I will never forget the female agent at a writer’s conference who said to a room full of writers, “If I have to read one more story about rape, I’m going to stab myself in the eye. Seriously stop submitting rape stories. We’re inundated.”

I was shocked and a little sick to my stomach after that. If it’s not going away in the real world, why would/should it go away in writing. Also, f*ck you ( the agent, not you) for treating rape like an up or down commodity.

I say this as a woman who has been raped, and as a writer who writes about it as a way to shed light on something that is still a disease in this world. One that won’t be fixed if writers/victims are silenced.

No two stories are the same. Please don’t let anyone silence you, least of all the gatekeepers.