What inspired you to tell this story? There is a long story and short version answer. In short, coming up in the Bronx I was taught to feel a lot of ways about myself, my mother and women who did not perform motherhood, female sexuality, and Latina identity in very specific ways deemed respectable. I felt compelled to tell the story of mothers and daughters who appear to fail to be good and right, but who love, protect and fight for each other in every way imaginable. What if we found a Holy Mother like that? A divine image of ourselves as right just how we are. The long version is about a whole vision I had walking down the Grand Concourse when I was 23 years old and had my first son in a baby carrier on my chest. It came after seeing a group of girls who looked to be getting into a fight with a young man. What did you edit out of this book? Dreams and scenes of chaos. The dreams …

RAISING MOTHERS:     What inspired you to tell this story?  MALAKA GHARIB:     I wanted to know: how did spending my childhood summers with my dad’s family in Egypt shape my worldview and personality? I grew up going to Cairo every year from my home in Los Angeles from the age of 9 to 23. I spent a couple of years exploring that question and I came away with new understandings that surprised me. I learned that my father did the best he could to include me in his new chapter of life in another country. And that I learned a lot about relationships – that it takes love but also effort. Writing a book is like free therapy. RAISING MOTHERS:     What did you edit out of this book? MALAKA GHARIB:     You can’t include every detail of your life in a book, otherwise that wouldn’t be a story – it would just be a diary! The specific anecdotes I chose to tell, for example, the first time I smoked …

RAISING MOTHERS:     What inspired you to tell this story? LATOYA JORDAN:    The idea began formulating in my head in 2016, after I read a news article about the first uterine transplant being performed in the US. Because my mind always goes to the worst-case scenario, I thought about the urban myth surrounding black market organs and waking up in a hotel bathtub filled with ice and a kidney missing. I thought about the lengths some people will go to to have biological children and wondered about what a future black market for uteruses might look like. Later that year, I had uterine surgery to remove a fibroid. I’d had many talks with my doctors about my uterus, surgery, and preserving my fertility. Then, the first Woman’s March happened in January 2017. What began as a kernel of an idea morphed based on what was happening in my life and what was happening in the country around medical advances, reproductive rights, and racial justice. RAISING MOTHERS:     What did you edit out …

RAISING MOTHERS:     What inspired you to tell this story? GRACE TALUSAN:     I wrote this book out of an urgent desire to not be alone with my story. Over many years, I wrote short essays and pieces that eventually became my first book, THE BODY PAPERS, and it has been wonderful to connect with readers of my writing, but even before I had readers, I felt less alone from the act of writing itself. I also felt an ethical responsibility to tell the truth.  RAISING MOTHERS:     What did you edit out of this book? GRACE TALUSAN:     Because I was writing memoir, I wanted to be careful when I was writing about other people, especially the children in my life. I would ask myself what was really necessary in order to tell my story. If I was going to reveal a detail about someone else, how did that work in service to the story I was telling? I also asked myself why I was telling a certain story. There …