People often ask me where the story comes from:

When I got pregnant with my first child, I was terrified at the possibility of dying before she got to know me, so I started writing a journal for her–as with Dear Gabriella–where I recounted what we did together. My fear was compounded by the fact that my mother lost her mother when she was only two years old…this in turn led to the question: What if..everything you knew aobut your mother was a lie?