[3] In Severance's early life, her father took work at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, so her family relocated there for a time.

[7] She sent the manuscript for the book, When Megan Went Away, to Lollipop Power, and after a somewhat contentious editing process, the work was published in 1979 with illustrations by Tea Schook.

[10] The work tells the story of a girl whose classmates doubt she has four mothers, but she is proven correct when all four rush to her aid when she is injured on the school playground.

[9][15] Some scholars consider the work to be another early picture book depiction of lesbian life,[15] while others contest this as the mothers' relationships to one another is not established by the text.

[9] Severance's third book was a young adult (YA) novel called Ghost Pains about two daughters of a lesbian mother who is dealing with alcoholism.

"[2] This distinction of the first picture book with lesbian characters has sometimes erroneously been bestowed upon Lesléa Newman's Heather Has Two Mommies which was not published until 1989 – ten years after When Megan Went Away.

[10] Although the text of When Megan Went Away was republished in the magazine Ms. in 1986 under a pen name, Newman stated that she felt Lollipop Power did not publicize or distribute Severance's book very broadly, contributing to the misperception.

[9] Newman changed how she described Heather Has Two Mommies to be "the first picture book that portrays a happy family that consists of two lesbian moms and their child".

"[22] Jennifer Miller, another scholar of children's literature, called Severance's two picture books "a rare snapshot into lesbian living and loving in the 1970s and 1980s.