Mother, Inc.
“In a world where we are technologically more connected—to history, to family, to friends all over the world—somehow, women in the early years of motherhood are feeling more isolated than ever.”
Mother, Inc. is a memoir on work, motherhood, and feminism.
It is a deeply felt exploration of what it’s like to raise babies in a tech-powered world, often in isolation, juggling the conflicting demands of corporate tech employment and roles assigned to women. Hannah questions how “having it all” has morphed into doing it all—and why trapping of anguish and guilt are stopping mothers from living free. The story tracks Hannah’s journey including redundancy, multiple miscarriages, giving birth during Covid, and post-natal anxiety disorder.
Through unravelling a tangle of events, Hannah seeks to pinpoint where today’s systems are failing mothers, and how imagining alternative futures—where work and motherhood coexist harmoniously and where technology heals instead of hinders—is a most radical feminist act.
Praise for Mother, Inc.:
Lucy Jones, author of Matrescence, said: “A gripping, essential intervention on the conflict between family and working life today. Puts paid to the Lean In myth and lays bare the discrimination faced by so many mothers in working, public life. Beautifully written, honest, moving and a relief to read. This is a book that will help us evolve.”
Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun and The Instant, said: “Hannah Ray’s account of giving birth in a pandemic then returning to work for tech firms is a very 2020s story of motherhood. Her honest individual writing about finding a way through will be helpful and galvanizing to readers. Women's testimonies of motherhood are our war stories and I want to hear them all.”
PUBLISHED APRIL 2026
BY THE POUND PROJECT
“Hannah Ray brilliantly depicts the slow-motion crash of working life meeting motherhood head on, while daring to dream that something better might emerge from the wreckage.”
—Becky Barnicoat, author of Cry When The Baby Cries
“Hannah Ray has had a glittering career in tech, with senior positions at companies such as Instagram and Substack. She has also experienced the profound shocks of early motherhood, and of trying to ‘have it all’ (which as she wryly notes is more like doing it all). In Mother, Inc., she lays out her journey–from ambitious teenager to high-flying tech employee, from a woman grieving two miscarriages to an overwhelmed new mum during a global pandemic, from a working parent in a corporate culture that pretends parents don’t exist to a revitalised human with new horizons. As a fellow mother and writer, I found Hannah’s story relatable and inspiring. It offers hope; it speaks to the moment.”
—Erica Hesketh, poet and author of In the Lily Room (Nine Arches Press).
Fiction
I have two unpublished novels, FAMILY & COMPANY and HARD RESET, which have won awards and residencies and I am working on my third novel for publication. I am agented by Jessica Killingley at the bks agency.
Since 2018, I have taken online courses in fiction writing with both Arvon and Curtis Brown Creative. In 2025, I joined courses with New Mums Writing Circle (Catrin Kemp).
My short story, BEING LAVENDER BLUE was one of ten prize winners for the Teens of Tomorrow young adult anthology from Odd Voice Out Press, published in 2021. I am working on my short story THE VILLAGE for publication.
Poetry & narrative prose
My poem Barnacles was published in mslexia’s Issue 107, September 2025.
My poem You were born in a pandemic was runner up for the Wild Words competition, May 2022.
My poem Bay 4 was published in the June 2022 Issue of Toasted Cheese.
My writings on remembering miscarriage and miscarriage and the workplace are published by the Miscarriage Association in October 2022, and October 2020.
In 2025 I joined the poetry pamphlet course with Broken Sleep Books. I have one unpublished poetry pamphlet, FOURTH, and I am working on my second BONE CIRCLE, for publication.
Non Fiction
I cowrote an ebook called Connected: The power of modern community with two other community experts in 2013. My newsletter will be serialising its follow up, called Tell Their Stories.
Some of my shortform journalistic pieces are documented here.
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