant part of their creative identity.

 

Take Zora Neale Hurston, for example – a Black, unmarried, childless artist who died in poverty and precariousness. Yet her work was disruptive; she committed to conveying her characters’ voices through vernacular, portraying Black life from within, rather than as an outsider, at a time in which the predominantly white intellectual establishment she moved through demanded and practised more detachment. Today, we celebrate her brilliance, but who was there for her while she struggled to survive, despite all she had contributed? She was not met with widespread acclaim until after her passing. And, of course, not to mention ground-breaking childless artists like Frida Kahlo who, although respected during her lifetime as an artist, was largely known as the wife of Diego Rivera. Her fame and success grew significantly after her death.

We don’t always consider the ways that childlessness, particularly involuntary childlessness, can impact a woman’s life, or her ability to find recognition. Many of these artists developed ideas and styles that didn’t conform to the dominant narratives of their time. Perhaps because they were childless, they saw and imagined differently, from the margins. And for that, they were often considered eccentric, peripheral, or difficult to categorize.
 

Could there also be a negative correlation between commercial success and childlessness? Let’s be honest: when you have a child to feed, to put through school, a family to contribute to, you are naturally more inclined, and perhaps more inspired, to earn more, whether willingly or unwillingly. You may choose safer, more marketable paths. When you live without those constraints — whether by choice or by circumstance — there is often more freedom, but also more risk. And sometimes, that very freedom can make it harder to make choices that limit or commercialize your work. It’s a paradox: with fewer external demands, the creative impulse may grow deeper, but the pressure to “succeed” in a conventional way may feel less urgent, or even beside the point.

9. What would you like the publishing world to know about non-parents, both as writers and readers, and our stories?
There is a big market out there. This is not a niche. One in five women don’t have children. Many women suffer from being childless and others use the choice to not have children as a form of empowerment. There is so much that is left unspoken when these choices go unnoticed and uncovered. In fact, so much that would disrupt our current system as we know it if these topics were explored with the depth and understanding they deserve.

10. What future plans do you have, especially for your writing?
At present, I continue to support the childless community by talking about my book and sharing my experience. I have some ideas for the future, but nothing set in stone: developing a series of essays or a masterclass that builds on the themes in Childless, creating a monthly reading group, maybe
a workshop for women who want to use writing to channel their grief and longing, or a companion piece or series of essays for men who are childless not by choice. I’m also exploring the possibility of writing a screenplay based on my book. However, the most important and ongoing project for me is keeping hope alive: continuing to imagine a kinder society for men, women, and children.