For Electric Literature, Stephanie Feldman challenges the cliché that “a book is the author’s baby”:
Using writing as a metaphor for birth, or birth as a metaphor for writing, belittles each: the raw, nerve-shattering physical labor of one, and the years of mental labor and fortitude of the other. It also obscures how these different types of labor operate. Writing is highly intentional. In contrast, childbearing resists our efforts at control.
