The Title I Almost Kept
My first working title for Held in the Vanishing was much harder: It's OK to Want Them to Die. It named something true — but the story turned out to be bigger.
When Atmosphere Press recently asked me how I came up with the title Held in the Vanishing, I found myself thinking about where I started.
My first working title was much harder:
It’s OK to Want Them to Die.
I thought I needed something punchy. And for a short while, I thought it named the heart of my story.
It didn’t.
It named something true—one of the hardest truths I encountered as a caregiver—but the story was much bigger than that.
Held in the Vanishing took me longer to find.
And when I did, I knew.
I sat down with them to talk about the title, the story behind the cover, how six years of journaling became a book, and what I hope other caregivers might find in its pages.
You can read the conversation here.
Written by Ti Mougne
