Introduction: imagining motherhood in the twenty-first century - images, representations, constructions / Valerie Heffernan and Gay Wilgus -- 1. Situating single mothers through values-based cartooning / Penelope Mendonça -- 2. Lesbian, bisexual and queer motherhood: crafting radical narratives and representing social change through cultural representations / Elizabeth Reed -- 3. Mothering across languages and cultures in Ying Chen's letters to her children / Eglė Kačkutė -- 4. On the margins of motherhood: choosing to be child-free in Lucie Joubert's L'Envers du landau (2010) / Julie Rodgers -- 5. Post-Feminist Fatherhood and the Marginalization of the Mother in Cormac McCarthy's the road / Berit Åström -- 6. Rethinking constructs of maternity in the novels of Elena Ferrante and Alice Sebold / Katrin Wehling-Giorgi -- 7. Mending the torn fragments of a relationship: an interview with Sarah Strong / Valerie Heffernan.