Why I “Write” Anthologies

Hard work never scared me before — it was a small price to pay for a fabulous result

“What even is an anthology?” my six-year-old son asked at the dinner table as I talked about Moms Don’t Have Time to Have Kids.

“It’s a collection of essays written by lots of different people,” I said.

He looked pensive.

“So then why do you say you wrote it?”

He had a point there.

Before I produced my first anthology, Moms Don’t Have Time To: A Quarantine Anthology, I’d gotten consistent advice from people I knew in the literary world: steer clear of anthologies. Why? Apparently, they were too much work. Too hard. Too many contracts. Too many people to deal with.

I remember thinking that hard work never scared me before and that a few contracts seemed like a small price to pay for a fabulous anthology. I’d loved reading many anthologies over the years like The Bitch in the House, edited by Cathi Hanauer, Modern Love, edited by Daniel Jones, Well-Read Black Girl, edited by Glory Edim, and, more recently, On Being 40(ish), edited by Lindsey Mead. Why not try?