"Diagnosed with cancer at age twelve and perilously pregnant at eighteen, surviving surgeries and violent accidents: sometimes you can't believe Bee Lavender is still alive; sometimes you think nothing could kill her. Lessons in Taxidermy is Lavender's fierce and expressive search for truth and an elusive sense of safety. This true-life tale is stark and resolved, but strangely euphoric, tying together moments and memories into a frantic, delicate, and often transcendently funny account of anguish and confusion, pain and poverty, isolation and illusion. But Lavender never dwells on the particulars of her circumstances, choosing instead to frame her life in the context of history, traveling, landscape, and freakshow culture. Lessons in Taxidermy is apocryphal, troubling, cathartic, and important."

"This book starts with the premise that people require practical models. We acknowledge that women's work often happens outside of the accepted history. We refute the lie that having children kills creativity. In fact, we assert that people who are raising kids have to be more creative to find enough time to do their work, to figure out ways to integrate their children into their art, to strike that balance between the needs of their families and the requirements of their work.

Motherhood might slow down art. Children might interrupt those moments of concentration. But we flatly refuse to agree with the idea that becoming a mother is the end. Because it is not. It is the beginning."

"We don't accept that there is one perfect way to be a family. We know that families have a multitude of perspectives and values, and that people need fewer prescriptions and rules and more support. We were looking for the most honest and compelling voices to tell all kinds of stories, because the more truth is told, the more we are inclined to do the hard work of building community."

Bee Lavender's work has also appeared in numerous newspapers, magazines, anthologies, and radio programs in the United States and the United Kingdom. Click here to buy the books.