Here's a silly piece I wrote for Mom.mewhere I provide tips on moving while being pregnant and having a toddler.

When I was stuck in my genetic testing limbo a few weeks ago, one thing I was grateful for was that I live in a state where all my options were laid out to me, presented as being available, without judgment. This is not the case for a lot of women in this country. That's why today's interviewee's new book, Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights, wherein she defends a woman's right to choose as a social good, has come along at an especially important time. In addition to being the author of Pro, Katha Politt is a poet, essayist, and columnist for The Nation. She has won many prizes and awards for her work, including the National Book Critics Award for her first collection of poems, Antarctic Traveler, and two National Magazine Awards for Essays and Criticism.

I am a feminist but I have had no formal education in feminism. Should I study up (and if so, where do I start), or is living it enough?
If you needed a formal education in feminist theory to be a feminist, our movement would be small indeed.  But you can save yourself some trouble if you don't have to reinvent the wheel. So try some Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex is the foundational text of modern feminism.  Read some women's history: Linda Gordon's the Moral Property of Women: A History of Birth control Politics in America, Leslie Reagan's  When Abortion was a Crime, Christine Stansell's brilliant The Feminist Promise, Paula Giddings' When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America. You'll see the same fault lines keep coming up:  protection versus equality, issues of race and class and sexuality.

I was really piqued by your book's argument that pro-choice people should drop the "rare" part of "safe, legal and rare" and agree that abortion is necessary, and not a necessary evil. How did that message become a part of the mainstream, or middle-of-the-road, pro-choicer?
As the anti-abortion movement gained in political strength, "safe legal and rare" became a way to acknowledge the qualms many people have about abortion without saying it should be banned. The problem with it is that "rare" can mean realistic sex ed and easy access to birth control, which the pro-life movement opposes, or it can mean, Let's make abortion hard to get and stigmatize women who end their pregnancies, because abortion is a really bad thing.  A much better slogan would be safe, legal and available. Sadly, we're moving farther and farther away from that. My book is an attempt to put the focus back on women: why do women need abortion? What does it mean to force women to have kids when they're not able to raise them well? To me, the anti-abortion movement sees motherhood as the default position for women, something they should always be ready to take on.  What about their education, their work, their relationships, their dreams and hopes and ambitions? "Rare" says those are not so important.

What's one issue you think feminists should care about that they typically don't think has anything to do with them?
I doubt there is an issue in the world some feminists haven't cast as feminist, from vegetarianism to global warming. We could definitely pay more attention to economic inequality, not just women economically disadvantaged relative to men, but overall inequality, which has increased so dramatically in recent decades.  

What was the last big thing that made you angry?
Just today: A grand jury declined to indict the police officer who killed Eric Garner, an unarmed black man; Rolling Stone's piece about rape at U of Virginia fraternities provoked a huge backlash (women just as likely to rape men, women lie about rape, the victim in the Rolling Stone story lied about rape); and the Supreme Court actually heard a case about whether employers have to make modest accommodations for pregnant workers (like, for example, letting them sit down or carry a water bottle). Every day is pretty much like this!

Last little thing?
My laptop has just started freezing and getting that rainbow beachball thingy. Really annoying.

What was the last poem you wrote about? 
It was about my love of opera. It was called "Opera."

How does it feel to be the 400th person interviewed for Zulkey.com?
I should be toasting you and my 399 predecessors with a glass of champagne.