M M De Voe the Fictionista Who Helps Writers Find Their Way While Caring for Their Children

December 29, 2025 · 45 min

About this episode

M. M. De Voe discusses her journey as a fiction writer and her efforts to support parent writers through her nonprofit.

M. M. De Voe is an internationally published fictionista who once danced for the Pope and later ran away with a group of jugglers. Five Pushcart nominations, two Editor’s Prizes, a Shirley Jackson Award, a Hugo nomination, two children, and several writing conferences later, De Voe has published in various genres internarionally and evwn co-wrote the book of a sci-fi musical which was produced off-Broadway in 2015. She was a Columbia University Writing Fellow and received her MFA under Michael Cunningham. in 2013, she founded the nonprofit Pen Parentis to help writers maintain their careers after having kids, a process described in her nonfiction guidebook for writers who are parents, Book & Baby. This guide won first prize at the 2021 NextGen Indie Awards in the category of writing guides. Her first book of fiction, A FLASH OF DARKNESS: Collected Stories of M. M. De Voe (Borda Books, 2023), was called “ominous, masterfully crafted psychological fiction” by Kirkus Review. As an inaugural member of the Lithuanian Writers of the Diaspora Forum, Mtravels to Vilnius every three years to keep her finger on the pulse of international fiction. She lives in New York City, where she…

People in this episode

Host: Michael Clogs

Guest: M. M. De Voe

Topics covered

writing
parenting
fiction
nonprofit
awards

Keywords

M. M. De Voe
writing
parenting
Pen Parentis
Book & Baby
fiction
awards

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Pen Parentis

Books & works: Book & Baby, A FLASH OF DARKNESS: Collected Stories of M. M. De Voe, THE BOY WHO LOVED TREES

Places: New York City, Vilnius