Artist parents
On parenting in a house with two professional creatives
Greetings again and welcome back to Creative Parenting Club. Whether you’re new to CPC or you already open these newsletters every week, we’re happy you’re here!
Today we have another two-parent edition of CPC, featuring LA-based creative parents Andrew Mueth and Jacquelyn Stolos, who are the parents of two writing careers as well as a 2 1/2 year-old daughter.
Jacquelyn is the author of Edendale, a 2020 novel set in LA, as well as a new book called Asterwood coming out later this year.
Andrew is a grant and TV writer best known for his contributions to Central Park, Star Trek: Lower Decks and Difficult People, among many others.
We’re super excited to revisit the below conversation, which originally took place in December 2023. Earlier that year we’d had a wide-ranging double interview with a Berlin-based artist couple about how they juggle work, family and the creative process, and we were eager to explore this topic further.
In our discussion with Andrew and Jacque, we touched on many of the same themes, exploring how parenthood has made them think differently about time, money, and inspiration — as well as the practical implications of sharing childcare responsibilities while giving each other the creative time and space they both need.
We’ll let the interview speak for itself, in addition to this update from Andrew on their family life since our conversation:
Since we spoke, Willa got a kitten, Andrew has become obsessed with puppetry, and Jacque's second novel (and first novel for kids!), titled Asterwood, is forthcoming from Delacorte Press later this year.
Let’s turn it over to Andrew and Jacque.
Creative Parenting Club: First things first — who’s watching your kid while we talk?
Jacque: Miss Rachel. She’s cool, she’s on YouTube.
CPC: Sounds practical. So tell us a bit more about yourselves. Who are you, and what kind of work do you do?
Andrew: I’m a comedy writer. I’ve worked on a bunch of shows — most recently in animation. I’ve written for Star Trek: Lower Decks on Paramount Plus and Central Park for Apple TV. I've been doing comedy since college, and I’m going to be working on a new Netflix show coming up next.
Jacque: And I’m a novelist. My first book, Edendale, came out in 2020, and I’ve got another one coming out with Delacorte Press in 2025. I run a reading series and teach creative writing, too.
Andrew: Yeah, between the two of us, we basically have no other skills. Which is fine… until you throw a kid into a household with two artists. A lot of our friends have that setup where one parent is the artist and the other has the steady paycheck and the health insurance. But we were scrappy pre-parenthood and we’re still figuring it out with all the added layers of parenting.
Jacque: I’d say TV writing is the more reliable gig between us, and that's why I have the teaching mixed in. But through Andrew, there's various guilds that we have gotten insurance through. We're on Animation Guild Insurance right now.
Andrew: Yeah, I don’t know if creative careers ever feel totally stable. You get more successful, but the pressure builds, too. Especially now — it all feels kind of precarious, like it could disappear in a second. But having a kid definitely adds urgency.
CPC: Has parenting changed the way you think about work as a creative person?
Jacque: Totally. In our 20s, it was fine to just be dirtbags… doing odd gigs, scraping by. Now, we’re asking bigger questions like: What does our future look like? It’s more pressure, but it also lights a fire.
Andrew: Yeah, there’s no more “fooling around.” We went from 30 mph to 100 overnight.
Jacque: It’s not as romantic. I used to think of writing as this magical, dreamy thing. Now it feels like a job. I'm constantly thinking, “What can I write that will sell?”
Andrew: And I find myself thinking about writing all the time. I don’t have those long, uninterrupted hours anymore, so I’m jotting things down in my Notes app, grabbing ideas from snippets on the radio. Basically trying to squeeze creative juice out of every little thing. I used to have to “warm up” with journaling or a slow morning routine. I don’t really have that luxury anymore. But honestly, it was probably also a bit of a crutch sometimes. So I feel like I’ve been a bit less precious, but also in a good way.
Jacque: And we know this is a season. Our kid’s still little. It’s intense now, but we’ll get back to afternoons at the movies, gallery visits, bookstore wandering. Eventually.
Andrew: Sixteen-and-a-half years to go! But we’re already seeing glimmers. Like, I remember visiting friends when Willa was three months old. Their kid was older, and I watched our friend Kevin send an email while his kids were playing and my mind was kind of blown! But we’re getting there. Even just a few months after that visit, we could feel the shift.
Jacque: And now she’s starting nursery school next year, so we’ll get more time back. We don't have any childcare right now. So we're just kind of passing her off to each other like a baton.
CPC: That was going to be our next question. What’s your childcare arrangement like in a household with two professional creatives?
Andrew: I think it probably took like the whole first year for us to really acclimate to the new reality. We’ve realized we’d never actually been in competition for writing time before. It used to be that day jobs were the obstacle. Now it’s: only one of us can work while the other is with the kid.
Jacque: The shared calendar was a revelation. So much of everything in relationships comes down to communication — that’s only more so when you have kids. And having it on Google Calendar made it so that there was less of the “I forgot to tell you” or I forgot that you told me or whatever.
Andrew: And while two-artist households can be tough financially, we do get to trade off. When I’m not working on a show, I take over more childcare.
Jacque: My teaching is steady and remote, and I do a lot of work during nap time or on weekends. But then when Andrew is not on a show, you know, he's able to watch Willa for, you know, weeks at a time. And they're kind of like my little writing retreats.
Andrew: We also naturally work at different times. I’m a morning person, Jacque’s more of a night owl. So that helps us alternate, too.
Jacque: The whole thing is just a never-ending puzzle. But we’re organized, and honestly, we kind of thrive on having that structure.
Andrew: That said, we’re about to hit a pinch point: I’m on a show till February, and Jacque has edits coming back from her publisher soon. We’re looking into solutions now, because we’ll both be swamped.
Jacque: Right now I write during Willa’s naps, which are like these glorious 3–4 hour stretches. She’s not sleeping well at night, and technically we could work on that... but I’m clinging to the naps for dear life.
Andrew: And Willa’s starting to influence the whole rhythm. Her development, her sleep — it all becomes part of the scheduling puzzle.
Jacque: But we’re used to things shifting every few months. Our creative work has always been like that. It’s not easy, but it’s familiar.
CPC: Jacque, you published a novel in 2020 (congrats!). Now you’re getting ready to publish a second book, this time for more of a pre-teen audience. How has being a parent changed your creative interests?
Jacque: I’ve actually been thinking a lot about that. I used to write fiction for adults. But in the past couple of years, I’ve pivoted to middle grade and picture books. I think spending so much time with a young kid, and thinking deeply about the emotional world of children, has really shifted where my creative energy wants to go.
I used to spend my time thinking about adult life, and now I’m thinking about what kids are thinking about. In a way, I’ve kind of disappeared as an adult.
Sometimes I think, if I were my own friend, I’d ask myself: Have you lost yourself, or found a different version of yourself? It’s obnoxious in a way like, “Oh, she had a baby and now all she cares about is child development”. But that’s honestly where my brain went. I’m deeply interested in what’s going on in Willa’s mind.
When I pick up adult books at the moment, I don’t connect with them the same way. I don’t care about dinner party scenes. My interests have shifted, and I think that’s okay. People change. It almost feels like an ego death — but not necessarily in a bad way. Disappearing for a while can be good.
Andrew: I think that shift is part of personal development, not just artistic development. Having a kid is a new life experience, like moving to a new city or starting a new job. It changes your day-to-day. Playing with a kid can make you feel younger—but also older.
Jacque: And Andrew, you’ve made some pivots, too.
Andrew: Yeah, I’ve been writing new pilots, and one of them is more of a family sitcom — something I’d never done before. I found myself drawn to exploring the father-daughter dynamic. I think whatever you’re creating, it ends up being personal. Where you are in life affects what you're interested in and what you want to write about.
CPC: What are your key sources of inspiration at this particular moment in life?
Andrew: Being a parent has made me more interested in writing about parents. I could’ve written it before, but now I want to — and I have more specific things to say.
Jacque: I definitely couldn’t have done it before. I’ve looked back at old work where characters were parents, and it just rings false. Now I’m self-conscious writing anything I haven’t lived.
Andrew: Same. I’d be scared to write about someone in their early 20s now. I’d sound like a dad pretending to be cool: “Hello, we are out here at the nightclub.”
Jacque: Oh my God, yes. And now I’m like this open wound when it comes to anything about motherhood or kids in danger. I can’t watch or read anything like that.
I also used to love fiction that zeroed in on small, intense adult emotions, and now I just find it boring.
Andrew: But you say that... and you're reading My Struggle by Knausgård.
Jacque: Okay, true. It’s not that I’ve written off adult fiction completely. But I still have found myself drawn away from literary fiction and more toward middle grade, picture books, and genre fiction — historical novels and mysteries. Which is a big shift. I used to be a total snob about that stuff.
CPC: Do you find yourself looking at previous inspiration differently now that you’re living these new experiences?
Andrew: This is a pendulum swing. It’s not forever. I think it’s like anything — you revisit something later and see it differently. Like I’ve been rewatching The Simpsons, the early seasons, and suddenly I see it as a family show. Same with The Sopranos. I never thought of it that way before, but now I’m like, “Wow, this is a great show about parenting.”
Jacque: The Simpsons episode with Bart and Lisa on rival hockey teams? That one made him tear up.
Andrew: It’s true. They remember doing nice things for each other and hug at the end of the game. It got me.
Jacque: A lot of the book I’ve been working on was written while nursing Willa or in the middle of the night after I couldn’t fall back asleep. But there’s also this added pressure now — my work isn’t only about creative expression anymore. It’s about creating income for our daughter’s future. And I think about how she’ll feel if she ever encounters it. Like, will she be embarrassed?
Andrew: Like in Gone Girl. I think the character’s parents wrote kids' books about her and she hated it.
Jacque: Right! I barely remember the movie, but that stuck with me. I think about it a lot as I include Willa — or our nieces and nephews — in my work. It’s fun now, but will it haunt them later?
Andrew: We might be the first people trying to ban our own books. Not because of the content, but because our daughter hates them.
CPC: Any final thoughts or advice you’d want to share with other new parents?
Andrew: Be patient. It really does get easier. But also be intentional about giving each other time. You’ve been great about that — letting me go out and do something creative, or taking a night for myself.
Jacque: I took a pottery class!
Andrew: Right, or going to a movie alone. We both do that. And it helps. Being aware of each other’s needs, expressing them, carving out creative space — it makes you a better parent, partner, and person.
Jacque: I don’t know if I’d say I’m creatively fulfilled right now. I’m doing creative work, but I’m always craving more. I feel most fulfilled when I’m in a creative community.
Andrew: Your reading series.
Jacque: Yes! It’s called Something Something Reading Series. I co-host it with Annabelle Graham. We do it seasonally at a great little bar in LA. Writers come and read from their work, and it’s amazing. That’s when I feel like it’s all clicking. When I’m out there, among other writers.
Andrew: It can be hard to find community when you’re adjusting to becoming a parent. But those little moments matter.
Jacque: Once a season. But it counts.
Thanks for reading. In case you’re looking for more creative parenting inspiration and didn’t get a chance to read last week’s guest post by
: it’s a fascinating deep dive into how one of modern music’s OGs integrated his kids into the creative process around his work… 250 years before it was cool.
And in case you’re interested in exploring the creative parenting lives of other historical figures, Alexander has also designed a cool exercise in the Creative Parenting Chat to prompt you on your own discovery.
It’s so great to see this mighty community of creative parents continuing to evolve and inspire each other.
If you’d like to support Andrew and Jacque’s work, you can pre-order Jacque’s new novel from wherever you get your books.
We wish you a great weekend, and we’ll see you back here again next week.
Thank you Andrew and Jacque for a great interview :-)
This was delightful and inspiring. I love how these two are looking out for each other as they navigate the changes in each season as parents. Great interview!