Sarah Menkedick is a journalist and the author of Homing Instincts: Early Motherhood on a Midwestern Farm and Ordinary Insanity: Fear and the Silent Crisis of Motherhood in America.

Her journalism and essays have been featured in Harper’s, the New York Times, the New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Time, Pacific Standard, the Guardian, Oxford American, Guernica, and elsewhere. She frequently writes about immigration, motherhood, and travel.

Sarah’s first book, Homing Instincts, was longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, and her essays have been nominated three times for The Best American Essays. Her cover story for Pacific Standard on second generation Mexican Americans was nominated for a New America Award. Her op-ed, “Why don’t people take writing about motherhood seriously? Because women do it,” for the Los Angeles Times, went viral and generated thousands of shares and comments.

Sarah was a Fulbright Fellow in Oaxaca, Mexico, reporting on return immigration. She has also received grants from the Dart Center, the Creative Nonfiction Foundation, and the Ohioana Foundation.

Her newsletter “Terms of endearment,” which features weekly essays about art, motherhood, travel, education, and meditation, is a Substack bestseller.

Sarah lived in Mexico for five years and has spent the past fifteen years traveling and working between Pittsburgh and Oaxaca, Mexico, with her Oaxacan husband and Oaxacan-American daughter. Her life between cultures and countries, and extensive experience abroad, give her a unique lens on American culture. She speaks fluent Spanish and French, and is working on her Portuguese.