How to tell your own authentic stories while also supporting marginalized voices

As an author, I believe that I have a responsibility to create diverse works that do not present the world as a one-dimensional space where only certain people are welcome to exist. This can be a tricky balancing act for a white writer like myself. I want my novels to be diverse, but I also do not want to unknowingly reinforce stereotypes that I may not be aware of. I do not want to cross the line into cultural appropriation or telling stories about experiences that may not align with my own. For the past few years, I have been taking an #ownvoices approach to this subject, and I feel like I have learned a lot from the experience.

My novel If You Didn’t See It Coming is an example of an #ownvoices book even though people of color are not at the forefront of the story. It’s an accounting of marginalized characters (namely women) involved in domestic violence situations, many of which are inspired by my own experiences with a violent abuser. Although the characters are fictional, and their stories are not a retelling of my own story, it still illustrates the struggles of a marginalized group of people.

Because I was telling the story from my own perspective, the main characters are all white. There is very little intersectionality of identities because I was telling the story from the perspective of a cis white woman. However, I did consider representation and intersectionality while writing the novel. I considered making my main characters more diverse, but I didn’t feel right about trying to write what I consider to be someone else’s story.

When they say, “It’s not a gun problem, it’s a mental health problem”

I am so tired of waking up each morning and turning on the news to yet another mass shooting in the United States. I’m even more tired of hearing people argue that “It’s a mental health problem, not a gun problem.” Oh yeah? So what are ya’ll going to do about that mental health problem, then?

Hi, my name is Mandy Webster, and I survived domestic violence.

My sister survived domestic violence too, as have several of my aunts and cousins, whether they care to admit it or not. I have a vivid memory of visiting an aunt when I was child, of one of my cousins showing me a hole in the wall and telling me, “My dad did that.” I am currently watching a niece grapple with a coercive control situation that will likely become violent, if it hasn’t already. If we don’t find a way to help her escape, she might end up like our cousin who didn’t survive domestic violence. In 2019, that cousin’s ex-husband murdered her in cold blood, shooting her in the back and head multiple times while their five-year-old played in the next room.

Yes, I am quite familiar with domestic violence. But I don’t let my experiences with domestic violence define me. Instead, I have worked hard to define it. I’ve talked to lots of survivors, read books on the subject, and even took a criminal justice studies course on intimate partner violence to try to understand how this could have happened to me. I watched The Perfect Victim and consumed Maid (both the book and the Netflix series), and read countless memoirs written by my fellow survivors. I want to understand and expose family violence in the hopes that I can help someone else save themselves the same way I saved me.

I saved me.

I’ve often considered writing a memoir about my experiences and might still do so. The problem is, like many PTSD suffers, I struggle to pin down the memories of what happened through those ten years of trauma. Sometimes it feels like my body remembers more than my brain does. The memories often come in disjointed flashes when I care to think about them the least.

Single, Never Married

I’m a dedicated Swagbucks addict, which means I participate in online surveys on practically a daily basis. As most surveys do, these usually collect your typical demographic data, such as sex, race, gross annual income, and marital status. These should be relatively easy questions to answer, but I’ve often hesitated when I came upon the marital status question. I know what the technical answer is, but I have strong feelings regarding what I feel is my “real” answer.

The marital status question typically gives the survey respondent the options of married, divorced, something regarding living with someone you’re not married to, and single/never married. Technically, I was legally married at one time, and I was then legally divorced after about ten years of said legal marriage. However, when I look back upon that marriage, I don’t feel as though I was ever actually “married.”

I have a stalker

I don’t particularly enjoy airing my dirty laundry in public. But as I am often fond of saying, you can’t fix a hole in the floor by throwing a rug over it. Sometimes you have to expose a problem to deal with it. So, that’s why I’m here today, writing to you about my stalker.

You can’t fix a hole in the floor by throwing a rug over it.

A few years ago, I made the mistake of dating someone who lived in the same apartment complex that I lived in. It was a relationship of convenience. I had no money to pay my heat bill, and his house was always warm. The guy was a good cook, and I like to eat. I had no cable, but he did. So, the long weekends spent getting used to not having my kids with me every other weekend while they were at their dad’s went a little bit faster. Besides, the whole thing really pissed my ex off, which was a huge plus. In fact, I probably would have broken it off with this dumbass a lot sooner than I did if my ex-husband had just minded his own business.

In the Victims’ Best Interest: Is a Joint-Custody Arrangement Appropriate when Intimate Partner Violence is a Factor?

Good morning, everyone! I just published my final paper for my Family Violence course on Scribd. I’m not sure what’s going on with the spacing. For some reason, there is no space between paragraphs at all. I looked all over my document and can’t figure out what I did different this time. At any rate, here it is:

View this document on Scribd

Cross Cultural Perspectives on Family Violence: A Reflection

My summer course has not yielded quite as much writing material as I had hoped it might. I have entered the final week of class and have submitted all coursework as of this morning. All I have left to do now is take the final exam, and I can put one more course behind me! Today I would like to share my weekly reflection paper to give you an idea of some of the more important issues discussed in this course.

Why doesn’t she “just leave?”

My understanding from all of the readings and other materials from this course is that it is very rare for batterers to ever change their behaviors, let alone as a response to court-ordered interventions. A batterer has to honestly admit to his wrongdoing, be held accountable for the damage he has caused, and make a personal commitment to change in order to stop his abusive behaviors.


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Most court-ordered treatment programs are frequented by batterers who are only doing what they have to do to meet the court’s minimum requirements. It is highly unlikely that the batterer will stop abusing his victim under such circumstances. In most cases, the best possible outcome for the victim is to successfully leave the relationship for good. Unfortunately, it is not as simple as “just leaving.”

Lit Review: Who should be held accountable for failure to protect children from domestic violence?

“North Hampton is a Domestic violence free-zone” (Massachussetts) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hello! I am continuing my literature review today for my summer course, “Family Violence: Cross-Cultural Perspectives.” Today’s article examines cases in which victims of domestic violence have lost custody of their children for failing to protect them from being exposed to violence in the home. You may read the full article here.

Harris, L. J. (2010). Failure to Protect from Exposure to Domestic Violence in Private Custody Contests. Family Law Quarterly, 44(2), 169-195.

Child custody arrangements in the United States have evolved a great deal over the past fifty years. Prior to the 1970s, a joint custody arrangement was not an option for most families. In most cases, the custody of the children would have been awarded to the primary caregiver, who was often the mother. In the late 1970s, with the advent of the father’s rights movement, many states began to enact laws allowing divorcing parents to share legal custody of their children. With these changes in place, it wasn’t long before family courts were faced with the necessity of determining whether a joint custody arrangement was in the best interests of children in cases that involved domestic violence.

Is co-parenting possible when one parent is a batterer?

In today’s literature review, I take a look at an article by Dana Harrington Conner, Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Delaware Civil Law Clinic at the Widener University School of Law. In this article, the author outlines several factors that make co-parenting between a batterer and his victim unmanageable at best. You may review the full article here.


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Conner, D. H. (2011). Back to the Drawing Board: Barriers to Joint Decision-Making in Custody Cases Involving Intimate Partner Violence. Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy, 18(2), 223-260.

In this article, Conner argues that a joint-custody arrangement when intimate partner violence is a factor inherently goes against the children’s best interests. A joint-custody arrangement may only be successful when both parents are able to freely communicate their opinions and cooperate to make decisions about their children. This type of arrangement may only exist in a situation where the balance of power is relatively equal between the two parties.

When your summer paper-writing requires a trigger warning

This summer, I am taking an online course titled “Family Violence: Cross-Cultural Perspectives” as part of my coursework for a graduate certificate in Women and Gender Studies. So far, my homework has consisted of a great deal of reading and responding to questions about the readings. Thus, I haven’t really written anything that could easily be shared here. I have to start working on my final paper though, so that is about to change!


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This course is a criminal justice course rather than my usual writing and/or literature courses, so I am trying to wrap my head around APA style again. I haven’t used APA since I finished business school in 2008! Luckily my professor has provided us with a couple of sample papers to help get us started. After reviewing these papers, I think I have a clear picture of where I want to go with my paper.