Teaching Memoir Writing to the Women of the Maine Correctional Facility

I had met a man, gotten pregnant, lost a baby, gotten married, and lost my mind. So I locked myself in a room and wrote this out of myself, plucking the story right out of me as if it were an ingrown hair. The events I wrote of happened in 2008. I finished the memoir in 2008. The story was told in real-time, present tense. This allowed no time for perspective or for processing grief. My words were live and raw. This was intentional. I wanted my reader to know what it felt like to be dealt my hand, to make the choices I made in the moment, and to feel the consequences. Staring at my life in front of me on the screen forced me to confront the facts, as messy and unfair as they were. It gave me my truth, made me look it in the eye. But it shook me the fuck up.http://lithub.com/hard-truth-and-deep-trauma-behind-bars/