"MOTHERDEVIL is an initiation ritual for birthing monsters. Readers will be possessed, obsessed, and screaming by the end." — Stephanie M. Wytovich, author of On the Subject of Blackberries On a darkmoon night, deep in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey a woman screams out piercing the eerie silence, “let this one be a devil!” Enter, MOTHERDEVIL by Kailey Tedesco, a spellbinding collection of poetry that reimagines the legend of the New Jersey Devil through the eyes of Mother Leeds. In these hauntingly visceral poems, Tedesco draws out the spirit of Mother Leeds & intimately infuses it with her own truths & experiences with mental health, post-partum depression, & the often-overlooked struggles of motherhood, making this an enduring collection of myth, magic, & powerful storytelling. Kailey Tedesco is a mother, caul bearer, writer, & teacher who currently resides in Allentown, Pennsylvania with her husband, Joey, and their beautiful son Sebastian and their cats, Coraline & Marzipan. She teaches courses related to writing and Gothic literature at Moravian University & Northampton Community College. In her free time she enjoys sewing Victorian lampshades, watching horror movies, practicing automatic writing, and traveling to hotels with pink carpet and heart tubs. She is a current member of the Horror Writers Association and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. In 2016, she received her MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Arcadia University. She is the author of four full-length books of poetry: She Used to be on a Milk Carton, Lizzie, Speak, FOREVERHAUS, and most recently, MOTHERDEVIL.
