Writing the stories

Volume 1, page for Nevaeh Crain, who died of an untreated miscarriage in Texas

I enjoy the challenge of condensing what is typically a complex story--that I’ve often learned by reading multiple sources--into a single paragraph. It’s a matter of choosing the right details and putting them into precisely the order that will have the most impact. Sometimes the last sentence is the one with the detail that clarifies the meaning and, I hope, clinches the tone of the image. In the case of Texas D.A. Gocha Ramirez who charged Lizelle Gonzaléz with murder for her abortion, I ended the story with the detail that he paid for the abortion of his extramarital lover, then took her and her sister, also his lover, out to lunch at Red Lobster. There is something about that detail—the lunch at Red Lobster—that captured for me both his vile yet banal hypocrisy and the humiliation I hope he felt when this story emerged during the lawsuit now underway against him.  In other cases, the connection of the image to the story is obvious early on, but, I hope, gains resonance by the end, as in the page for Nevaeh Crain (above). I refer early in the story to the pink balloons at the baby shower where her miscarriage began. By the end, I hope the meaning of the number and sizes of the balloons becomes clear, as references to Nevaeh, her mother, and her miscarried daughter. Another dimension of writing these stories: when I began drafting them, I referred to the women using their last names, as is the academic convention. But that convention created a formality that didn’t capture the compassion, grief, and outrage I felt as I dwelt with the stories of how they died and suffered, and how their loved ones suffered. So I began using their first names. And now, when in conversation about this project, I find that is how I refer to them. Amber, Selena, Porsha, Candi, Nevaeh, Debra, Allie, Jaci, Amanda, Adriana . . . . They live in my heart as a litany of those killed, maimed, and traumatized by abortion bans. May you find peace. May my stories help us all remember you.