Lisa E. Wright’s chapter “Stay Alive: A Black Mother’s Responsibility to Ride Grief’s Hills and Live” was recently published in the collection Parenting While PhDing: Surviving and Improving the Working Conditions of Graduate Student Parents. The chapters in the collection offer valuable advice and strategies to graduate students and administrators from various backgrounds to assist them with navigating academia while parenting. In “Stay Alive,” Wright reflects on her struggle to balance her position as a graduate teaching assistant, where she taught writing courses, and worked as an assistant director of the writing center and writing program, all while she and her husband, who also worked full-time, homeschooled their four children. After attending her brother-in-law’s funeral, Wright experiences a shift that strengthens her commitment to Stay Alive! The collection was published by Rutgers University Press and can be purchased by using this link. 

Photo credit: Sierra Romero