I was able to chop the manuscript to 207 pages (and Jean then lopped off a bit more). The cutting was easier than I expected; Jean’s guidance directed me to locate a lot of fluff. It helped also that she was now finally promising a contract.

My son was born in ’93, two months after My Brother Has AIDS sold, and while he was little, my interests strayed from writing. I planted an orchard and grew lots of vegetables, and when my son was three I trained to be a doula—someone who offers emotional support and physical comfort measures to women during birth. Several of my clients were teenage mothers, and working with them opened my eyes to the discrimination and prejudices young moms face. I started compiling stories for You Look Too Young to be a Mom.

While I was convinced this was a much-needed book, I also secretly hoped that collecting others’ writing for a book would be easier than writing one myself. Wrong again! Mentoring and coaching others to write their own stories for publication drew on a set of skills no less challenging than the ones I used to write my own. By the time I finished You Look Too Young to be a Mom, I had developed deep respect for my editors, and I was ready to return to fiction.