Waiting in the Wings: Portrait of a Queer Motherhood

In a series of journal entries--some original passages, others revisited and expanded in retrospect--Cherrié Moraga details her experiences with pregnancy, birth, and the early years of lesbian parenting.

The premature birth of her son, when HIV-related mortality rates were at their highest, forced Moraga, a new mother at 40-years-old, to confront the fragile volatility of life and death; in these recorded dreams and reflections, her terror and resilience are made palpable. The particular challenges of queer parenting prove transformative as Moraga navigates her interesecting roles as mother, child, lover, friend, artist, activist, and more.

With an updated introduction and other additions, this 25th anniversary edition of Waiting in the Wings is thoughtful and emotive, with prose that is sharp and beautifully written, from the voice of a beloved and incomparable writer.

Cherrié Moraga is an internationally recognized poet, playwright, essayist, and memorist from Los Angeles, California. She is a co-editor of the avant-garde feminist anthology, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color and the author of several books and plays, including: A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness, Loving in the War Years: Lo que nunca pasó por sus labios, The Last Generation, The Hungry Woman/Heart of the Earth, and others. She served as Artist in Residence in the Department of Theater and Performance Studies at Stanford University for twenty years before beginning her tenure as a Professor in the Department of English at the University of California-Santa Barbara.