In this powerful interview, Paula Wallace shares stories of overcoming trauma and abuse. Here is the link to Paula's Show Notes page of her interview about Bloom in the Dark.

Paula was born to missionary parents in Peru. Raped at the age of five, Paula was caught in a cycle of damage and abuse, which lasted into her thirties. From sexual abuse to later mental, emotional and even spiritual abuse, Paula developed a victim mentality, which fueled decades of continued abuse. As a high school senior, she took a creative writing class in college and received an A in the class. Shortly after, she received an extreme critique, which caused her to stop writing for 25 years - believing she didn't have any writing talent. Paula wrote Bloom in the Dark by interviewing women who had suffered some kind of trauma or abuse. Then she turned the interviews into stories, poems, and letters of brokenness - about how those women had found hope and life and a new start. It's the story of the trauma and abuse in her life too. The book's theme is hope and redemption. Paula does a great job of sharing how difficult it was a to write and compile the book. She candidly says she wanted to quit even as she got stated writing. Sharing the stories beaks the bond of isolation and starts the healing process, breaking through the shame and guilt that accompanies the trauma and abuse. Paula talks about the writing process as she wrote the women's stories and often went into the dark places of their stories. Her advice for struggling writers shows the determination she gave to her writing - and it can help you too. Paula's goal was to let broken women know that they are not alone and that there is hope. She nailed it. Her book is beautiful.