Recognize Our Power

Her memoir, The Part That Burns, shatters the silence on childhood sexual abuse and its long aftermath while celebrating the author's ultimate reclamation of her own humanity in all its wildness. The Part That Burns was a 2021 Kirkus Best 100 Indie Book and a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Award. In women's literature she’s received starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. Oullette's essays and fiction appear widely in literary journals including Los Angeles Review of Books, Narrative, Master's Review, North American Review, and more, as well as in her popular Writing in the Dark newsletter. She teaches writing at the University of Minnesota and through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, Catapult and Elephant Rock, a creative writing program, she founded in 2012. She's working on her first novel.

Find her online at jeannineoullette.com.

During this episode, we talked about Jeannine’s growing up years and the craft perspective of writing her memoir The Part That Burns. Her material weaves in Jimmy Carter’s inauguration, the botany of the tumbleweed, and jackalopes to serve as metaphor. We discussed her healing including therapy which was helpful and how going to support groups for child sexual abuse groups when her trauma re-surfaced was not what she needed at that time. She worked with Dorothy Allison at Tin House Summer Writing Workshop and realized she had a book on her hands. We talked about James Pennebaker’s social psychology work using dialogue, turning scene material over and examining it from a variety of different directions. She reviewed how making something beautiful out of bad things alters you. We talked about how she found an indie press publisher for The Part That Burns using less is more techniques when writing about childhood sexual abuse and how traditional publishers shied away from her writing because of the harm done to a child. We discussed how her ten-year career as a Waldorf teacher influenced her new novel that she is currently at work on. She also touched on how memory is fallible when writing memoir. We revealed how writing material can be tough on our bodies and relationships can sometimes be fractured as a result.

Child Sexual abuse

Using literary devices in writing

Tin House Literary Workshop

Yoga

Meditation

Low Residency MFA program

Links:

The Part That Burns - https://www.splitlippress.com/the-part-that-burns

The Courage to Heal - https://www.ellenbass.com/books/the-courage-to-heal/

Bastard Out of Carolina -

Tin House- https://tinhouse.com

James Pennebaker - https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/psychology/faculty/pennebak

Connect with Jeannine:

Website: https://www.jeannineouellette.com

Twitter: @_elephantrock

Instagram: msjeannineouellette

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeannine.ouellette.7

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannine-ouellette-bb132039/

Laura Davis is the author of The Burning Light of Two Stars, winner of the Book Life Prize for Best Memoir of 2021, The Courage to Heal, and four other groundbreaking books. In addition to writing books that inspire, the work of Laura's heart is to teach. For more than 20 years, she's helped people find their voices, tell their stories, and hone their craft. Laura has been published in Publishers Weekly, Writers Digest, Crime Breeds, Brevity, and the New York Times, featured in the Los Angeles Review of Books, and has been an engaging guest on Queerty, Right Minded, The Only One in the Room, and dozens of other podcasts.

Laura and I chatted about her experience growing up Jewish in New Jersey in the 60’s and 70’s and how her progressive background allowed her creativity to flourish. We talked about how Laura had a twin sister who passed away at birth and how the trauma of not being touched as a baby, isolated away in a bassinet for six weeks, formed who she is as a person. Laura is an incest survivor who blocked out memories of abuse until she was twenty-seven years old. We discussed her time growing up with a mother who expected the world (and Laura!) to revolve around her.

Laura spent ten years working on a memoir about her relationship with her mother who she was estranged from for a long time. Today Laura has recovered so much from her trauma that she feels she doesn’t identify as strongly as a survivor. She works from a place of grounding and healing. We reviewed how taking the time to write a memoir about reuniting with her mother after decades of living on opposite coasts was a part of her healing journey.

Topics touched on:

Reconciliation

Incest

Writing through trauma

Buy Laura’s book, The Burning Light of Two Stars: https://lauradavis.net/the-burning-light-of-two-stars/#order

Connect with Laura

https://lauradavis.net

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewritersjourney

Instagram: @laurasaridavis

Twitter: laurasaridavis

Katherine Standefer, author of Lightning Flowers, My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life and Skin Hunger: A Sexual Reckoning. Standefer has published work in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The High Country News, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Rumpus, New England Review, The Iowa Review, Kenyon Review Online, The Colorado Review, Cutbank, and many other literary journals, as well as the anthologies Beautiful Flesh: A Body of Essays (ed. Stephanie G’Schwind) and How We Speak to One Another: An Essay Daily Reader (ed. Ander Monson and Craig Reinbold).

http://www.katherinestandefer.com

We discussed Katherine’s growing up years in a traditional “white bread” community and abstinence culture upbringing heart arrhythmia, healthcare discrimination and move from Wyoming to Colorado after she discovered her condition to seek care. We talked about her switch from poetry to non-fiction and trauma from her heart condition as well as the various ways she has healed. Katherine overcame a sexual assault at twenty-two and we spoke about how Wyoming, writing through her “non-fiction impulse,” and how going to other countries to see where the parts of her cardiac difibulator came from helped her heal her medical trauma . We chatted about the follow-up book she is currently working on where she explores her sex assault, purity culture and her employment at an abortion healthcare center. Katherine is a trauma writing doula who helps people write through their trauma in an embodied way.

Topics Discussed

Medical trauma

Affordable care act

New Mexico

Wyoming

Medical debt

Abortion care

Embodied trauma recovery 

Somatic healing

Writing through trauma

Fight or flight response

Acupunture

Qui Gong

EMDR

Links 

Katherine socials

Twitter @girlmakesfire

Instagram @girlmakesfire

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/KatherineEStandefer

Lightning Flowers:

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/katherine-e-standefer/lightning-flowers/9780316450355/

Arizona Trauma Institute

https://aztrauma.org

Sierra Scott is a survivor and the senior content writer and strategist for the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, The Rape Abuse Incest National Network aka R.A.I.N.N. She has published film summaries for R.A.I.N.N. on Luckiest Girl Alive on Netflix and Leave No Trace on Hulu and works a part-time position as an Impact Production Coordinator with A Measure of Light. She is also a Volunteer Editor for the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims and directly edits research papers submitted to the Torture Journal.

We discussed her work with R.A.I.N.N., on the movie Luckiest Girl Alive and Leave No Trace.

We talked about her volunteer work as editor for the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims. Sierra spoke extensively about the self-care tips and tricks from her work with RAINN including, grounding, body building, redefining beauty and tea! Additionally, Sierra spoke from lived experience about include more conversations around diversity within the sexual assault sphere.

Discussed on the show:

R.A.I.N.N.: https://www.rainn.org

Luckiest Girl Alive on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80992607

Leave No Trace on Hulu: https://tribecafilm.com/films/leave-no-trace-2022 

Boy Scouts cases/Nigel Jacquiss/Willamette Week:

https://www.wweek.com/news/2022/06/15/how-portland-filmmakers-discovered-sexual-abuse-unchecked-in-the-boy-scouts-of-america/

A Measure of Light 

International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims https://irct.org

International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims / Torture Journal: https://irct.org/torture-journal/

Bus Boys and Poets https://www.busboysandpoets.com

Survivor Summit on YouTube

R.A.I.N.N. Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/RAINN01

R.A.I.N.N. News: https://www.rainn.org/news

Public Policy at R.A.I.N.N: https://www.rainn.org/public-policy-action

RAINN Instagram: @rainn

RAINN Tik Tok: @rainn

Sierra Scott social:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sierra-scott-272831161?trk=public_post_follow-view-profile

Winnie M Lee is an author and activist who has worked in the creative industries over three continents. She is Taiwanese-American and raised in New Jersey. Lee studied folklore and mythology at Harvard and later Irish literature as a George Mitchell scholar. Her debut novel, Dark Chapter, a fictional retelling of her real-life stranger rape in Belfast. It's written from both victim and perpetrator perspectives. Her second novel, Complicit came out in summer 2022 and the paperback version will be released on June 20, 2023. We discussed the impact that her own violent sexual assault in Belfast when she was in her late 20’s had on her as well as the ways that writing Dark Chapter helped her move beyond the experience. We chatted about the way that her assault worked its way through the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland, experience fictionalizing her perpetrators life and testimony in court. Winnie will be on a northeastern US book tour for Complicit from June 20-20, 2023.

Discussed on the show:

Complicit Northeastern US book tour June 20-29, 2023:

https://www.winniemli.com/

Purchase Complicit: 

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Complicit/Winnie-M-Li/9781982190842

Purchase Dark Chapter:

http://www.polisbooks.com/books/dark-chapter/

Connect with Winnie:

Website: https://www.winniemli.com

Instagram: @winniemli

Twitter: @winniemli

Cathy Linh Che is a Vietnamese American writer and multidisciplinary artist. On this episode we discuss her book,  Split  (Alice James Books). She is winner of the Kundiman Poetry Prize, the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the Best Poetry Book Award from the Association of Asian American Studies, the co-author, with Kyle Lucia Wu, of the children’s book An Asian American A to Z: a Children’s Guide to Our History (Haymarket Books), which will be published in May 2023, and the chaplet Zombie Apocalypse Now: The Walking Dead (Belladonna*). We chat about the impact that sexual assault has had on her family and work as well as the healing she has undertaken to work through her trauma.

Discussed on the show:

Split by Cathy Linh Che: https://www.alicejamesbooks.org/bookstore/split

Kundiman.org: http://www.kundiman.org

Kundiman retreat: http://www.kundiman.org/retreat

Kundiman classes: http://www.kundiman.org/online-classes

The Body Keeps the Score: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/313183/the-body-keeps-the-score-by-bessel-van-der-kolk-md/

A is for Asian American by Cathy Linh Che & Kyle Lucia Wu: https://www.powells.com/book/

Connect with Cathy:

Website: https://www.cathylinhche.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cathylinhche

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cathylinhche/

Josephine A. Lauren is a writer, activist, and the Community Organizer of Incest AWARE. They offer offer writing workshops, as well as trainings. During our conversation, we explore the incest that occurred in Josephine’s family and challenges reporting the sexual assault as well as her attempts to dismantle the harm that took place. We explore how incest has been left out of the conversation surrounding the #metoo movement as well as government and business institutions. Josephine touches on the healing she has done in the neurological, physiological, psychological, and spiritual capacities. She started blogging about her experience and slowly began publishing on major platforms like Ms. And Elite Daily. We chat about personal narrative and the micro/macro of writing memoir. She has been at work on a memoir and during the podcast they talk about writing through trauma and the bodies response. Josephine has been published in Just Femme and Dandy, America, Brave Miss World, Ms., and Survivor Lit. She has been a guest on the Brave and Unbroken, Feelings Friday Radio Show, Beyond The Vision, Leading People First, Releasing Trauma: A Survivors Podcast, The Trauma Therapist, and Together We Thrive podcasts.

Discussed on the podcast:

IncestAware - https://www.incestaware.org

The Courage to Heal by Laura Davis - https://www.bookshopsantacruz.com/book/9780061284335

Sexual Assault Advocacy Network, S A A N. - https://www.saancommunity.org

Lead From the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change by Stacey Abrams -

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250214805/leadfromtheoutside

The Familia Grande by Camille Kouchner - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/692468/the-familia-grande-by-camille-kouchner/

Connection with Josephine:

https://www.josephineanne.com

https://twitter.com/jo_anne_lauren

Deidre Olsen, writer

Award-nominated writer and filmmaker. Deidre Olsen is a Canadian award-nominated writer based in Berlin. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Cut, NBC News, Salon, Vice, Maclean’s. Shondaland, Narratively and more than 50 publications. As a young child, Deidre was a victim of child sexual abuse by a babysitter. In this episode we talked about how her parents were able to spot the signs of sexual abuse and reported it to the police. She went through the Canadian legal system and unfortunately her perpetrator was able to get away and escape justice. A victim of multiple sexual assaults, we discussed how this impacted her mental help, decision to move away from British Columbia to Toronto and eventually onto Berlin. She used alcohol as a coping mechanism and eventually was able to get mental health assistance and a borderline personality diagnosis. We examine how BPD diagnosis and recovery from alcoholism has affected her life, and how work on her memoir in progress has helped her connect with her trauma in a way that therapy couldn’t. As survivors with tremendous access to legal documents, Deidre and I reflect on the mental toll that sifting through these documents takes on survivors. Today, she is living in Berlin and happily married to her partner Paula.

Deidre uses They/She pronouns.

Links:

Website:

https://www.deidreolsen.com

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/deidreolsen

Articles:

Living ‘Out Loud and Proud’ in Berlin

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/03/style/paula-sapion-miranda-deidre-olsen-

wedding.html

Being Sexually Abused, I Let Myself Deteriorate 2017

https://www.thecut.com/2017/11/self-neglect-as-a-coping-mechanism-after-sexual-trauma.html

I've been sober for 3 years – an app has been key to my recovery 

Feb 12, 2023  metro.co.uk 

Looking Through Childhood Diary Confirmed I Always Knew I Was Gay 

Jul 28, 2022  insider.com 

Why I Married My Platonic Best Friend 

Apr 13, 2021  shondaland.com

Gloria Masters:

Founder at  Handing the Shame Back

Gloria survived being sex trafficked by her own family in Auckland, New Zealand and overcame horrific abuse in the 60’s and 70’s. We talk through her experience of being attacked and DARVO-ed by her family. She has worked through her trauma through therapy and now her life’s work is to help other survivors through her foundation, Handing the Shame Back. Survivor, Author and Advocate of all things CSA, Gloria speaks from 16 years of lived experience. She has managed to turn the final corner of healing into giving back, through highlighting the issue of child sexual abuse to bring attention to this silent endemic. Gloria has written two books,  On Angels Wings – My flight from trauma to grace  and  Flightpath to Healing – A Guide for Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Survivors . During this podcast we highlight what it was like to write her books, how she launched her podcast Handing the Shame Back where she interviews survivors and their supporters. Today she has found healing through talking others, writing and exercise.

Facebook: Author. Speaker. Advocate For Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse

https://www.facebook.com/Gloria.Masters.Com16

https://www.handingtheshameback.org

https://gloriamasters.com

Books: Flight Path to Healing, A Guide for Child Sexual Abuse

On Angels Wings: My Flight from Trauma to Grace

https://gloriamasters.com/shop/

#CSA

On this episode of Recognize Our Power, I’m delighted to be in conversation with Rowena Chiu. She is a former assistant to Harvey Weinstein and went to work for him at Miramax in 1998. At that time Miramax was at the zenith of its power. It was producing Shakespeare In Love in the United Kingdom. It would go on to win an Oscar for Best Picture for Shakespeare and Love. Within that similar era, titles like the English Patient, cider House Rules, talented Mr. Ripley, were really creating great waves in the film industry, both in the UK and the us

In 1998, after he sexually assaulted her at the Venice Film Festival, she was forced to accept a settlement and sign a non-disclosure agreement. In 2017,  she featured anonymously in the New York Times investigation that ignited the #MeToo movement. 

In 2019, she went public with her story and was featured in Jodi Cantor and Megan Twohey’s book, She Said now a major motion picture. Since leaving the film industry, Rowena has worked internationally in management consulting and for companies including Accenture, PWC, McKenzie, and the World Bank.

She holds an MA from Oxford and an Master's of Science from the University of London, and an MA from London Business School. She lives in Silicon Valley with her husband and four children.

Links: 

Website: https://rowenachiu.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/rowena_chiu

New York Times Opinion: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/05/opinion/sunday/harvey-weinstein-rowena-chiu.html