Emotional Pacing: Lessons in Writing a Trauma Memoir
Writing a memoir about childhood familial trauma has taken me into fraught storytelling territory. The narrative centers on growing up in the shadow of my maternal aunt’s murder that took place when my mother was pregnant with me. She kept her sister’s murder a closely guarded secret throughout my childhood. This aunt was my mother’s...
Schizophrenia, Dandelions, Cookies, Floods and Scabs: Alternate Approaches
We are trained from earliest age to be linear thinkers. The world, we are taught, has a beginning, a middle and a conclusion. My toddler son ran to me, excited: “Mama, I made a story!” “Yes?” “One upon a time. There was. The end.” We read narrative obedient to the “upside-down checkmark” (tension, climax and...
Of Nails, Nonfiction & Various Adhesives
My father stands behind me, watching and sweating in the Nevada sun. August is the worst possible time for roofing, but it’s the only time we have. With the temperature hovering around one hundred, I’m on my knees, hammer in hand, about to be taught a lesson in writing creative nonfiction. I take a couple...
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