I have such immense gratitude to The Center for Women Writers  and to Elissa Washuta for this award. The piece I wrote, “Madness is Remembering,” deals with my experiences of childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, and antigypsyism. It was really fucking hard to write, and I wrote it like an exorcism. My friends, writers Misha Rai and Emily Alford (check out their work!), encouraged me to enter it into a competition, as did Victor Pachas (musician & artist– look him up too). Without their support it would have sat in the proverbial drawer, proverbial because I never print things out anymore and who even has a printer anyway.

The judge, Elissa Washuta, says this about the essay–

“In this exquisite essay, the narrator is wounded by the double­punch of past trauma compounded by a lover’s new inflictions: the failure to understand rape trauma, the acts that make old pain show up nearly ­new in the body, the incomprehensible violence. Employing an enchanting cadence, stunning figurative language, narrative tension so taut I forgot to breathe, and a bedrock layer of the history of violence inflicted upon Romani family members, the author infuses the page with the dread of intergenerational trauma that makes space for new wounds.”

I’m still floored and humbled– just, thank you.

Right now my essay is still unpublished, so I’m now in the process of finding it a home.

You can and should check out the other winners and honorable mentions here. Congratulations to everyone!

*Photography by Allison Nichols for Loverly and David’s Bridal