the literary life INDELIBLE43 POETS & WRITERS^claim the #MeToo hashtag, and then
the slogan was everywhere. As I men-
tioned, I’ve been battling this topic on
the page my entire writing life, and I
can tell you for certain that my work
and these subjects weren’t terribly
popular for most of that time. One
editor of a major poetry press called
my book “crass.” And then suddenly
I was a “#MeToo poet” and Landscape
was a “#MeToo book,” and it felt very
strange. It also helped sales, which I
refuse to complain about or down-
play because I’m proud of my work
and want people to read it. But I was
also horribly trolled. People accused
me of exploit ing my ow n t rauma, and
Amazon even recategorized my book
into the “adult” section, which made
it unfindable in most searches for a
while. I mean, there’s definitely a lot
of sex in the book, because it turns out
that women who have been victims of
violence can also enjoy sex. That’s a
tough one for a lot of people to un-
derstand. But all of this is what hap-
pens when a woman tries to reclaim
her body for herself, I suppose. In any
case, I think a lot about what Tarana
Burke said to the Los Angeles Times
the day after the #MeToo hashtag had
blown up in 2017: “Somebody asked
me, does this [campaign] amplify your
work? And it does in a certain way,but also when this hashtag dies down,
and people stop thinking about it, I’ll
still be doing the work.” That is pretty
much how I felt, and feel.Oria: I’ve been thinking a lot about
the role books like Indelible can play,
both in readers’ and writers’ lives, in
shaping the conversation we’re having
at crucial cultural moments. Were you
already working on the piece you con-
tributed to Indelible when I reached
out to you, or did the solicitation from
McSweeney’s inspire the work?Schappell: I had been trying for
months to write a short story that
would capture the tension that exists
between women who have chosen
different ways to deal with having
been raped. Not all women experi-
ence trauma the same way. That was
important to me. But I couldn’t do
it. The characters weren’t talking to
each other; the form was wrong. So I
chose to write an essay, but the essay
was terrible. And after watching Dr.
Blasey Ford’s testimony, it felt cheap
and dishonest. In fact, I think now,
maybe I wanted it to be rejected, but it
wasnt, which made everything worse.
I really wanted to write the story I’d
started. It’s one of the most challeng-
ing stories I’ve ever written. It keptevolving, changing, and surprising
me, and that’s the piece that appears
in Indelible. I could never have done
it without support from you and the
other editors.Chen: It was only because McSwee-
ney’s really preferred a new piece to
something I’d already written that I
tried to take this on. And it was hard.
I spent weeks tossing out first lines
and first paragraphs. As an essayist,
I wanted to state more than just the
facts. I wanted to give more than an
account of a thing that happened,
a thing I was also terrified of being
judged for. To me, I think every per-
sonal essay I write is a way to reckon
with something that’s happened; I
think of each as a letter to another
version of myself, the self that doesn’t
yet have the benefit of space or time.
The essay I ended up with became a
way to be honest about all the things I
had been running away from while ac-
knowledging that I didn’t have any an-
swers on what to do with those things
now that I’d turned my gaze toward
them. I always hope that if I can be
vulnerable and honest—if I can allow
space for the uncertainty that says, “I
don’t have all the answers, but here’s
what I do have”—then an audience will
see a way in that space to reckon withContributors to
Indelible in the
Hippocampus
include (clockwise
from upper left)
Elissa Schappell,
Karissa Chen,
Lynn Melnick, and
Kaitlyn Greenidge.sc
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