Infertilities, A Curation

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courtesy Maria Novotny

Maria Novotny (left) and Erika Meitner.

Maria Novotny (left) and Erika Meitner.

Infertilities, A Curation is a gorgeous and deeply personal new book that seeks to give voice to the one in six people worldwide who experience infertility. Women, men, nonbinary and transgender individuals, heterosexual couples, single parents by choice, and lesbian and queer-identified couples contributed their intimate perspectives via personal narrative, poetry and visual art. Co-editor Maria Novotny (a UW-Milwaukee assistant professor of English) and contributor Erika Meitner (a UW-Madison English professor) will read from the book and share their own experiences.

media release: A Room of One's Own is thrilled to welcome Maria Novotny and Erika Meitner for a conversation on the collaborative book Infertilities, A Curation.

This is an in person event at A Room of One's Own.

About the Book

Through personal narrative, poetry, and visual art, stories of infertility that are far more nuanced than statistics, insurance diagnostic codes, and treatment plans, are brought to light.

These works highlight the varied perspectives of individuals who have lived with infertility and include perspectives from women, men, and nonbinary and transgender individuals, as well as heterosexual couples, single parents by choice, and lesbian and queer-identified couples. This collection intentionally makes visible the emotional depths of infertility. From diagnosis and treatment, adoption, or living childfree, to miscarriage and pregnancy loss, editors, writers, and artists explore the range of experiences with infertility and their psychological, physical, and emotional impacts in all aspects of life. This carefully curated anthology reveals that infertility cannot be reduced to a singular narrative; instead, it is an assemblage of multiple embodied moments. Whether a reader comes to this book as someone personally affected by infertility or someone who wants to learn more about the experiences of individuals facing reproductive loss, Infertilities, A Curation invites readers to consider how creative practices such as art and writing can aid in efforts to heal individual traumas and more broadly as means of advocacy.

Maria Novotny is an assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and codirector of The ART of Infertility. Her research on infertility and reproductive justice has been published in peer-reviewed journals including Rhetoric of Health & Medicine, Rhetoric Review, and Technical Communication Quarterly. The ART of Infertility was the 2018 recipient of the Hope Award for Innovation given by RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association for its work communicating patient experiences through arts programming. She lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Erika Meitner is the author of six books of poems, including Ideal Cities (HarperCollins, 2010), a National Poetry Series winner; Holy Moly Carry Me (BOA Editions, 2018), which won a National Jewish Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Useful Junk (BOA Editions, 2022). Meitner’s poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The New York Times, The New Republic, Orion, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She is currently a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and often writes about secondary infertility and adoption.