I am alive today because someone wrote a book about the horrors they went through as a child.  It let me know I was not alone, so I was able to gather the will to go on living.

Should that artwork not have existed, I would not be here, or I’d be a writhing, drugged mess in a mental ward.  I thank God for the writer who told a story that few others wanted to hear.

Now I’m on the other side, hearing similar stories from people who’ve read my book.  I only allowed myself to write it after I knew I had a fuller picture, beyond the fear, including hope for healing; but in the middle, it’s not “pretty.”

When some claim that the highest or only aspiration of Art is sublime beauty, I think of Neils Bohr who  said, “The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth” – giving me permission to tell my less-than-pretty stories.  Thanks for listening.