Poetry
The Quiet Hour
Before anyone else is awake, the kitchen belongs to me — and to a mug that keeps its own counsel.
Winter / Spring 2026 · Out now
The kitchen-table literary magazine for everyday moms.
Poetry, humor, and short stories from mothers, for mothers — published quarterly since 2017.
In this issue
Three pieces we couldn't put down.
Humor
Ten Ways to Keep a Toddler Amused (None of Them Work)
A field guide compiled at 3:14 p.m. on a Tuesday, with footnotes scribbled in crayon.
Short fiction
The Borrowers
My daughter has been taking small things from my dresser. I think she is building a museum of me.
Editor's letter
A note from the kitchen table.
Spring is the season of small returns. The garden, the school calendar, the friends who text again after a long winter. This issue is about those returns — the quiet ones, the loud ones, the ones we almost missed.
We received nearly four hundred submissions for No. 47, and reading them was its own kind of homecoming. Thank you to every mother who trusted us with a draft.
— DarleneEditor in Chief
Now reading for Summer 2026
Send us your work.
We're open for poetry, short fiction, and humor through May 31. First-time contributors welcome. We respond to every submission within four weeks — yes, every one.
327 writers published since 2017. The next one could be you.
Submission guidelinesThe podcast
Mothers, on the record.
Long-form conversations with the writers in our pages. New episodes every other Tuesday — listen wherever you get podcasts.
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