Choice: True Stories of Birth, Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood, and Abortion attempts to raise the discourse on reproductive choice, which often devolves to cliches and name-calling, by posing the question--what is it like to make any sort of reproductive choice? What is it truly like to use birth control, the morning after pill, use a sperm bank, have an abortion, adopt a child, give a child up for adoption, bring a pregnancy to term? In these 22 stunningly honest essays, writers describe their experiences making some of these decisions, as well as many others. Established writers such as Francine Prose, Jaquelyn Mitchard, Pam Houston, Carolyn Ferrell, Ann Hood, Deborah Macdowell, and Sarah Messer contribute essays, along with emerging writers such as Kimi Faxon Hemingway, Stephanie Anderson, and Ashley Talley.

Karen E. Bender is the author of the novel Like Normal People. Her fiction has appeared magazines including The New Yorker, Granta, Zoetrope, Ploughshares, Story, The Harvard Review, and has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, Best American Mystery Stories and twice in the Pushcart Prize series. Her stories have been read on the Selected Shorts program on NPR and she has received grants from the Rona Jaffe Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has taught creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and at the Antioch LA MFA program.

This event took place on June 20, 2008, as a part of the Authors@Google series.