ABOUT THE BOOK

Before #MeToo, there was silence.

Let’s talk about that silence.

The Anatomy of Silence is an anthology of 26 voices speaking out loud - often for the first time - about what it means to stay silent, to be silenced, and to break the silence that surrounds sexual violence. About how we are all complicit in creating that silence. It offers an unflinching account of how a culture of shame perpetuates a culture of violence against our bodies—and reflects on what it would take to create a world in which that silence, once broken, stays broken.

 EDITED BY

Cyra Perry Dougherty is a space holder for spiritual growth and healing for 21st century leaders. She is the founder and CEO of Rootwise Leadership, Senior Partner at Still Harbor, and an Instructor of Leadership Programming at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

 

CONTRIBUTORS

Joan Kresich is a long-time public school educator now working to bring restorative justice and sustainable practices to her community. She is the author of Picturing Restorative Justice.  Her poetry and prose have appeared in Adanna Literary Journal, Chrysalis Reader, HeART Online, CounterPunch, Albatross, and Ms. Magazine blog, among others.  She lives in Livingston, Montana and Berkeley.

Melissa Dickey is the author of two books of poems, Dragons and The Lily Will, both from Rescue Press. She holds degrees from the University of Washington and the Iowa Writers' workshop. Her poetry, nonfiction, and reviews have appeared in Puerto del Sol, Columbia Poetry Review, the Spectacle, the Laurel Review, and Kenyon Review Online, among other publications. Born and raised in New Orleans, she now lives in Western Massachusetts.

Andrea Roach is a writer of memoir and essays, who lives and works in Boston. She received her MFA from Lesley University.  In 2016, Andrea was a finalist for The Writer’s Room of Boston Fellowship Award. An essay Andrea wrote was shortlisted in Memoir Magazine's 2018 #MeToo Essay Contest. She’s currently working on new essays and her first memoir, about the blurred lines of love, family and violence. Andrea’s work has been featured in Blavity and Under The Gumtree.

 

Caroline Numuhire is Rwandan writer who was born in the university city of Butare and grew up in Kigali. She is the author of Mirror Of Stolen Hearts, a collection of Short Stories and L’Oncle gynécologue, a French novel. This year, she was the contributing author to Redemption Song and Other Stories, the 2018 Caine Prize for African Writing Anthology. As an agriculture technician, she has mainly worked for philanthropic organizations with the mission of improving livelihoods.  

 

 

Esther Diplock, (B Occ Thy, M Couns) is a Gender Equity and Reconciliation International (GERI) Facilitator and Program Coordinator, based in Brisbane, Australia. She is an Individual & Couple Therapist, Educator and Supervisor, specializing in Body Psychotherapy and trauma informed practice. She is in private practice and lectures in tertiary institutions. 

 

 

 

 

Chelsea MacMillan is an activist, spiritual director, writer, facilitator, and Cofounder & Director of Brooklyn Center for Sacred Activism. Chelsea co-hosts The Rising: Spirituality for Revolution, a podcast for sacred activists, and her writing has appeared in Anchor Magazine, on Patheos.com, and in Matthew Fox's book Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action. Chelsea likes to sing showtunes, ride her bike around Brooklyn, and geek out over the Enneagram. She is one half of the singing duo, LOON.

Pamela Bettencourt is a registered nurse, an entrepreneur, and a survivor of child sexual abuse. Her history of such abuse gave her tremendous insight into the convoluted world of childhood abuse. She uses writing as a therapy, but with the support of Laura van den Berg, an American author and English lecturer, she focused on using her writings as a tool to educate society and inspire other victims. Pamela’s mission is to help sexual abuse victims heal and feel less stigmatized. 

Patrick McFarlane has for a decade been the director of behavioural medicine at a Family Medicine Residency. Originally from Michigan, he fell in love with Maine and his chosen family there. Training in social worker, psychology, and nursing inspired his areas of research interest focused around the use of phenomenology, narrative, and art in better understanding our patients and developing effective interventions to address violence in primary care.  He has two sons and a partner and lives in Orono, Maine.

Monique Harris serves as a Senior Partner at Still Harbor, Inc. supporting the organization’s work in social justice chaplaincy. A public educator for more than 17 years, she is also an ordained minister, formerly serving the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Though no longer teaching, Monique continues to exercise her passion for education via literacy and educational advocacy. A San Francisco native, Monique resides in Boston, Massachusetts and is the mother of one adult daughter, Yaminah.
 
Jennifer Jean’s debut poetry collection is The Fool (Big Table, 2013). Her chapbooks include: In the War and The Archivist. She’s received a 2018 Disquiet FLAD Fellowship, and a 2017 “Her Story Is” residency to collaborate in Dubai with Iraqi women artists. Her work’s appeared, or is forthcoming, in: Poetry Magazine, Rattle, Waxwing, Crab Creek Review, and more. Jennifer is Managing Editor of Talking Writing, Co-director of Morning Garden Artists Retreats, and Director of Free2Write Poetry Workshops for trauma survivors.
 
Amna Abdullatif is a community psychologist currently working as the national lead on children and young people for a leading national domestic violence charity in the UK. She has spent the last 10 years working with women and children within the voluntary sector for a range of organisations and is particularly interested in exploring women and children's agency, empowerment and the ability to engage in social action and change.

 
Lauren Spahn is a social justice advocate. She practices as a freelance writer, yoga teacher and doula supporting justice-based organizations. She also serves as lead administrator, facilitator and chaplain in her role as Senior Partner with Still Harbor. Lauren brings an insightful perspective on gender justice informed by her holistic experiences in women’s health. She stays tethered to her call to bring people together through shared dialogue and practice and, in doing so, has discovered the healing and transformative power of community.
 
Michelle Bowdler’s writing has been seen in the Brevity Blog, Burningword Journal, Gertrude Press, the Rumpus, and other literary magazines. She has been published in the New York Times and has two essays in a book entitled: We Rise to Resist: Voices from a New Era in Women's Political Action, which won two international book awards. She is a recipient of the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund Award for Non-Fiction, a GrubStreet Memoir Incubator Alum, and was a Fellow at Ragdale Writers Colony and MacDowell Colony.
 
Ashley Easter is an author, speaker, and abuse-victim advocate who educates churches and secular communities on abuse, safe practices, and effective resources. Ashley founded The Courage Conference, a survivor-centered movement focused on self-healing, to empower victims to discover their courage and reclaim their freedom through connection, learning, and advocacy. She is the author of The Courage Coach: A Practical, Friendly Guide on How to Heal From Abuse and Cults: Hidden in Plain Sight.
 
Frederick Marx is an Academy and Emmy nominated filmmaker (Hoop Dreams) who has worked 35 years in film and television, creating transformational stories that transform lives. Journey from Zanskar features the Dalai Lama and Richard Gere. His feature film The Unspoken, his documentary mini-series Boys to Men?, and Rites of Passage all express deep concerns about teen boys realizing mature masculinity. His book At Death Do Us Part will be released in 2019, and he is currently in production on Veterans Journey Home.
 
Amy Paulson is a compassionate warrior, healing activist, and co-founder of Gratitude Alliance, an organization dedicated to transforming individual and collective trauma into healing, resilience, and self-empowerment for communities around the world. A Korean adoptee and survivor of trauma and sexual abuse, Amy is on a lifelong journey to seek joy, laughter, and profound connection even in the darkest of times.

Emily Porth is a storyteller, pilgrim, and ecofeminist. She trained as a cultural anthropologist prior to completing an interdisciplinary doctorate in Environmental Studies (York University). Her passion for social change inspired her to pursue storytelling as a medium for connecting with others and encouraging them to see the world differently.

Terrence 'Red' Crowley was born in Missouri and raised in the southeast US (Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama) to working class parents who did exactly that to put him through college. In 1970 he earned a master's degree in psychology and went on to work for Vocational Rehabilitation. In the early 80's, he became a one-of furniture maker in Atlanta, Georgia. For the past 30 years, he has worked with himself and other men to create safety and justice for women. He now lives in northern New Mexico with his partner, Cynthia East.

Khalisa Rae is an author, educator, and feminist poet. Khalisa has a true passion for empowering women through words, community programming, and mentorship. Khalisa is an active member in the North Carolina poetry slam community and has traveled the U.S. competing in national and world poetry slams. Khalisa published her first book in 2012, Real Girls Have Real Problems. Her recent work has been seen in Requiem Magazine, Dirty Chai, Tishman Review, Obsidian Magazine.

 

stephen hicks is funkier than a mosquito’s tweeter. He’s energetic, poetic, athletic, and has good credit. A benevolent king of the dancefloor who can teach you how to dougie and do the humpty dance. He also has several  degrees from graduating from Virginia commonwealth university where he earned A.B.S. in journalism with minors in African American studies and Political science and a MPH in global health from George Mason University.

Steven Strafford is an actor and playwright who lives in Chicago with his husband, Wade. As an actor, he has worked around the country and the world, on stage and on screen. Steven is the author and performer of the award-winning, critically-acclaimed show, Methtacular!, which has toured from Maine to California. He is the author of several plays that are receiving productions around the country, including Small Jokes About Monsters, Mona Q: Age 38, and The Breakup Play.

Alandra Markman is a starseed from the 8th dimension of the Antares system who is here to assist Earth ascension. He is a spiritual guide, poet, musician, and dancer currently based in New York City and New Orleans. He is a multi-disciplinary improviser, healer, and composer. His Poetry Upon Request project has provided over 10,000 patrons with improvised poems at a typewriter. He is a survivor of incest and trafficking by his mother.

Nadia Colburn is the founder of Align Your Story, writing classes and coaching. Nadia holds a PhD from Columbia, a BA from Harvard, is a yoga teacher, a student of Thich Nhat Hanh, activist and mother.  Her writing appears in over seventy publications including The New Yorker, The Boston Globe Magazine, Yes! Spirituality & Health, and elsewhere. 

Katie Simon's writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The New York Times, Longreads, Lenny, The Lily, The Rumpus, Brevity, Health, BuzzFeed, Entropy, Ravishly, BUST, Women’s Health, Hippocampus, and more. She is working on a memoir about the year she contracted the plague bacteria, was raped by a stranger in an alleyway, and found herself in Cairo during the Egyptian Revolution. Katie grew up in Boston, lives in England, and frequently travels elsewhere.

Aisha Fukushima is a singer, speaker, educator, and ‘RAPtivist’ (rap activist). Fukushima founded RAPtivism (Rap Activism), a hip hop project spanning 20 countries and four continents, amplifying universal efforts for freedom and justice. She is a multilingual, multiracial African American Japanese woman who has done lectures and performances everywhere from the United States to France, Morocco, Japan, Germany, England, South Africa, Senegal, India, Denmark and beyond. Fukushima’s ‘RAPtivism’ work has been featured on Oprah Magazine, TEDx, KQED Public Television, The Seattle Times, TV 2M Morocco, The Bangalore Mirror, HYPE, South Africa’s #1 Hip Hop Magazine, and others.