Kate Baer: The Best-Selling Poet on Raising 4 Children, The Pressures of Success, Navigating Body Talk, and Growing Up As A Latchkey Kid in The 90s

The MOTHER Podcast with Katie Hintz-Zambrano

Today’s guest is Kate Baer, the beloved poet whose work explores motherhood, marriage, misogyny, the sacredness of female friendships—and so much more.

Kate’s very first book, What Kind of Woman, was released during the turbulence of 2020—mere days after the 2020 presidential election. It was the first time she was ever paid to write and it became a #1 New York Times best-seller.

A year later, she released another best-seller: I Hope This Finds You Well, a stunning collection of erasure poems in which she uses the often offensive commentary she’s received on social media to create her work. The latest book of the Pennysalvania-native is 2022’s And Yet, which continues her streak of crafting the most beautiful truth bombs.

In today’s conversation, we talk to Kate about raising 4 children, her next book, the pressure that comes with all those accolades, the glory of being an unsupervised latchkey kid in the 90s, and how the unplanned pregnancy of her 4th child changed the course of her life and career.

Follow Kate on social at @katejbaer

Today’s episode is brought to you by a couple mom-owned brands we love—Zenni & Ritual. See a list of their exclusive offerings for our listeners, below.

-Shop Zenni.com for sunglasses and prescription glasses for your entire family—at 1/10th of optician prices

-Visit Ritual.com/mothermag for 25% off your first month of Ritual.

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For more stories about motherhood and so much more, visit mothermag.com and follow @mothermag on Instagram.

For more on Kate’s inspiring career + life story, check out these great interviews:

MOTHER (website)
Darien Library (YouTube)
Everything Happens (podcast)
Under The Influencer (podcast)
Midtown Scholar Bookstore (YouTube)
New York Times (website)
Forever 35 (podcast)
The MOTHER Podcast is produced by Em Roberts and Ali Alquiza.