Choice: True Stories of Birth, Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood, and Abortion

A moving collection of personal essays about the real, human experiences behind the highly politicized issue of reproductive choice.

At a time when a woman's most complex decisions have been reduced to political rhetoric and impersonal theory, and political debate has been hijacked by pundits and name-callers, Choice joins the discourse with an assortment of candid voices in an effort to humanize the debate about reproductive rights. In addressing a wide range of women's choices — from using birth control to taking the morning-after pill, from adopting a child to putting a child up for adoption, from having an abortion to bringing a pregnancy to full term — Choice explores the complexities inherent in every reproductive decision.

Including twenty-four honest, heartrending essays from established writers such as Francine Prose, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Pam Houston, Ann Hood, and Sarah Messer and emerging talents such as Kimi Faxon Hemingway, Stephanie Anderson, and Ashley Talley, Choice will allow you to truly understand the meaning of the word "choice" — regardless of what side of the debate you stand on.

"From adoption to abortion, birth to infertility, Karen E. Bender and Nina de Gramont's anthology of stunningly honest essays encompasses all the contradictions and complicated emotions surrounding Choice." Vanity Fair

"[A] superb anthology…Many are harrowing to read....Even the most wrenching, however, are leavened by the hope that the ability to choose allows their authors." Brain, Child Magazine

"The essays explore the complexities behind decisions women make about their reproductive lives....This collection offers exquisitely individual and candid looks at the meaning of choice." Booklist

"This anthology's content is aptly described by its title, and the quality of its prose is what makes it distinctive...Bender and de Gramont's attention to the full range of women's reproductive choices should be welcomed in most libraries." Library Journal

Contributors:

Stephanie Andersen
Karen E. Bender
Janet Ellerby
Carolyn Ferrell
Denise Gess
Nina de Gramont
Katie Allison Granju
Kimi Faxon Hemmingway
Sandy Hingston
Ann Hood
Pam Houston
Valina Hasu Houston
Kate Maloy
Deborah E. McDowell
Sarah Messer
Jacquelyn Mitchard
K.A.C.
Catherine Newman
Francine Prose
Ashley Talley
Katherine Towler
Harriette E. Wimm
Susan Ito
Elizabeth Larsen

Karen E. Bender is the author of the novel Like Normal People. Her fiction has appeared in magazines including the New Yorker, Granta, Zoetrope, Ploughshares, Story, and the Harvard Review, and has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories and Best American Mystery Stories. She lives in North Carolina with her family and is currently working on a novel and collection of stories.

Nina de Gramont is the author of Of Cats and Men, a collection of short stories. Her work has appeared in a variety of magazines including Isotope, Nerve, Exquisite Corpse, Post Road, and Seventeen, and her first novel, Gossip of the Starlings, is forthcoming in 2008.