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Authentic Writing for Non-Traditional Mothers

get born magazine started as a quarterly literary magazine by mothers, for mothers featuring smart, witty, sometimes irreverent, often sarcastic, always authentic writing for non-traditional mothers.

The vision for get born was conceived by founders, Heather Janssen, a writer and English teacher and mother of four, and Katie Cassis, an actor, writer and English teacher and mother of two. We founded get born because we felt that, across the board, good, quality, deep writing for mothers about motherhood, not just about raising kids, but about the state of motherhood was largely unavailable. We thought that was a tragedy; of all the chosen professions, none is more completely conflicted than motherhood, and it’s certainly worthy of quality writing. In 2007, Katie chose to focus more on her children’s theater project, Sandbox Stories, while Heather stayed on with get born.

In 2008, Heather was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer, but through the help and support of readers, advertiser, and writers, the magazine continued to be published until the winter of 2010. At that time, the administrative tasks and circulation challenges became too great, and the magazine ceased publication. Since then, get born has relaunched as an online community, with a team of over 30 bloggers bringing real truth to the site every day, and a very active Facebook community where readers can get a bite-sized chunk of good mother snark–to go, as it were.

get born celebrates the whole messy process of motherhood by giving real women in the real trenches of motherhood a chance to speak, to write, to make their voices heard.

get born provides a non-judgmental forum for expression free from fear or pretense because we believe sharing our stories in this sort of environment is the best soil in which to grow as non-traditional mothers and women. Our writers and readers are women are not afraid of either telling or hearing the truth, and respect other women’s right to hear and tell the same.