Hi Emmy, I was wondering if I could contact you about an article I’m writing about the risks women face when they disclose personal stories via writing (either memoirs or personal essays). I’m specifically interested in disclosures related to either sex or addiction, or other things that are less permissible, especially for women. Writing a memoir about a family member dying or other struggles won’t attract the criticism women can encounter for sharing stuff like what you mentioned. Would you be able to contact me via the blog I linked to? (Just click on my name) Or my Twitter account, I’m @parallax_angle.

Anyone else reading this who has published about these “risky” topics — whether you encountered criticism or not — I’d love to hear from you too.

Mary Ellen,
You are absolutely right! I explore all of these women’s lives, and many more women as well, in my book I Am Subject: Sharing Our Truths to Reclaim Our Selves. I include them precisely because they all encountered tremendous obstacles in their lives. I agree that each woman and each story is unique. What is most important is that women who have experienced trauma have the opportunity to heal. Perhaps that means journaling about your experiences just for yourself. Maybe it means sharing your experiences with one close friend. Or it could mean reaching a point where you have the desire to share your truths with a larger audience. You are correct to point out that the healing process for everyone is unique. Thank you so much for taking the time to read!

With gratitude,

Diane

Emmy,

If an issue is an issue for you, it is not “moot.” It always saddens me to hear experiences such as yours, where women are not supportive of one another. Horizontal hostility keeps us from finding solidarity and true sisterhood (bell hooks). And while we are not all equally oppressed or privileged, we should encourage each other to share our truths. Telling our stories (whether through nonfiction, fiction, poetry, etc.) heals ourselves and helps others who may be suffering in silence and isolation. As to your question about fiction, I believe we desperately need more coming of age stories for young women–so I say go for it! And how can one woman cause so much fear? When we speak our truths, it makes others uncomfortable. Yet it is by sitting with that discomfort that we stretch and grow. That can be frightening for people who have been taught that we shouldn’t share those personal parts of ourselves. Keep sharing, Emmy. You are making a difference.
With gratitude,
Diane

But my questions, though gently depicted and with a bit of whimsy, alienated a mentor of mine and one of my committee members. The one prof in my corner died. A very famous writer with whom I’d connected on my prior job wanted to read my novel. But when her assistant found out what was in the plot, she would not put the ms in the author’s “to do” pile. Repeatedly. The author became even more famous, and thereby impossible for me to approach on her own.

I had already been forced to lose our savings on one year at an Ivy League school MFA program. The tuition was lost when I was warned at the end of the year, “They’ll never let you graduate with that thesis.” I had to transfer. (At least I finished the MFA elsewhere.)

After all that, I was getting gun shy. I had no one knowledgable left to look at it, no one, that is, who I didn’t have to worry about harming my career. I had young readers of various backgrounds who’d read the manuscript and say, “I wish we had things like this to read out there.”

Finally, at the point of beginning to write a follow up novel, I delved so much into the research, I completed a PhD.

I published a well-received (though little known) study on how some women writers have evaded censorship. The book won an award in feminist studies. The people who gave it to me had no idea that the idea for the study began with my own life.

Teaching awards, national papers, more publishing. No tenure track jobs, no work.

Maybe it’s time to revisit my first love, fiction writing. Maybe I’ll see it through this time.

Do you think the reading world will still be quite as actively censoring toward the coming of age story of a middle-of-the-road liberal girl who was supposed to have been aborted? A girl who chooses to *not* have sex before she settles down?

Or are my and my main character’s personal choices, no matter how respectfully conveyed, still “moot issues,” as my once-mentor called them? How can “personal choice” in an era of “personal choice” seem so threatening, even when I made my main character a lovable screw-up? (That was what workshop readers thought of her before they’d find out that her choices conflicted, goofily, politely, with theirs and those of other characters).

Why would one little weirdo be such a problem?

Suzanne,

Your fear is understandable. I was discussing this very point with my students today. While I know putting our truths out there for all to see (and judge) is not possible for every woman, I am grateful to those who have shared their stories, for their experiences have helped me to understand my own. I hope you will share your truth – if and when it feels right to do so – as I am sure that your truth will not only help you to heal, but it will also help others. Yet even if women do not feel they can publicly share their stories, it is important that they can sit with their own truths, and be kind and gentle with themselves as they heal and move forward.

Lori,

Congratulations on the publication of your memoir! I was so thrilled to include your piece in I Am Subject Stories: Women Awakening. I agree with you. I didn’t feel particularly courageous when I put my truths out into the world. Yet those who have read my memoir tell me how brave they think it was that I put my story out into the world. I believe the women who came before me and shared their truths–the truths that helped me better understand myself–were courageous. Perhaps when we are ready to tell our stories–when we need to heal ourselves and we also want our truths to help others–we simply need to release what we have been holding inside out into the world, and we no longer fear the repercussions. We just know it is time.

Well, here’s what’s funny. I still don’t feel that way – although that could change when reviews start coming in! – but in the process I have become painfully aware that many other people – particularly women – do. Several times a day someone on social media congratulates me on my courage in sharing my story. To a certain extent, I understand it, because it is very personal, and I’ve definitely exposed a tremendously painful part of my past without much regard for protecting my privacy. But am I brave? Why should I have to be? Why should I have to be brave in order to tell my story? I was not mentally ill; my mother was. I did not become psychotic and violent; that was my mother. We were victims, both of us, victims of a disease that took control of both of our lives. Courage shouldn’t have to enter into the equation.

Every day since I began promoting my book, people have approached me online, hinting at stories of their own that they might like to tell, about mental illness, about child abuse, about dysfunctional family relationships. They aren’t quite courageous enough to share their pain – but they’re coming closer. Seeing a story like yours or like mine makes them think that perhaps they could indeed share it – that there might be those sitting in silence who might like to read it.

I still don’t think it’s right that guiltless victims should feel ashamed to admit what’s happened to them. I don’t think courage ought to be a requirement for telling a truth. But they do, and it is. And while I may one day understand why I ought to have feared criticism and judgment when I published my memoir, I will always be proud to know that for every judge, for every critic, there are others for whom my story will help to break down the barrier between speaking and silence.