 Burroway wrote about eighty pages in a two-day period, then revised the material down to nine pages that “worked perfectly well as narrative.And it forced me to see that if I was avoiding my real concerns and trying to write Great Literature, I would likely not be able to write.” After that, Burroway looked over the books she had written and realized that the threads she consistently wove through her narrative and kept returning to—in particular, mentor relationships, the abandonment of children, race, and suicide—were in fact themes.“That’s why I began "Raw Silk" with, ‘This morning I abandoned my only child.’” 

Another book of poetry, "Material Goods", was published in 1980 by the University Presses of Florida.