When I was in sixth grade, I won a young author’s prize for a story featuring a little orphan girl who accidentally sewed her hand into the machine and bled to death in a textile sweatshop, and years later, as an adult, I kept wondering why it was so hard for me to write as viscerally anymore.

The answer, I found (after a great deal of thinking), was a combination of masking, shame, socialization, a desire to please, be pleasing, hide, avoid being perceived, known, understood. The usual coping, cowardice, and trembling.

But I have been uncovering. Getting more honest, comfortable, okay with showing my twisted and grotesque, being seen, being read even, in advance of my book coming out.

This piece, Elaine, was born from that work.

Surely, there’s more to come?

Happy Thanksgiving—

xo,

LJ