Exclusive Cover Reveal of “Notes to New Mothers” edited by Rebecca Knight and Julie Buntin

Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover of Notes to New Mothers edited by Rebecca Knight and Julie Buntin, which will be published on September 1st, 2026 by Norton. You can pre-order your copy here.

65 writers and artists (many of whom are EL contributors whose work you can find here, here, and here) capture early motherhood in scenes and revelations: a vulnerable, kaleidoscopic record of postpartum life.

In the early days with their first babies, two friends began comparing notes on what, exactly, was going on in their postpartum bodies and minds. What was a wake window? How could anyone function under the weight of so much love? All their new-mom friends were overwhelmed too. In search of the book they needed, editors Rebecca Knight and Julie Buntin invited 65 acclaimed writers and artists—Julia Phillips, Kirstin Valdez Quade, Liana Finck, Jenny Slate, Naima Coster, and more—to riff on shared concerns: burp volcanoes, career shifts, breastfeeding logs, partnership dynamics, minor victories and major insecurities. Here is a bedside table companion for every mother who has wondered how she’ll make it through the wilderness of early parenthood, and a window into her experience for the family and friends desperate to better care for their beloved moms-to-be. Brave, unexpected, and revelatory, Notes to New Mothers offers a new map of motherhood as both a singular and communal experience.

Here is the cover, designed by Sarahmay Wilkinson, with original artwork by Kristen Diederich:

Rebecca Knight: It took us a long time to find the right cover art for Notes to New Mothers because the structure of the book is so unusual. It’s a new form: a 60-writer chorus singing 582 tiny notes, in and out of harmony. It’s a juicy giftable item and an experimental, literary text. What kind of cover could cover both bases? It couldn’t be too literal (stock photo of pacifier stack) or too droopy (Mother’s-Day-Monet) or too floral or not floral enough or too feminine or too Gothic or too discouraging or too perky. We wanted it to be an accomplished aesthetic object in its own right, a soothing visual companion to house the warm community of voices inside. We wanted it to be elegant, energetic, timeless, simple, strong. We came up with a million almosts. And then, perusing the L.A. gallery LOBSTER CLUB’s 2026 Frieze Week group show, we discovered the work of painter Kristen Diederich.

Diederich’s paintings and our book are devoted to polyphony. She too is building up her images from the innumerable contributions of small strokes. Her instincts as a colorist, and as an abstract scribe of the natural world, are as various, understated, rapturous, and surprising as the prose stylings of our disparate, acclaimed writers. Looking at a Diederich painting is an invitation to investigate, to think and look again, all while relishing in the physical, the sumptuous. We came full circle with the project when we learned that Kristen attributes her painting practice to her own mother, also a painter, who found a way to combine creative output and childrearing. This is the very balance our contributors are in the midst of calibrating. We have been giddy about our cover ever since Kristen agreed to come on board. Norton’s Design Director Sarahmay Wilkinson, herself a new mother, created the cover with expert composition and iconic typography, all while tending to her own young son. We can’t imagine a fuller, finer, or more fitting artwork to invite readers into Notes to New Mothers.

Julie Buntin: Rebecca has captured exactly how I feel about Kristen’s artwork and how it evokes our book! I’ll just add that in addition to suggesting, via the swirls and blooms of color, the polyphony of the contents, the painting evokes such a tangible sense of transformation—the way the pink seems to be an almost reconfigured version of the green, the interrupting red, the moody, textural slashes of blue. For me, it speaks, in some nonverbal and very true-feeling way, to the murky, vibrant, and wildly complex early postpartum period.

Rebecca and I worked on this book together for years, and even when it was just an inkling, our vision for it was that however we collected these voices, the object—the book itself—would have to be distinct and beautiful. Something you’d want to put on your bedside table, that you’d be drawn to pick up even when dead tired, that would offer some sensory respite from all the glop and goo of newborn life. I have very precise memories of a book I read to both my children as tiny babies—one they loved—that had this gargantuan dust jacket that was always slipping off or getting folded up or in the wrong place, one more tiny thing I had to track and take care of. One day, it got half stuck under my nursing chair and partially ripped when I tried to pull it out, bending over my infant, which made her cry—and then I was crying, because what if I’d hurt her, and also why was the fucking dust jacket never where it was supposed to be? And wasn’t that my fault somehow? Those days are tough. Notes to New Mothers will have no dust jacket. The tactility of Kristen’s painting will work so brilliantly as paper-over-board, and Sarahmay’s sensitive way of setting off the type means that no amount of baby drool or sticky fingerprints or spilt milk will obscure the title. The book can take it, just as the mother can (even if she thinks she sometimes can’t).

Sarahmay Wilkinson: It was such a pleasure to collaborate with authors Rebecca Knight and Julie Buntin in the creative process for their cover. It was important to our team to create something intimate and elevated while also lasting and durable; a gift that would live happily on a new parent’s chaotic nightstand. Kristen Diederich’s painting brought a sense of tenderness, atmosphere, and complexity that felt exactly right for the project. As a new-ish mum, I devoured this book, but really, truly, anyone who has ever been born should read this book.

Kristen Diederich: While painting, I often recall all the times I must have been held as a child, how these levels of care are linked and inseparable from the creative process, which itself is an act of mothering an idea into the world. In my case, these aspects of care are reflected in the image itself through the materiality of paint and mark making.

Growing up surrounded by creative women—a grandmother who crafted with her hands, an aunt who was a literature and theater teacher, and a mother, Tammy, who is a committed painter—gave rise to my interest in the arts.

For the past 10 years, I have been writing a single, continuous poem whose lines become titles for my paintings—among them, “Fuchsia is Slain by Observable Facts,” an abstract landscape of saturated pinks, blues, and greens, floral elements rising and dissolving through layers of glaze. I was delighted that this painting was chosen for this project because the story of my art practice is so deeply linked to my own mother.