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About Megan Williams
Previous to her decision to apply to the Police Department, Megan Williams was a professor of English at various universities for over twenty years. After graduating from Haverford College, Megan received her Ph.D. in English from Temple University and taught at Lafayette College and Santa Clara University. Portions of One Bad Mother have received recognition from the New Millennium Award in Nonfiction, the Cagibi Magazine Prize, Panther Creek Award in Non-Fiction, and William Faulkner Creative Writers’ Competition. Last year, Williams won the PNWA award for nonfiction. She and her family currently reside in Bellingham, Washington.
MEMOIR | $17
Trade Paper | 5.315” x 8.465”
ISBN: 9781960573858
Pub Date: 9/03/2024
One Bad Mother: A Mother's Search for Meaning in the Police Academy
by Megan Williams
Get it wherever great books are sold
This is a book for every mother who questions herself, has a bad day, or thinks that challenging athletic feats and professional achievements may in fact be easier than being a mother. That is—most of us.
After one of her six-year-old twins puts a hammer through a wall, Megan Williams feels as if she is failing the test that is motherhood. And it’s one she’s been failing ever since her twins were born at twenty-nine weeks. Recognizing a hole in her life that is eerily similar to the space left in the drywall, Williams abandons her academic career to apply to the Police Academy. She needs a win.
Through a grueling two-year application process, Williams confronts her mental and psychological abilities. She runs laps around younger candidates, but she fails her physical because she takes Prozac. Yet another obstacle arises when her mandatory polygraph insists that she is a drug dealer. During it all, Williams measures herself against the other candidates and other mothers with brutal honesty and black humor. She confronts the paralyzing fear that she is a bad mother, as well as the real possibility that she might not make the cut at the Academy. In the end, she makes peace with a motherhood far different from the dream sold by our culture.
Praise for Megan William's One Bad Mother
Best Memoir 2024 Finalist, Pacific Book Awards
“Real. Raw. Laugh out loud funny—like motherhood itself. In One Bad Mother, Megan Williams makes us all feel like good mothers, doing the best we can while on the craziest adventure of our lives.”
—Leslie Morgan Steiner, author of Crazy Love, Mommy Wars, The Naked Truth, and The Baby Chase