Christian Robinson and I began our collaboration with Last Stop on Market Street, where I sort of moved in his direction and the story of him being raised by his grandmother. And then that was followed by Carmela Full of Wishes, where he sort of leaned toward my family background.
When we were on tour for Carmela, we had a little free time before one event and we sat in the café together and we started to talk about, “What do we want to do next together?” And we batted a few ideas back and forth. And we knew we wanted to do public transportation again because we both value that. But then he got this look on his face and he said, “I’ve always wanted to explore how I grew up with an incarcerated mother.” And honestly, that’s the last thing I remember from that conversation because I had always wanted him to say that, to me.
So I think from that point on for the next maybe about eight months, I was trying to figure out how to honor that part of his story. What he couldn’t have known at the time is that I’ve always been fascinated with the criminal justice system in America and some of the inequalities that I’ve noticed through life. I have family members who have been in and out of prison and I’ve always been keenly aware of how the system works differently for different people. And I have a book called We Were Here, a Young Adult book, which is about kids in a group home and I worked in a group home.
So, I took that notice from Christian that he was ready to explore that story, and he was kind of inviting me into that and I disappeared. I didn’t talk to him after the tour for a good six months and then I presented him with Milo. A seed was planted on tour for Carmela, and I knew this is the book that was the most important one to tell it next.
