Reader, I had a baby. I’ll call him “V” around these parts. He is as magical and lovely and absolutely exhausting as I remembered a newborn being, and he is different, too, because he is himself. I am tired and am relieved; I am overwhelmed and overjoyed.

Reader, I’m about to release another book, my fourth. I’m happy to report that Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist and Library Journal have had nice things to say in starred reviews. We’re about two weeks out from pub day now. Everything everywhere all at once!

It’s a bit surreal to be releasing a book that is so much about the transformative powers of parenthood while a brand new human is simultaneously transforming my understanding of what parenthood means. Some folks like birthing metaphors for the book publication process, and while I can see why, it’s a comparison that never quite landed for me, and feels especially flimsy now, as a person for whom giving birth is still top of mind.

Don’t get me wrong: both processes are painful in their ways, and when they’re done you get a brand new person/book into which you’ve poured your whole self, and can’t wait to share.

But then there’s the next part: While I sit here before my laptop in the dead of night, looking slightly feral and with a three-week-old strapped to my chest, my book—even before its official release—is already out of my hands. My newborn needs me constantly, almost aggressively; the book’s future is, much to my chagrin, completely beyond my control.

I wish I could do more for the book. I wish I could hold its hand a little longer. It took so much time and energy to write the thing, it seems only reasonable to want to support it through this next stage of its life.

But there are only so many deranged follow-up emails one can hurl at the marketing and publicity machine, and even more alarming (exciting?), once I am lucky enough for the book to land with actual readers, all bets are off. I can convince neither publishers nor readers to invest in or interpret the book in the way I do. I can’t respond to bad reviews, or explain what I really meant to say when, inevitably, that meaning is gone the moment it collides with someone else’s experience or ideas. I can only let it go.

This is a long way of saying I think publishing a book is not much like giving birth at all, and probably a lot more like sending your kid off to college. You can inundate your child with love and attention and resources for years, control for as many variables as possible at home, and then still you have to load up the car with a shampoo caddy and extra long sheets and a case of Easy Mac and let them out on their own.

It’s scary to bring both a book and a baby into this terrible and awesome place; a world in which evil people shed blood in our name with our money, and one in which a woman orbits the moon. In which everything from attention spans and goodwill to food and natural resources feels so scarce, and one in which there is enough for everyone, if only we would share.

Random House added the word “activist” to my author bio for this book, but to be honest, it’s not something I would naturally claim. I don’t think of myself as doing anything particularly special—I act because what else is there to do?

I often say motherhood radicalized me (though many have cautioned it would make me more conservative lmao), and maybe in this way books and babies are similar after all—writing has long been how I process and come to understand things, and writing Mother Tongue taught me so much, both concretely about the history of deafness, religion and adoption, and about the selves I’ve long stashed away uninterrogated.

Caring for children does the same—each day I am required, and privileged, to see the world afresh through their eyes and learn something new. So far, having three kids is obviously harder than having two, but with V also comes more opportunities for curiosity and wonder, for seeing the world as it could be, gifts that make me not only a more empathetic writer, but a better human, too. I think (hope) that’s part of the joy of the reading experience of Mother Tongue. I’m excited to see what I’ll learn next.

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Book Biz

The time is nigh! Mother Tongue is out in the US on May 5th, and in the UK June 11th.

You can preorder it now wherever you like to get your books, AND, if you want a signed copy, you can preorder from A Novel Idea in Philly. They ship throughout the US!

Also, it’s almost party time:

Book launch celebrations in Philly (May 7) and Brooklyn (June 10) will kick off the Mother Tongue tour.
Stay tuned for additional event locations. To register for the Philly event, click here, or scan the QR code: