Cold Coffee with Zoe Pickburn

Writing and conversation about the joy and the juggle of creative motherhood.

Hello! Come in, sip your coffee (before it gets cold) and sink yourself into my squishy, felt-tip-stained sofa. Do you want a blanket? I’ll put out some snacks for the kids.

This is a publication about the joy and the juggle, the push and the pull, the love and fear and wonder and rage and the never-ending overwhelm of creative motherhood.

Whether your baby is six days, six years, or sixty years old.

Whether your creative practice is a secret hobby, a side hustle or a career.

Whether your creativity is integral to your personhood or a fleeting distraction.

This publication is for you.

In Cold Coffee, you’ll find original writing, including reported stories, personal essays and poetry. I aim to share free pieces twice a month, year-round.

You’ll also find Mother, Creator, where I share audio conversations with other creative mothers about the mess, joy and complexity of creativity in motherhood. The podcast runs in seasons, with season one episodes released every Thursday through Autumn 2024.

This Substack is some of my favourite work to do, but as a self-employed mother of a chronically ill toddler with limited access to childcare, I have to prioritise paid work.

If you enjoy my writing and audio and would like to see them more frequently (and you can afford it) please do consider buying me a coffee, becoming a paid subscriber, or sharing the publication with someone else who would enjoy it.

I’m Zoe and I’m a writer and a mother. I live in West Yorkshire, in a little house stuffed full with books, and toys, and good things to eat. My husband is a restaurateur and I write for a living alongside parenting our toddler.

This publication used to be called I am still myself/I am not myself because I am still the same person I was before I had my daughter: I still love to read and write, I still love to drink coffee and swim in the sea, I still care deeply and passionately about social justice and equality. 

And at the same time, motherhood has cracked me open, spilt me out and then remade me whole as a new version of myself. My life, my body, and my brain will never be the same again. My priorities and preferences have shifted. 

The need to love and care for my daughter has been sewn deep into my bones, and the need to write, and create, and exist also feels more urgent and essential than ever.

Here on Substack, I write about the contradictions of motherhood, creativity, and self-employment, and the way those topics intersect with gender equity.

I changed to Cold Coffee because it embodies the fleetingness of early motherhood, the lingering feeling of always being a little bit behind schedule and the necessity of imperfection as we do the work of mothering alongside the work of creating. A reader said it's: "full of depth for those who know," and that's how I want my readers to feel.

If you’ve navigated those contradictions — or you’re right here in the trenches of early motherhood beside me — you’re always welcome here.