You know those family stories that you pick up over the years? Sometimes you learn them muttered through the phone late at night. Sometimes the stories are just rumors that family members embellish with each retelling, one loud Christmas party after the next. Sometimes you dream pieces of them as vividly as if you were there—even when the event happened years before you were born. They become tangled in the fabric of who you are, even as they remain foggy, indistinct, and totally beyond you.

Family myths are my favorite things to write about. I grew up making sense of these narrative landscapes, where young people immigrated to America from Italy and Germany and had children who died mysteriously and became pregnant outside of marriage. My relatives made wine in the garden and threw oranges at army officers.

In my writing, I reimagine these family stories through a feminist lens, bringing depth and context through examination of cultural erasure, racial- and deracialization, social class, and trauma. Those loud Christmas parties take place on stolen land, and that is part of the story, too.