There are many reasons The Rooms Are Filled is dear to me. It was written at home in bits and pieces between breastfeedings, in a midnight daze on the notebook beside my bed, and on scraps of paper in the preschool pick-up line; then, later, during the precious hours the babysitter came.
It is dear to me because it is based on a true story my father told me many years ago--his story of growing up in rural Minnesota and then Franklin Park, Illinois, in the 1950s. He was teased and bullied, and his lovely teacher, a rumored lesbian, took him under her wing.
But it is also based in my own childhood near Chicago in the 1980s, on my love for that childhood of candy store trips and swimming pools. Of wandering.
It is dear to me because it is my first book, filled with things I love. I am happy to share it with you.