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May 8, 2023Liked by Jeannine Ouellette

your tenderness, your insistent honesty, the authenticity of the child and adult narrator's voices, your exquisite prose, your ferocious love for your childhood self, the light you shine in dark places ... what gifts these things are. What a gift you are.

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Oh, Jeannine, this is mind-blowingly powerful. I am so glad you wrote it, for you, for everyone who needs to understand the layers of child sexual abuse and the way it arrows forward and back at the same time. Love to you and also awe that you have done the work to understand the trauma and use such beautiful words to tell this story.

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Billie--you cannot imagine, truly, how much this means coming from you. Thank you with all my heart.

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May 9, 2023Liked by Jeannine Ouellette

This is inspiring thank you. I’m working on a podcast episode about just this thing... in my family of origin. And your writing has inspired me to go back in and continue doing the work despite my unavoidable and occasional doubts that no one will listen and nothing will change.

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If you would ever like to talk about this with me on your podcast, I'd be happy to. Someone over on Twitter just said "It’s incredibly sad that the repellence is almost always directed towards survivors - not the abusers" and I think that's such an important and often ignored angle of this topic. Thank you for reading. It means a lot.

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May 8, 2023Liked by Jeannine Ouellette

You give me courage to write the hardest things. TY

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May 7, 2023Liked by Jeannine Ouellette

Wow. The importance of this being out in the world, and with your previous essay being back out for submission, will no doubt be compounded through those who read it, those who speak up, those who LISTEN, those who might act when they otherwise would not have. there's so much power in your sharing of these layered and complicated experiences.

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author

Thank you Krystyna. With the very tight word limit for this exceptionally complex story, this was certainly an exercise in “saying the thing itself.”

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May 7, 2023Liked by Jeannine Ouellette

The space constraint is palpable but your meaning and voice are clear and strong.

After our recent call, I was definitely hearing your 'teacher voice' in one ear while taking in your 'essayist / storyteller voice.'

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founding

Reading your work gives me so many things - hope, inspiration, resolve, ferocity, determination, affirmation to name a few. So grateful I found you.

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author

Thank you so much for saying this — it means more than you know, especially today.

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founding

I watched your reading. I believe, with all my heart, mind, and soul, that we women who are writing these important and hard stories are recreating the world.

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Jeannine, I am so glad I found you. You are a gift to the writing community and a gift to survivors. You lit expansive fires and soften the sharpest edges. Words are not enough to express my gratitude.

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The repetition of this question - is it your fault - worked so brilliantly. Fact-checked by family member experiences range from IRS audit to arrested and guilty until proven innocent. The narrator's voice of experience pulls me in to listen deeply, like a whisper, a prayer.

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author

Thank you so so much, Jill. And, I will be in touch via email soon! xoxoxo

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