We all make mistakes, and we all need second chances. For youth in foster care, these mistakes are often purposeful - if not consciously so; a way to test the strength of a bond and establish trust in a new parent.
I traveled a full two years with 'Language of Flowers.'
There's a certain freedom in writing when you don't know if you'll ever have an audience.
My husband was working as principal of an urban transformation high school - the kind of public charter school determined to do whatever it takes to give its mostly minority, low-income student body the education they need and deserve to be successful in life.
The most violent and troubling stories become part of our national consciousness about foster care.
We were pressured to accept kids we were not qualified to handle. And we do that to people all the time, which is why we don't have enough foster parents.
I'm missing work. We didn't have enough money for preschool. I had a panic attack. I couldn't do it. I became one of those horrible foster parents who give the kids back.
Writing has always been an interest of mine, and 'The Language of Flowers' combined my experience with foster care with something I've always wanted to do.
As a college student, I worked as a mentor, and that got me involved in working with young people long before I became a foster parent.
I never really considered writing something that was nonfiction.
My husband and I have been involved with foster youth since our early 20s. Right out of college and not yet married, we spent weekends mentoring a family of young girls.
My husband and I vowed that after we married and settled down, we would become foster parents - a vow we kept and one that has enriched our lives greatly.
We have been trained to broadcast our successes and hide our failures. But the truth is this: our failures humanise us, and they connect us to one another.
It is stories - both real and fictional - that can captivate hearts, change minds and, in the most powerful examples, spur action.
We can become anyone we want to become. It takes focusing on the aspect of ourselves we want to change and reflecting on the beliefs that cause us to act in ways that are counter to the change we seek.
I am not only the person who wrote and sold a novel while raising a houseful of biological and foster children; I am also the person who wrote a horrific young adult novel that never sold and gave up on a foster child I couldn't handle - an experience that still haunts me.
I love Toni Morrison and Jeanette Winterson. 'The Passion' is my favourite book.
The names of common flowers change from decade to decade, so I spent a lot of time with old outdated dictionaries, with awful flower names like 'mouse-eared chickweed.'
There aren't always, especially in low-income communities, the arts and the dance and the drama and the things that can really show a kid, 'Look, even if I'm three years behind in math, there's something I'm good at that can help me be successful in life.'
Everyone needs something they're good at. You want your kids to be passionate and figure out something they're good at.
