Jessica Mills is a partnered mother of two children, ages 7 and 1. She is also an activist, artist, a touring musician (who plays saxophone with Citizen Fish), and a first time book author. I've been reading her column of the same name in Maximumrocknroll (MRR) for years. We've traded zines, emails, and crossed virtual paths as "mama-writers" (although not in person yet, but will soon!). In 2007, both of us came out with our first books on independent, small presses.

Colleen Couch-Smith, 30, is an artist, restaurateur, mother of three (Brendan-13, Ian-5, and Ayden-2), and newest member of Memphis Roller Derby’s Legion of Zoom. I was really excited to meet her and thought you might be too.

Sixteen dancers come on stage carrying gold canes and arrayed in reds, blues, purples and pinks with jingling coin hip scarfs. They are all races, shapes and sizes, but they are not all ages: the oldest is eleven and the youngest is four. This is Happy Hips Youth Oriental Dance Troupe, veteran belly dancers who have performed at benefits, museums and festivals as well as local and regional haflas, the term for belly dance parties or shows.

Happy Hips founder, Terri Allred did not set out to become Sadiya, professional belly dancer and instructor. At Vanderbilt University, she completed a theological studies masters in feminist theology with a focus on how people who experience trauma interpret it and give it meaning. Terri ran rape crisis centers and lectured internationally on the relationship between sexual violence and belief systems.

Have you ever wondered if there is a terrible truth about Santa - who he is, how he treats his elves, and what his home life has become? This holiday season reveals all, in a new play by Greg Kotis, the Tony Award winning writer of Urinetown, featuring the entire multi-talented Kotis-Halliday family! One strong warning: this is definitely not a show for children!

Will this Christmas be Santa's last? Will Mrs. Claus finally make good on her threat to submerge humanity in a lake of fire? Who are these children and where did they get their strange powers? Hip Mama caught up with matriarch Ayun to discuss the new play....

Bee: When my daughter was nine years old she performed a solo in front of two thousand screaming fans at a music festival. My son, however, doesn't even like going to crowded libraries, let alone getting up on stage.

At her twelfth birthday dinner my daughter was furious that the waitress recognized me from the photograph on my first book, because it was "her day." My son has never been fazed by anything I've done or achieved, and even leverages the stories for the odd spot of blackmail.

How do your kids react to being the offspring of two highly creative, well-known parents?

Ayun: Lucky for us, they don't have anything to compare it to... India, much as I do, seems to feel she has partial ownership of Greg's accomplishments - partly because their gestation permeates our small apartment. Another thing she's picked up on is my labors in the guerilla marketeering mines. If one of my books turns up in a blog post or something, she counts that as a personal victory. It's a little worrisome, though if she goes into the arts, this hunger for reknown might serve her well. We nabbed a family profile in Time Out Kids as part of our Truth About Santa publicity quest, and our cat, Mungo, got his mug in the photo, and India made sure he saw that. Fortunately, she has a shy side too. I'd feel awful if I inadvertently turned one of my children into a fame whore. I hope she gets that it's primarily about attracting attention to your creative efforts so that there will be butts in the seats, and sales figures large enough to convince those who might publish or produce the next project to take a chance on you.

Milo is more of a maverick, not as interested in the identity his parent's identities can confer upon him. He wants to be a chimney sweep.

I don't think either of them longs to come from a "regular" family, in a "regular" house. It helps that we live in this diverse, urban neighborhood, where there's a wide range of incomes, cultures, and household appearances. I may dress funny, but I also live right across the street from school, and arrive bearing stilts. I am constitutionally incapable of disciplining another's child using anything other than humor. Ergo, their peers tend to like me. One of them even likes the way I dress, bless her heart. If their friends thought we were weird in a bad way, that might stir up some trouble.

Bee: How has it been working with not only your spouse, but both of your children?

Ayun: It's been more gruelling than I expected, though having traveled as a family through Bosnia with one or the other of us whining, complaining, or sighing with boredom at every turn, I don't know what I WAS expecting. Commitment-wise, Greg and I are floundering up to the eyeballs on this one. He wrote the play, I somehow wound up doing costumes, all four of us are in it... the ripples just go on and on. We feel a sense of responsibility to the underpaid professional actors who've agreed to join us on this fool's errand, and if one of our kids is in a pissy mood, sabotagging rehearsal because rehearsal is, let's face it, boring and constrictive and not as much fun as running around the playground, pretending to be a sled-dog, or some brand new Pokemon character, or whatever, we're doubly-stricken. It's not the same as having your kid act up in a restaurant, or a bookstore, or some other place. There you can say, "Well, he's had a long day," or "He's overdue for a snack," and if people are shooting you the stink eye, screw them! It's a public place and kids shouldn't be automatically penalized for falling short of adult behavioral expectations. But, when everybody's there because you were like, "Hey, gang, let's put on a show! It'll be really fun! I promise!" it becomes a preoccupation.

There have also been times when we felt like Milo was getting unfairly dumped on, scapegoated due to his prior record, but it wouldn't have served the play very well if I ground rehearsal to a halt every time I felt like, "Hey, he's a little boy. Let's cut some slack. If all he hears is "no", and "don't", he's going to shut down."

That said, I did mix it up with our original Santa, whose unrelenting criticism ofI Milo's "lack of professional" smacked overtly of personal distaste. Maybe, as he claimed, he just couldn't deal with the inherent lack of control. Tensions built to the point where I went, to make a long, multi-faceted story short, all Mama Cougar on his ass. (Don't worry. the kids weren't in attendance.) He removed himself from the project and I think that was the best for all concerned for a number of reasons. He will probably feel vindicated if tales of Milo's trenchant rehearsal behavior get back to him. I feel glad I'm not in a position where, for the good of the project, I have to strong arm my child into months of conforming to the rigid expectations of someone who might not have his best interests at heart.

And then we added a dog. WC Fields is stewing in his grave. I hear him on working with children, but if I were a dog actor, I'd be pissed. The bulldog we're working with has never been onstage before, and she's been a total trooper the whole time.

Bee: Particularly given the famously small size of your apartment? I know the new place is larger than the original East Village flat, but it seems like it might be close quarters for a crew of thespians to sleep, eat, and work together in harmony!

Ayun: Yeah, the apartment isn't helping morale much, though if we pull our heads out of our heiners for half a sec, we'd think, "Hey, compared to all these people who are getting their houses taken away, we're plenty damn lucky to have an affordable rent in a great neighborhood, a fantastic and fair landlady..." it's small, but it's steady.

Bee: The EV Inky is entering a second decade - quite an achievement in the zine world! Did you think you would keep going so long, covering so many major life events - moving, babies, mermaid parades, the death of beloved pets, for Greg a Broadway play, for you the publication of several books?

Ayun: I could never have predicted whither life would lead, but when you look at my theatrical background, I did the same show, Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind, nearly every weekend for a decade, so I was pretty open to the idea of the neverending project. Maybe too open. There have been times in the last few years when the self-imposed deadline has felt like a hassle, but as long as people are still reading it, I ain't complaining!

A while ago, I put together a back issue synopsis and that was really fun, going over all these little anecdotes, seeing the minutaie of my children's infancy set down like that. I'm glad I kept going. I'm not sure how it'll play when things like boyfriends and all enter the mix. Maybe I'll cleave harder to the adventures in NYC arena. Basically, I'm a frustrated tour guide.

Bee: What is next, for each or all of you?

Ayun: I just wrote the script to a YA graphic novel about a girl who fakes a peanut allergy when she starts a new school. In the New Year, I plan to bang out another one, about a star-crossed romance between a sheltered private school boy and a dumpster diver who's running this sort of one-girl, mobile soup kitchen.

Greg and his partner, Mark Hollman, are working on the script for a film version of Urinetown. Thier new musical, Yeast Nation, which I wrote about in East Village Inky #36, is opening in Chicago this spring, so Greg willl be spending a lot of time there.

India is hoping to join her friends Willa and Natalie in this kids theater program they've been participating in in The East Village.

And Milo is looking forward to running around in the playground and doing exactly whatever the hell he feels like doing.

Bee: I believe in Santa. Do you?

Ayun: Mos def, as long as he's not an a-hole to either of my kids.

For more information about Ayun, her books, the zine, the show, check out: http://www.ayunhalliday.com. Interested in a bonus feature? Lucky you, click here!

Bee Lavender is the publisher of Hipmama.com and the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Lessons in Taxidermy. For more information about her work, check out Foment.net.

Let us reiterate: although this dysfunctional family comedy features children, it is NOT FOR CHILDREN!
-- adults and extremely skeptical tweens only, please.
(Kotis' children have been apprised that the red-suited man onstage is not really Santa and thus do not mind too terribly much when he "dies".)

THE TRUTH ABOUT SANTA
December 4 -20, 2008
Wednesday - Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 5pm & 8pm.
The Kraine Theater
85 East 4th Street
(between 2nd & 3rd Aves)
NYC

A Vanity Fair moment with Ayun - the Proust Questionnaire!

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A whole afternoon in a Japanese bathhouse, followed by food.

2. What is your greatest fear?
That one of my children will predecease me.

3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
What, just one? An inclanation to keep badgering even after my point has registered.

4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Lack of compassion

5. Which living person do you most admire?
erm......

6. What is your greatest extravagance?
Living in New York City

Editor's note: China Martens is the author of The Future Generation: Zine-book for Subculture Parents, Kids, Friends & Others (Atomic Book Company, March 2007). Jessica Mills is the author of My Mother Wears Combat Boots (AK PRESS, November 2007). They're both great books, go check them out!

Jessica Mills is a partnered mother of two children, ages 7 and 1. She is also an activist, artist, a touring musician (who plays saxophone with Citizen Fish), and a first time book author. I've been reading her column of the same name in Maximumrocknroll (MRR) for years. We've traded zines, emails, and crossed virtual paths as "mama-writers" (although not in person yet, but will soon!). In 2007, both of us came out with our first books on independent, small presses.

I called her on the phone to chat about the process of becoming a first time author. We come from the same background (zines, mutual aid and DIY community) and so it was really cool to talk with her; after we had gotten our book deals, we also shared the overwhelming fear at a certain point that we were not up to this opportunity. In Jessica's case, she told herself "don't be a foolish loser – this is your dream, take it." For me, I leaned on the support of writer-mama and radical-librarian friends, which helped me through the terror of the process of writing a book, which had always been my dream as well. We have our differences, too: I'm a single mother and she isn't; "Daddy 'Nesto," as their two daughters call him, gave Jessica a lot of support and encouragement for which she is very thankful. Also, instead of having an 18-year-old daughter, like I had, who encouraged me and left me alone to work on my book, Jessica had to write this book with a new baby!

Susan says: China is on tour with Ariel Gore right now! For details see the events news on the side bar... and now for your regularly scheduled interview!

Before the internet made it easier to network with other alternative parents, before there was a genre of mama zines, or even Hip Mama, there was "The Future Generation: The Zine for Subculture Parents, Kids, Friends & Others." Created by China Martens in 1990 (after the birth of her daughter in 1988), the zine was unlike any other. Her mother, who read to her from as early as one month old and fashioned cut-and-paste picture books for her as a toddler, was her original zinester influence. She has a short story "On The Road (with baby)" published in Breeder: Real Life Stories from the New Generation of Mothers; is a columnist for Slug and Lettuce; and won the 2002 Baltimore City Paper "Best Of" zine award for "I was...a Student Nurse." Seventeen years later, China is still cranking out issues of her groundbreaking zine—most recently #15 "The Raising Teenagers" issue. She spent the last year compiling all of the issues into one too-good-to-be-true volume: Future Generation: The Zine-Book For Subculture Parents, Kids, Friends And Others

China and I have been long-time Internet friends and have collaborated on Mamaphiles, a mama zinester collaboration. When I heard about her new book, I couldn’t wait to (virtually) sit down and chat with her about the journey that led to it.

Stacey Greenberg: So why did you decide to put out a zine in the first place?

China Martens: I wanted to create an information and support network for alternative parents. There wasn’t anything like that at the time. It was very rare to meet other parents like myself. We were all hungry for information, departing off the "known" path of the way we were raised. It was hard being a parent in the subculture because you lost some of the support and resources you had first gained within it: you no longer could keep up in the same way because you were a parent. But you didn’t fit in with mainstream parents or parenting resources either. We needed to communicate with each other, and for the first time I felt I was experiencing issues that there wasn’t already a zine or a movement based around addressing. There was not even a single zine that had parenting essays in it or was made by a parent. (Not that I saw anyway, and I had been around a lot of zines in what felt, at the time, like the heyday of zines.) The closest thing I could find was Mothering Magazine which had the natural parenting stuff I believed in, but absolutely nothing political in it, or punk, or said anything about how to put your ideals into action when you were living the nitty-gritty life. (Like if you were poor or stressed out).

Before the internet made it easier to network with other alternative parents, before there was a genre of mama zines, or even Hip Mama, there was "The Future Generation: The Zine for Subculture Parents, Kids, Friends & Others."

At 9:00pm on a Friday, I was busy trying to get my monkeys (Satchel, age 4 and Jiro, age 2) in bed so I could sneak out and interview Kate Crowder, the lead singer of my new favorite band, Two Way Radio (formerly known as Walkie Talkie and briefly as Side Walk Talk). At 9:25pm, I said goodbye to my husband and drove down the street to a local bar where Kate said she'd be hanging out until their 11:00pm show time. As I nervously walked into the nearly empty bar, I saw Kate and her husband/bandmate, Corey, slip out the back door. I picked up my pace and headed towards the door hoping she hadn't forgotten our interview.

"Kate!" I hollered out the back, trying not to sound too desperate.

"Oh hey Stacey," Kate said as she came walking over. "I was just checking on this sign we spray painted a few minutes ago.

I looked over her shoulder and saw a large piece of black fabric with a yellow walkie talkie (I assumed, even though it looked more like a cellphone) in the center.

"Instead of changing our name again, we're just going to be known by this symbol," she joked. "You know, kind of like Prince."

"Cool, " I said laughing along.

"Let's go inside and get a beer," she said.

"Great idea," I said.

We sat down, put in our order for two Miller Lites, and made small talk while I fiddled with the tape recorder my (real journalist) friend loaned me. "I feel so naked without my computer," I said. "I think you are the first person I've ever actually interviewed face to face."

"I'm sorry," she said. "Every time I sat down and tried to email you, Oliver would get in my lap and mess with the keys. I could never get enough time to answer all your questions the way I wanted to."

"Oh don't apologize," I said. "This is way better because now I get to hear y'all play."

I got the tape recorder going and signaled that we were ready to start.

"So," I said in my official reporter's voice, "Tell me how you got started singing."

AKrylik and PolyCotN, two busy moms who couldn't find the time to finish their knitting projects came up with a crazy, organic solution. They started Knitta, a knitting graffiti crew, to tag their neighborhood with small, easy projects like antenna covers and beer cozies. Stacey Greenberg, the creator of the zine, Fertile Ground: For People who Dig Parenting, recently interviewed AKrylik to see how sometimes in balancing motherhood, work, and art we have to listen to ourselves and be brave and know when it's time to change and refocus our energies. She found that if we can just learn to do that, we may wind up with something even more amazing that what we'd started out with.

Knitterview

Stacey Greenberg: Tell me a little bit about Knitta:

AKrylik: We are a group of 11 Houstonians, 10 female (PolyCotN, AKrylik, WoolFool, LoopDogg, Knotorious N.I.T., Purl Nekklas 14kt, SonOfaStitch, P-Knitty, GrannySQ and Knitiot) and 1 male (MascuKnitity), ages ranging from 22 to 55 (actually, I'm only guessing at GrannySQ's age, so we're not entirely sure where the range ends). Four of us are moms. I have one little person. She's 10. PolyCotN has three, ages 3, 9 and 12. WoolFool has two, 9 and 5. Some of us have full time jobs out of the house. Some of us have full time jobs inside of the house (that definitely includes our one full-time mom). Some of us are students. Some of us own our own businesses. NONE of us knit full time. In fact, though we all like (are even obsessed with to a point) knitting, I think what brought us together was our creativity levels and the combined need to make this hobby a tad more edgy and stimulating. This is an interesting little side project for all of us that has developed into something really unbelievable. We only thought that we were embarking on some crazy, humorous adventure that the folks in the neighborhood would get a kick out of. Never in our wildest dreams did we guess that it would get this huge.

Read more!