Hi Friends,
I’d not planned to write about the likely fall of Roe here. I spent a good hunk of my last few years writing a novel centered the obliteration of abortion access in America, and the fallout of rights that followed, the ways those decisions (featuring a big one by an imagined Supreme Court configuration) rippled through the lives of my characters for generations. The unresolvable trauma and the ways they showed up anyway to repair what America kept decimating. The world I built was imaginary, but not without a realistic anchor; it was meant to be nearly possible but not yet so. I don’t want to detail the things I invented for those pages that, in the years since completing that book, have become literal headlines. I never wanted to be prescient or prophetic on this subject.
I suspect if you’re reading this you’re likely someone who is awash in the rage and fear and helplessness many of us feel as the future of our country, the myth of it as a safe haven, as progressive continues to reveal itself for what it is: (insert your own string of curse words here). I’d like to talk about something else but much like all the stories I try not to tell on repeat, I cannot not talk about motherhood and choices this week. These are the waters I swim in.
If you’ve been a reader here for a while you know that the novel described above didn’t sell (if not, welcome, and here’s my essay on that topic). It didn’t sell for many reasons, many of them unknowable to me, many of them related to the book as a work of art, but also of course some of those reasons are that this topic of abortion access in America, of women’s healthcare in general, the ugly ways we do not care for one another in this country, how the weight of that lack of care falls on women of color, on non-gender conforming people, on healthcare providers whose work becomes hazardous when it is ordinary and necessary, who literally fear for their lives and livelihoods in doing it, is so uncomfortable. I was often uncomfortable when writing that novel, in knowing that the scope of it was beyond what I could imagine or capture, too complex to distill into 300 readable, marketable pages. But I tried, knowing it would be incomplete as big topics in fiction often are. What let me finish was the reminder that in the end, it was only imagined. Knowing that art is not a substitute for activism, for labor of those who are at the frontlines of reproductive justice work, that the best I could do was be a small part of a larger conversation, to encourage it. For so many reasons I wish that novel had sold, that it could be part of this conversation right now, but it’s also a conversation many of us don’t want to be having, that is painful to have1. What I want is self-ownership of the body I have: rights to make choices about it, to be trusted to understand the consequences of my choices, and I want that for everyone else around and after me. Full stop.
Too, this week, I have been thinking a lot about the idea of motherhood as a choice. This is also a huge part—maybe the largest part—of the unsold novel. What it means to choose motherhood, or not to, birthing, or not, caring for others, or not, and how that binary between choosing and not choosing is itself false. The question of motherhood for someone in a female body is inescapable, drowning in assumptions, judgements, toxic positivity, and ultimately reductive. I had multiple friends tell me that they were wished a happy mother’s day last week for simply existing in their bodies, solo, in public, by strangers. As if who we are, the sum of our lives and the choices we’ve made or not been given to make, is visible to strangers. As if it’s okay to remark upon the assumed choices and desires as if we don’t each have our own stories that are ours alone and that deserve to be lived, and that never require justification.
In pro-abortion activism, it’s often said as a reminder: someone you love has had an abortion. This is true, whether you are aware of that person or not. To that reminder I’ll add these, which I think about a lot and especially this week: Someone you love has had a child they did not plan to or want to have. Someone you love desperately wanted a child and did not have one. We can’t always chose if we parent or how we are parented or even how we oursleves parent. These might be uncomfortable thoughts, but they’re the true stories of the people around you, of people you love and of strangers, whether you see them or not. Every one of those people, those stories, visible or invisble to us, deserves love and care and autonomy.
There’s not a lot of lightness in this newsletter this month, and I won’t apologize for that. It’s a heavy time, an angry time, a painful time, unsolvable by art or donations or calling your representatives (though I hope you engage in all of the above; they all help!). But I will leave you with the regular teaching and writing updates below, and some Texas roadside flowers, which were lovely to see once I left the library at UT where I was doing top secret research for the new novel, wandering around in a haze of all the wonderful things lighting up my brain after being deep in the archives.
Where to Find Me
At my desk, sifting through what I found at UT, trying to tell a complex story about the lives of women. Also wondering why I didn’t become a librarian/archivist. Those people are awesome.
Teaching my process and practice class once again with Catapult, spread out over two weeknights in June. I keep refining it; I think it gets better every time.
I’m now taking clients for MFA application prep packages. More about those here. Every year I work with an underrepresented writer on theirs for free. Is that you? Someone you know? Please get in touch.
Talk Soon,
Danielle
And it should be said, it would feel weird to have this book out now, too, to be profiting from a nightmarish vision. Timely is often tragically so.