Pat Willard has written four books about food: Pie Every Day, a memoir, chosen among the top ten cookbooks by Atlantic Monthly, Bon Appetit, and Amazon.com; A Soothing Broth, about old recipes to feed the sick; Secrets of Saffron, short-listed by the International Association of Culinary Professionals for Best Literary Cookbook; and America Eats!, On the Road with the WPA: The Fish Fries, Box Supper Socials, and Chittlin’ Feasts that Define Real American Food, based on material written in the 1930s by the WPA’s Federal Writers Project. “Swans” is part of a non-fiction collection of short stories that explore the nature of friendship between two teenage girls seeking to grasp their talents in the midst of social and sexual conventions.