Can I Forgive the Unforgivable?
An artist who’d endured unspeakable assaults—on her body and her hard-won career—confronts the painful memories of what happened and takes us on a journey of forgiveness.
Essay
It’s Okay to Hate Your Scars
Women are expected to minimize our trauma and love our scars. Ten years after the writer suffered a hit-and-run accident that took her ear, she realized she didn't have to embrace expectation.
The Game Was Rigged All Along
The DSM removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses in 1973. So why did the author's mother lose everything—including her kids—when she left her abusive husband for a woman in the late 1970s?
Lessons From a Fast, Furious Friendship With My Idol
The award-winning memoirist reflects on her intense, instantaneous social-media friendship with a favorite singer—only to be left to try to make sense of her just-as-sudden disappearing act.
Lessons from Iran’s Long Lost Freedom
The Iranian-born writer, who now lives in the U.S., watched her home country devolve into a brutal theocracy, hoping it would return to some semblance of normal. That was 40 years ago. Could it happen here too?
I Wanted Joan Didion’s Heart to Be Messy
Many of us expect our women writers to lay their emotions bare. But as this excerpt from 'Slouching Toward Los Angeles' reveals, emotion does not define meaning for California's native daughter—and that can be a hard lesson.
What You Don’t Know About Michael Jackson’s Alleged Victims
A childhood sexual-abuse survivor explains the emotional minefield of defending their adult abusers, especially the most charismatic, powerful, and public among them.
It’s Still Radical For a Woman to Be Alone
Why has the image of a solitary woman historically elicited a range of emotions, from sympathy to suspicion and fear?
The Golden State Killer in My Backyard
Reflecting on her childhood fear of the serial rapist-murderer, who was recently arrested in her hometown, the actress and writer wonders how her parents were able to ultimately make her feel safe.
Telling the Stories of the Unclaimed Dead
A longtime child welfare advocate uses her skills to locate next of kin for unsolved cases, bringing closure to grieving families, and making peace with her own painful past.