For ten years, I co-led groups for violent men.* I sat in a circle with a (usually) male co-leader and anywhere from 8 to 18 men who’d been violent with their wives, girlfriends, dates, sisters, or another woman in their lives—sometimes a mother. Their violence ran from emotional abuse to the most devastating physical viciousness—from … Read more
With every listen, the Trump sex assault tape sounds worse. Every syllable engenders feelings of being small and wretched and humiliated. I search for the genesis of these emotions, for the source of my desire to curl up into an invisible ball. And the truths wash in: The time my neighbor’s boyfriend covered my six-year-old … Read more
(Originally posted September 2014) And the blame continues. Twitter & Facebook abound with it. Some claim with surety that they’d leave after the first minute a man touched them. Other wonder (with an air of superiority) why Janay Rice married Ray Rice in the first place (often accompanied with gold-digging, victim-blaming reasons.) Many question her … Read more
A parent’s tragedy will always influence the life of their children—often to an overwhelming degree. Writing fiction from the emotional truth of one’s past can be liberating and also confusing. How do writers use their past without being wedded to events as they happened? How do we write honestly, without spilling family secrets that … Read more
Perhaps the lure of the bad boy is similar to the lure of climbing Mt. Everest. It feels so good to conquer it and get to the top—despite all the pain you felt on the ascent. Unfortunately, you have to climb down and start all over again to get back up to that thrilling peak. … Read more