Barbara Morrison
Innocent: Confessions of a Welfare Mother

When my marriage dissolved, I found myself at 24 with a toddler and another baby on the way, no job, no health insurance, and no child support. Despite a college degree and prior work experience, I could not land a job to cover the cost of childcare, let alone food, rent, clothing, and transportation. Disowned by my family and abandoned by my husband, I realized that welfare was the only way for my family to survive.

I wrote this memoir because I wanted to use my experiences as a welfare recipient to illuminate a system that demonizes poor people and to explore what actually works to help families escape from poverty. Most of all, I wanted it to be an engaging story, a book that would make readers laugh and cry and nod their heads in recognition. I included stories of other people I knew to give a broader picture and enrich the story.

During the time that I was barely scraping by as a single parent on welfare, I was overwhelmed by how people equally poor helped me out. This experience set me on a path to cultivating communities wherever I could, and by creating stories—memoir and fiction—that help us look beyond stereotypes to appreciate and respect each other. Through stories we can find common ground.

Bio
Barbara Morrison, who writes under the name B. Morrison, is the author of an award-winning memoir, Innocent: Confessions of a Welfare Mother, now available as an audiobook, recently named Best Nonfiction Audiobook by Independent Press Awards. She is also the author of two poetry collections, Terrarium and Here at Least. Her writing has appeared in anthologies and literary journals such as Passager, Little Patuxent Review, the Toronto Journal, and elsewhere. In addition to reviewing books on her blog, she conducts writing workshops and provides editing services

bmorrison.com