Award-Winning, Baby (Unofficially)
Parents that Write #42 Q&A with Violet Carol
Welcome to Parents That Write.
Parent writers, artists, and creators are more than just their ‘chaos’. We’re publishing books, dropping albums, optioning screenplays, and making magic every day.
HOW DO THEY DO IT? That's what we're here to find out. Each week, my guests tackle eight quick-fire questions, plus a few wildcards. But first, a peek into my own creative life:
No-Fluff Notes from my Writing Life
A Little Ceremony, Then
After 41 interviews with parent-writers across this wild and wired year, I started noticing something: threads, quirks, and contradictions.
I bring you a small celebratory detour. A backdoor prize-giving
Each of these categories was made to fit the person, not the other way around.
And every one of them was once in the hot seat, part of the Parents That Write interview series.
🏆 The “Breath-Catcher” Award, goes to
Isabelle – For answering with the type of honesty that slows your breath. Her interview is what happens when a writer doesn’t flinch from the terrible complexity of surviving and then writing about it. She’s the one you send to a friend when you don’t know how to help, because she already does.
🏆 The “Laundry Over Literature” Award
Nicola Washington – For openly rejecting the myth of rituals, and choosing spin cycles over writing sprints. She may not have habits, but she does have a writing coven. Her secret weapon? Other women who won't let her give up. Long live the Sisterhood writing group.
🏆 The “Strikethrough Queen” Award
Megan Lee – For weaponising sarcasm like it’s a self-defence class. She doesn’t need expletives when she’s got rhythm, rage, and a delete key. Read her piece for comedic timing, aching honesty, and undiluted wit that’s been through a lot and come out whip sharp.
🏆 The “Joy, Then Draft” Award
Walter Rhein – For showing that family joy and creative discipline aren’t opposites. His kids know there’ll be playtime, and he knows the writing gets done, whether he feels like it or not. Call it consistency, grit, or Dad’s sacred hour. Either way, he’s the one gently proving it can be done.
🏆 The “Flow Finds Her” Award
Lucy Werner – For naming surrender as both a survival strategy and a creative gift. She lets go, tunes in, and gets shit written when the rhythm hits. Whether it’s a prompt from her Notes or Bobby Lyte on loop, she finds her flow, and follows it like a lit path.
🏆 The “Poem Before Breakfast” Award
Annie Ridout – For rising early, writing fast, and dressing like a woman with better things to do than faff about with colours. Her capsule wardrobe buys her poem writing time. Her kids get a mum who models creative urgency. And her writing? It’s folded into mornings, tapped into phones, deliberate and constant.
🏆 The “Loo With a View” Award
Francesca Bossert – For proving that glamour and chronic illness are not mutually exclusive. She writes from between countries, and the loo (quite often), with a brilliance built through constraint. Chronic illness reshapes time, but somehow she still finds the words, and her way.
🏆 The “Answers I Never Got” Award
Alex Dobrenko – For making me laugh out loud, enthusiastically saying yes, and then… vanishing like a smoke bomb in a trench coat. His answers never came. But if they had? They’d have been beautiful, ridiculous in their genius, and entirely unquotable. Alex, I still want the interview. You’re late, not off the hook.
Big gratitude to ALL 41 guests, if I could send each of you a tiara and a writing retreat, I would.
Okay, I’m hitting pause on these interviews for a hot sec, but not before giving you Violet Carol of Mother Love Letters who comes in wise, and wildly herself.
Share a broad snapshot of your life. Who are you parent to and/or have caring responsibilities for?
Hi, Parents Who Think readers! I gave birth to my first baby (Joni) last June, and my husband and I have been in a whirlwind glitter plume of bliss and chaos ever since.
I ran my own law firm as a solo practitioner until my daughter was born and my brain decided it didn't want to be in charge of so many things at once. I now only work part-time from home for a peer of mine I met doing legal advocacy/policy work, which is quite possibly the most ideal scenario I could've dreamed up in keeping my career while also centering my daughter (and sneaking in baby kisses between morning phone calls). I write at night, after all of the lawyering and mothering and human-ing is finally done. But I dream of writing in the day, too.
Where can we find you?
Can you share favourite praise for your writing?
My little sister reads, comments, and likes every piece of writing I publish on Substack (and then she texts me about it). No praise will ever mean more to me than her unconditional love and support. She is my No. 1 fan, and I am the luckiest.
Why do you write?
I write so I can stop time. And when I've stopped time, I can move through it at my own pace to revisit past lives and invent ones I'll never have time to live.
What does the inside of your writing mind look like?
Obnoxiously organized. Color-coded. Office supplies that sparkle. Writing utensils are gel pens. I let the words fall out, and then I sort them, and then they become something. Things are whizzing by at a high intensity. Papers are zooming past my hippocampus at lightning speed! But I always know where everything is.
How is your ability to write affected by being a parent and your ability to parent affected by your writing?
My ability to write has been enhanced since becoming a parent. Something about giving birth unlocked something in me. I believe that I am a writer, and so now I write like it. Becoming a mother has made my writing more creative, more whimsical, more free. Like I'm not afraid of anything, like I'm naming everything as honestly as it comes forth, and I think that shows more now than it ever did before.
How often do you write with your child around or not, and what kind of writing do you get done when they are nearby?
I do not do any writing with my daughter around. If I'm writing with my daughter around, it's only because a thought came zooming through my psyche and I'm rushing to my Notes app to jot down a fragment of an idea that I will turn into something tangible later before it disappears forever. This happens a lot in the shower, in the car, and in my daughter's rocking chair.
What is your best writing habit, and how did you discover it?
Purge, then prune. I discovered this habit in college when I was daunted by the idea of writing a 27-page paper (oddly specific page count) for one of my favorite professors on American Civil Liberties. Not wanting to leave out any crucial thoughts, I dumped and I dumped and I dumped. I ended up with 38 pages that I had to trim, but it helped me learn to focus on the important facts, command the reader with precise language, and write with intention. Almost everything I write now was once 3x longer than its published version (including this blurb).
What are the three most important characteristics of being a writer who is a parent?
Your identity as a parent is as interesting as your identity as a writer. Your writing is allowed to change shape as you change your own. Your child must always come first.
What or who is your secret writing weapon?
My Notes app. I couldn't do anything without her. She is where all of my writing begins, and she is made up of many, many sub-folders.
What or who has been the most significant creative influence in your life?
Hayley Williams from Paramore. Every book I've ever read that made me say, "That's my favorite book I've ever read." The night sky. My great-grandmother's homemade gnocchi. Anything that makes me feel loved and alive.
What’s your best writing time?
Unfortunately, in the middle of a legal brief when my creative brain is rapping on my skull like, "What the Hell is this boring legalese? Stop this! I have a poem for you." But otherwise at night after my daughter falls asleep. I write best in the dark.
How much torture/pleasure is involved in your writing life and in what form does it come?
When I have an idea about something I want to write, it physically strains if I cannot get it out of my mind fast enough. And then I'm feverishly scribbling gibberish into my Notes app, and it feels like I'm racing time, and I feel stressed that the thought will escape me before my fingers can bring it to life, and then I look down and it's all there, and I feel euphoric.
What unfinished writing projects do you have lying about?
A poetry/essay collection about matrescence. A poetry film blueprint about womanhood. A literary fiction novel about all the different types of love. A historical fiction novel about my family's lost lineage.
What music do you listen to while writing?
Give me a little screamy emo to take all the noise out. Then my mind is clear. Then I can put on Vivaldi to make me feel fancy. I'm in a Spotify to Apple Music transition, but I will absolutely send a link for my pendulum swing of a writing playlist to update this post when it's done!
Many thanks to Violet for a gorgeous interview. Before we say ta-ra, here’s a few little things I’m loving right now:
👉 Objects of Temporary Worship
Alexandra Broomer invited me to lead a Human Design workshop for her Union Women’s Circle in London - intimate, electric, and these Dark Chocolate Brazil Nuts1 were borderline spiritual. As well as this yummy offering she made:
I’m off to a wedding next month and I c.a.n.n.o.t w.a.i.t ~ yeehaw! Obvs, I’m now reading this and this.
That’s it for now lovelies. Thank you, as ever, for being here. Spread the word and hit the heart if you liked this little long offering.
If you want mentorship, not guruship, this is the place. A safe harbour to share your hopes that are too big to say out loud.
They are vegan and gluten free too!
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Delighted to be in this series with all of the other fabulous parents you’ve interviewed. Thank you for having me 🥹💗🫶🏻
Thanks for sharing, excited to learn of Violet!