This book was a joy to write and I owe that in part to the incredible people who talked to me about it, about their own lives, about Florida, and dared to shift the way we think and speak about young motherhood, girlhood, and, ultimately, the task of living a liberated life in a world that seeks to confine us.
First of all, thank you to my brilliant editor, Diana Miller, who approaches every draft with thought, warmth, and a gentle hand. You have taught me to slow down and think deeply about the choices I make for these characters. It is an honor to be edited so deeply and diligently. To my agents, Lucy Carson and Molly Friedrich, and everyone at the Friedrich Agency, thank you for being champions of this book from the very first chapter and approaching it with the ferocity and ambition you always do.
Thank you to the entire team at Knopf, especially to Tricia Cave, Morgan Hamilton, Zuleima Ugalde, Ellen Whitaker, and Matthew Sciarappa. I am supremely grateful for the amount of emails, calls, and effort you put into introducing the Girls to the world. I feel so fortunate to get to work with you all.
A huge thank-you to Ashley January, the remarkably talented artist who created the painting you see on this cover. It is gorgeous. To MacDowell, thank you for the time, space, and quiet to finish this book; there is simply nothing that can feed a writer more than those woods and the artists who commune inside them.
Carolina Ixta, with whom I sat in the same room writing much of this book, thank you for challenging me to work harder, reminding me of why I do this in the first place, and making me laugh when I want to cry. Shannon St. Aubin, you are a constant inspiration and have taught me what it is to mother with pure love and selflessness. Mamta D., this book is not complete without thanking you for how you have shaped me, mothered me, encouraged me, guided me, and watched me grow over all these years.
To all of the friends and family in my life, I am tremendously grateful to be seen by you and to share space with you whenever I get the chance. This work is impossible and unsustainable without that love. To the writers and artists who have given me a community to be nourished by—especially Cleyvis Natera, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Kearra Amaya Gopee, and Joe Culberg-McClung—thank you for every lunch, coffee, and conversation had over the course of writing this book.
Most importantly, because this book doesn’t exist without you, thank you to each of the girls and women who have been generous enough to allow me to hear your stories, learn from you, be your doula, and, most of all, witness the love and care with which you mother. Both to the mothers in my life—especially Nataya, Kat, and Cava—and the ones who have allowed me a window into theirs, it is a radical thing to raise children in a world that often refuses to respect the amount of work, intention, and resource it takes to parent with kindness and love for the little people we get to call ours. I am in awe of you and endlessly grateful for every lesson in not only parenting but girlhood and womanhood and the miracle that comes when we can find refuge in ourselves and each other.
Mo, to grow up with you has been a gift I will be thanking you for for the rest of my life, into motherhood and beyond. Thank you for every meal cooked so I could write this, every hour spent reading and rereading it, and, really, for being my person and my partner and my friend. I love you infinitely. And, lastly, to my future children—let this be a testament that I’ve been dreaming of you since forever. Know that you will be surrounded by a force of women who love you unapologetically, intentionally, and unconditionally, however and whenever you enter this world.