(Non-)Motherhood in Fiction: Fledging & The Mother Act
(Non-)Motherhood in Fiction: Fledging & The Mother Act
📅 October 14, 2025
🕗 8 PM EST
💻 Interactive Virtual Event
About The Event
Idyll Books is pleased to host an online event celebrating the Canadian release of Rose Diell’s Fledging alongside Heidi Reimer’s The Mother Act, in conversation with filmmaker Therese Shechter.
Both novels examine the question of whether or not to become a parent, and the experience of being one, through the guise of a thought experiment: in Fledging, a woman so overcome with indecision that she lays an egg; and in The Mother Act, a woman so overwhelmed with motherhood that she abandons her child.
Featured Guests
Therese Shechter will draw on her long experience investigating thorny questions around women’s roles and identities to explore what motivated Diell and Reimer to write their novels, and what they say about motherhood and womanhood.
Join us for an evening of conversation and connection, and be part of a timely exploration of creativity, choice, and the stories women tell about their lives.
ROSE DIELL
Author of Fledging, a striking new novel now available in Canada.
Rose Diell is the author of Fledging, a novel about a woman so overcome by the baby decision that she lays an egg. Fledging asks what it is to lead a meaningful life, and sounds a resounding call for women to make their own choices, whether that means embracing motherhood or living child-free. Fledging was released in the UK, ROI & Commonwealth in 2024 (Renard Press) and is due for release in US & Canada October 6 2025. Rose has appeared on numerous podcasts, including ‘Kids or Childfree,’ and ‘Other Than Motherhood.’ She lives in London with her civil partner and Tolstoy, a very fluffy ginger tabby. Find her on instagram at @rosediellauthor or her website rosediell.com
HEIDI REIMER
Author of The Mother Act, a powerful story about art, family, and identity.
Heidi Reimer is a novelist, a writing coach with Sarah Selecky Writing School, and the author of The Mother Act (Penguin Random House 2024). The novel follows the complicated relationship between an actress who refuses to abandon her career and the daughter she chooses to abandon instead. Heidi’s front row seat to this theatrical world began two decades ago when she met and married an actor, and her immersion in motherhood began when she adopted a toddler and discovered she was pregnant on the same day. Heidi has published in The New Quarterly, LitHub, Literary Mama, and the anthologies The M Word: Conversations About Motherhood and Body & Soul: Stories for Skeptics and Seekers. She lives on the St. Lawrence River in Eastern Ontario. More at heidireimer.com and in her biweekly Substack, The Visibility Letters.
THERESE SHECHTER
Director of My So-Called Selfish Life, a groundbreaking documentary about women who choose not to have children.
Therese Shechter is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose most recent film is My So-Called Selfish Life. Using humor as a sharp political tool, the film tackles the surprisingly-charged question of whether or not to have children. Over the past 20 years, Therese has created a body of work that fuses humour, activism, and personal storytelling to explore a host of thorny questions around women’s roles and identities. Her films have screened worldwide and have been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Elle, The Globe and Mail, Q, and Dua Lipa’s Service 95, among others. Find her on Instagram at @trixiefilms or at her website.
Reserve your spot today
Join the conversation on October 14th, 2025
Idyll Books
Address - Cottage Bookshop
1932 County Road 13, Milford
Prince Edward County, Ontario K0K2P0 Canada