Poets & Writers

Why We Write

NANCY MÉNDEZ-BOOTH is a fiction writer. She teaches writing and Latina/o literature and culture at colleges and universities in New York and New Jersey. Her work has appeared in print and online, including in the Jet Fuel Review, KGB Bar Literary Magazine, Latina, OZY Media, Philadelphia Stories, and Salon. She is currently completing a second fiction manuscript and developing a one-woman show with support from the New Jersey Women Playwrights Program. She is looking for representation and a publisher for her work. She posts regularly at www.nancymendezbooth.com/blog.

BETWEEN February and May 2008 I wrote 230 thank-you notes. They acknowledged gifts and extraordinary kindnesses received, but not for a happy occasion. I wrote the notes after we lost our baby boy, a stillbirth at eight months of pregnancy, after five years of trying to conceive and as

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