Finishing Covered in Snow felt like the first time I truly let the wounds from the miscarriage breathe, exist freely. My school, my new friends, the love I encountered along the way, softened me. I even found a patch of woods in Massachusetts that somehow felt exactly like the terrain of Ohio and snuck a few into the book.

In terms of the letting go part, this is often said to women so their story doesn't become their own. It becomes a way to allow others to tell it for you or to bake you into their own subplots, to coopt it and contrast it into something that no longer belongs to you.

I handle fear by feeding it. dressing it up, giving it a stage, no matter how uncomfortable it is.