For a short period of time in my teenage years, my mind blocked out memories made within a nine-to-12-month period. I was unable to recall a hospitalization, a car crash, or what author John Green calls “the night feeling” in his collection The Anthropocene Reviewed — an overwhelming sense of dread that flooded my mind and body until I awoke the next morning.
This memoir is as much about you dealing with a late-term medical abortion as it is about navigating the grief, loss, and processing of your family members.
By sharing your understanding of how your mother became the rough-around-the-edges woman you saw during your childhood and young adulthood, you still offer her a space in the narrative. You leave room for speculation.
I want to grow kinder, more considerate as I age, and I would like to be seen as a valuable part of my community, even when I am no longer of service to the workforce. I would hope that as I change, grow, and progress, the duty of care I uphold in my relationships with other people will not only allow the security of a cushion to fall back on, but also a more supportive community at large.
Andrea Leeb, nurse-turned-lawyer-turned-writer, tells her story of child sexual abuse and perseverance in her memoir Such a Pretty Picture. I sat down, albeit virtually,...
Dear Grace Talusan,
When reading your memoir The Body Papers, I’m struck, as I’m sure all your readers are, by the contrast between experiencing prejudice...
Dear J.R. Moehringer,
As a teenager, I was terrified of drinking alcohol. My parents told me stories of peerswho failed school, cars that crashed, and...
