"In nine thematically linked stories set largely in Guatemala, Concepción And The Baby Brokers brings to life characters struggling with universal emotions and dilemmas in a place unfamiliar to most Americans. From the close-knit community of Todos Santos to the teeming danger of Guatemala City, to a meat-packing plant in Michigan and the gardens of Washington DC, Deborah Clearman shows us the human cost of international adoption, drug trafficking, and immigration.

A Cup of Tears, the opening novella, reveals a baby farm, seen through the eyes of a desperate wet nurse, a baby broker, and an American adoptive mother. In "The Race" a young man returns to his native village to ride in a disastrous horse race. "English Lessons" tells of a Guatemalan immigrant in Washington DC who learns more than English from a public library volunteer. A teenage girl tries to trap her professor into marriage in "Saints and Sinners."

With searing humanity, Clearman exposes the consequences of American exceptionalism, and the daily magic and peril that inform and shape ordinary lives."

For eight years Deborah was Program Director for NY Writers Coalition, a nonprofit organization that offers free writing workshops to underserved communities throughout New York City. Deborah has led creative writing workshops in such nontraditional venues as senior centers, public housing projects, adult basic education programs, and prisons. Since 2011 she has led an ongoing weekly writing workshop for women in jail on Rikers Island. A member of PEN, she serves on the Prison Writing Committee.