Most authors know that revealing intimate autobiographical secrets in our work can have a polarizing effect on our lives – old relationships are transformed or shattered, new ones born through the inevitable connections created.

In OUT, Alysia Abbot describes how publication of her memoir, Fairyland, about being raised by her gay father, opened a Pandora’s box of new information about both her parents. She found some of her assumptions thrown into question, and others–like her mother’s presumed straightness–right out the window. She wonders just when are we done telling our story?