Then Everything Happens at Once, page 30
There were quite a few years between now and Girl Mans Up. Life (+ the pandemic) took me other places, and when I was ready to come back to writing, I found myself in a weird spot: My storytelling and writing skills had gone rusty, I hadn’t read anything but emergency and critical care nursing stuff in quite literally years, and my writing community had shrunk tremendously (it was pretty much nonexistent). Having Girl Mans Up between my hands was an odd experience because I couldn’t really believe that I was the author behind it anymore. I had some anchors, though, and through them, I was able to keep my connection to this world of writing. To my writing bestie Sharon Overend: Thank you for the insightful writing-related chats and for giving a read to an early draft of this story. Your presence and dedication to your own craft kept me tied to the writing world and got me excited about getting back into it. To Mindy McGinnis: I thank you for the amazing conversations and for taking the time to give an early draft a read. Your thoughts and comments grounded me at a time where I literally considered deleting the entire 90,000 words and starting over. To Laura Chandra: Even though we sort of headed on different paths, you were right there, ready and willing to provide me with a quick read and critique, just as you did with Girl Mans Up. I am super thankful for your loyalty and follow through.
I would like to acknowledge the readers of Girl Mans Up who have reached out to me along the way. I know I told many of you that your words to me sparked motivation as I sat in front of my computer, working on this new book. Hearing how important Girl Mans Up was (is) to you fed me creatively, and I cannot emphasize how vital that was (is) because a significant part of me, at that time, had already accepted I’d be a one-book author. Thank you all for taking the time to reach out to the authors of books you love. It is so important for us to hear from you, and your comments are so precious.
Special thanks to Adams Carvalho, the cover artist of Girl Mans Up who is now responsible for the cover art of Then Everything Happens at Once. It was my wish to go back to you for this cover, and I am completely in awe of Baylee on this cover. I am so grateful for your depiction of my main characters.
Some might wonder about my inclusion of Rebecca in this story, Baylee’s little sister. As a pediatric community nurse, I worked many years with medically fragile, special-needs children—fourteen years, to be exact. Although I was nurse to many children over those fourteen years, only one was there from the start and followed me right through to the end (when I chose to change career paths and head for the hospital): Rebecca—or Miss Beckie, as I called her. There were many nights spent working on very early drafts of this story with Miss Beckie next to me, giggling all night and refusing to sleep for school the next day. When I put her in this story, it was with the intent of simply representing someone like her who might not see themselves cast in a literary role just for the sake of being there. The character had a different name and a different personality then. When Rebecca died in 2020, at the age of twenty-two, the Rebecca in my book became a memorial to her, a place where all my memories of her could live. I am every so grateful to her parents, Rick and Karen, for giving me permission to name my character after their daughter and essentially steal every single detail I have in my head about the Miss Beckie I spent fourteen years hanging around with—right down to the dirty looks, the ridiculous giggles, and that god-awful song about teddy bears going out for a picnic. Special thanks to Karen for being my sensitivity reader, because if anyone could read my story with a critical eye and provide me with feedback on Rebecca’s portrayal, it was certainly Miss Beckie’s mother.
About the Author
Photo courtesy M-E Girard
M-E GIRARD’s debut, Girl Mans Up, was a Lambda Literary Award winner and a William C. Morris YA Debut Award finalist. She lives in Canada, where she splits her time between writing YA fiction and working as a registered nurse. M-E dedicated the bulk of her nursing career to working with special-needs kids, and more recently she was an ER and ICU nurse during the first waves of the pandemic. A 2013 and 2015 Lambda Literary Fellow, M-E is a proud feminist who is endlessly fascinated with what it means to be a girl—especially a queer, fat girl.
Visit her at www.megirard.com.
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Books by M-E Girard
Girl Mans Up
Then Everything Happens at Once
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Copyright
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
THEN EVERYTHING HAPPENS AT ONCE. Copyright © 2023 by M-E Girard. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover art © 2023 by Adams Carvalho
Cover design by Joel Tippie
Digital Edition JANUARY 2023 ISBN: 978-0-06-320670-0
Print ISBN 978-0-06-320668-7
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M-E Girard, Then Everything Happens at Once
