Vanessa McGrady's new book is Rock Needs River: A Memoir About a Very Open Adoption.From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: Why did you decide to write about your experience with an open adoption and at what point did you decide it would become a book?--Marshal Zeringue
A: Well, to begin with, personal essays are my favorite things to write, and when major stuff happens to me, I try to make sense of it through story.
I wrote about Bridgett and Bill, my daughter’s birth parents, living with us for The New York Times’ parenting blog as it was happening. And after that, it kept feeling like it was a bigger story, and I thought it would be maybe a short e-book, so I just kept writing.
I had so much help shaping it and forming it into a longer, book-length piece with the help of my agent, Cheryl Pientka. And there were times when I wondered if there was enough there for a full volume, but I guess that depends on where you stop and start the story.
My editor, Carmen Johnson, also helped on the other end of it all to bring it up to where it needed to be. One of my favorite parts of the book happened when Carmen asked me to write more about my own parents, and it felt very appropriate to do that on my 50th birthday. It’s in the beginning of...[read on]