Toi Derricotte's Natural Birth "captures at length, and more than any other childbirth poem I know, the thing itself and not the myth," Alicia Ostriker wrote in her review of the book when it was first published in the early ' 80s.

The intervening two decades have not blunted the power of the author's language, her stunning ability to make the particularities of her experience as a young woman forced to give birth in the hostile environment of a "maternity home" resonate for a broad readership.

Now, almost twenty years after its publication--and thirty-eight years after the birth of her son--celebrated poet and memoirist Toi Derricotte revisits the writing of the book, the information she left out of the story the first time around, and her son's relationship to the circumstances of his birth, in a lengthy, moving introduction to this edition. With insightful candor, she explores the ways in which her confusion about love and sex and longing took away from the pleasures of pregnancy and motherhood.

And that's the plan.

These seasoned authors--edgy and experimental, mellow and familiar--were asked to contribute page-turning stories that are complete in themselves, yet beg to be continued. More will be revealed in a second volume scheduled for next year.

With imagination, skill, and passion, Lucy Jane Bledsoe, Nisa Donnelly, Jewelle Gomez, Judith Katz, Randye Lordon, Linda Nelson, Elisabeth Nonas, Cecilia Tan, Carla Trujillo, Kitty Tsui, and Jess Wells take us into their varied fictional worlds. To Be Continued... offers fantasy and reality, the near past and far future, contemporary lesbian life and escapist encounters. Many pleasures now--and the anticipation of what lies ahead.

These eleven dynamic storytellers were first brought together in To Be Continued... (published last Fall) when their stories--fantasy and reality, the near past and far future, contemporary lesbian life and escapist encounters--left readers hanging at the proverbial cliff's edge clamoring for more. Now here they are once again in To Be Continued: Take Two, picking up where they stopped six months ago without missing a beat, spinning tales to their often unpredictable conclusions.