Archival Interview with Jessica Berger Gross, Editor of About What Was Lost

NOTE: This interview was conducted in 2007. I’m retrieving it from the archives because the book was just reviewed in USA Weekend.

Almost 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage. I didn’t know this until I had a miscarriage of my own. I was surprised to learn that it’s so common, since women almost never talk about it. I wasn’t able to find anything much written on the subject, either. I can’t say that the cultural silence surrounding miscarriage made the experience worse—I don’t know if anything could have made it worse—but it certainly didn’t make it any easier. 

The anthology, About What Was Lost: Twenty Writers on Miscarriage, Healing, and Hope, is a much-needed addition to the literature of mourning. I contributed an essay, and I recently interviewed the collection’s editor, Jessica Berger Gross, for Literary Mama. We talked about loss, the publishing process, and what it’s like to edit a famous author.