On a rainy morning, I received lushly gorgeous photos of a baby brand-new to the world through my library email. In my inbox of book buying, interlibrary loan info, event details, the news of this baby girl dims everything else to irrelevancy. A little girl. A healthy baby.

Heather Harpham, in her new book, quotes the figure that 245 babies are born every minute. Statistics? Oh, so what.

Hallelujah: the town of Woodbury is one soul richer.

My first child, my girl, was born just before seven on a spring night, perfect… She smelled like sliced apple and salted pretzels, like the innocent recent arrival from a saline world that she was.

The opening lines of Heather Harpham’s The Crooked Little Road to Semi-Ever After Happiness