Panic & Joy

Emma Brockes is thirty-seven, lives alone, and wants children. She is in a relationship (good!) but they aren't doing the parenting together (weird!). Emma needs sperm, a doctor, and not to bankrupt herself. And that's just the beginning - there are a million choices to make when taking the untraditional route to motherhood. Then there's the uninvited opinions, scolding and general hysteria that always accompanies a woman's decision to have (or not to have) children. With generous heart and humour, Panic & Joy examines essential questions about motherhood and the modern family.

Emma Brockes writes for the Guardian and contributes to The New York Times and The New Yorker. She is the winner of two British Press Awards (Young Journalist of the Year and Feature Writer Of the Year) and while at Oxford she won the Philip Geddes Memorial Prize for Journalism. Her last book, She Left Me The Gun, was the story of her mother's life. She lives in New York.