I love putting working moms in the spotlight. Not just because they deserve to tell their stories, air their opinions and voice their needs, but also because they get way too little public attention. Their powerful stories can change your life.

My favorite spotlight is on our Working Mothers of the Year awards. Moms are our heroes—or sheroes, as some like to say. If you’ve arrived at the Last Word without catching up with this year’s winners, go back to read about the moms who raised seven children to adulthood and then adopted four young siblings from Guatemala. This highly experienced working mom decided the house was too quiet, so she followed her heart and filled her home with a new generation of kids to raise.

Our moms-of-the-year stories are about career effort and achievement and family effort and achievement, stories million of us can embrace. Stories about meeting work deadlines while supporting your autistic child in his school, like Aggie Nolan from Hewitt Associates, shown above (left) accepting her award at our gala last October. Or about managing the giving of a large foundation and working a flex schedule to give yourself time wit your three kids, like Julia Gin (right) from Kraft. Or about overcoming health issues to be the best executive assistant you can be—and getting promoted for your efforts, like Blanca Figueroa (center) from New York Life.

It’s all about getting as much work done in a day as is humanly possible and then going home to the bruised knee, the great report card the stuffed bear in need of stitching or the teen who doesn’t want to talk (or does she?)

When our spotlight shines on this year’s 66 Working Mothers of the Year on October 20, their smiles will have about enough kilowatt power to light up the Empire State Building. You can shine a spotlight on your own bright story by posting a workmom blog at workingmother.com/blogs. Your story might change someone’s life.

From the November 2011 Issue of Working Mother