One Day on the Gold Line: A Memoir in Essays

"Writing against fantasies of ideal motherhood, Sameth's book presents a brutally honest and much-needed account of family-building and parenting in the twenty-first century."
— New Pages, 
 
Through meditations on race, culture, and family, One Day on the Gold Line tells the story of a queer Jewish single mother raising a Black son in Los Angeles. A memoir-in-essays, it examines life's surprising changes that come through choice or circumstance, often seemingly out of nowhere, and sometimes darkly humorous—even as the situations are dire.
 
While escaping from a burning boat, Carla realizes that if she died, her one regret would be not having children. She overcomes miscarriages to finally give birth to a son. Motherhood's usual struggles are then complicated by identity, community, and the challenges of creating a blended family. The overarching theme of these loosely woven reflective tales is the storyteller's dream of the "perfect" family, the pursuit of which hurls her from one crisis to the next, ultimately meeting its greatest challenge in the form of her teenage son's struggle with drug addiction. 
 
One Day on the Gold Line: A Memoir in Essays by Carla Rachel Sameth is a 2021 Independent Press Award Distinguished Favorite in the category of Memoir.

Writer. Teacher. Mother. As a writer, Carla hopes to help readers feel less alone and more resilient. As a teacher, she strives to help others tell their stories and hone their craft while experimenting with new forms. The journey of motherhood informs much of her writing. Her chapbook What Is Left was published in 2021 by dancing girl press.Carla's work on blended/unblended, queer, biracial, and single parent families has appeared in a variety of literary journals and anthologies, including Narratively, Longreads, Brevity Blog, Mutha Magazine, Brain/Child, Entropy, The Rumpus, and The Nervous Breakdown. Carla's essay "If This Is So, Why Am I?" was selected as a Notable for The Best American Essays 2019 (This essay is included in the book.) Also, "Mother's Day Triptych" and "This Is What I Want You to Know" were selected as Notable Essays in 2020 and 2021 respectively. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her story, "Graduation Day at Addiction High," which originally appeared in Narratively, was also chosen for Longreads, "Five Stories on Addiction."  A Pasadena Rose Poet, a Pride Poet with West Hollywood, and a former PEN in the Community Teaching Artist, Carla teaches creative writing to high school and university students and has taught incarcerated youth. She lives in Pasadena with her beloved partner, Milo. To learn more, see carlasameth.com.