Roxane Gay Instagram – Today is publication day for the second piece in Roxane Gay Presents, my series of longform essays in partnership with @everand_us. This month features “You Are a Teen Mom: Instructions” by Randa Jarrar (@rajarrar), a piece by a consummate storyteller. Across 33 sections, Randa writes about getting pregnant at 18, the rupture it created in her family, and how she raised her young son into a young man as a single mother. It’s also the story of how Randa raised herself into the writer and woman she is today. I started reading Randa’s writing many years ago and once I started reading, I was hooked. She has the ability to make everything she writes about interesting and often poignant; she projects strength alongside vulnerability, courage alongside fear, and these characteristics also shape this work. She defies expectations for what motherhood can look like, and is, at times, delightfully irreverent. This piece offers us the greatest of gifts: an instruction manual on how to be apologetically human. Randa’s award-winning, widely-published work, which includes three books, explores Palestinian-American identity, the complexities of home as part of a displaced people, single parenting, and living a radical creative life. She is also a comedian, performer, filmmaker, organizer, and activist. You can find a link to Randa’s work as an audiobook or ebook here or in my stories: https://www.everand.com/audiobook/708718099/Roxane-Gay-Everand-Originals-You-Are-a-Teen-Mom-Instructions