News/Events

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LOUDfence UK/International activities! I participated in my first LOUDfence in Cardiff UK in October 2023, followed by another in Newcastle UK in March 2024 — for which I wrote a commissioned poem. In April 2024 I travelled to Wheeling West Virginia to help launch LOUDfence in the USA. I value this ‘quiet activism’ hugely. Everywhere we go we are moved, and met by survivor and survivor allies who long to be seen, believed — and listened to. It is vital that we confront and take action to prevent the incidence of CSA within all institutions and — as in my case — in families. LOUDfence is determined to contribute to this cultural shift, while holding space and bearing witness for survivors who may never have had a voice. Founded in the UK by CSA survivor Antonia Sobocki, the movement is expanding swiftly. And making a tangible impact.

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Wonderful news on 1 March 2023: my memoir work from Leaving Locust Avenue (formerly Learning to Survive), about Child Sexual Abuse and my subsequent healing, is a Highly Commended winner of the Bridport Memoir Awards 2022! Taboos around CSA certainly still exist, and there is very little memoir work published about ‘everyday’ or familial sexual abuse. Yet there are 11 million survivors of CSA in the UK alone, 90% of whom were abused by someone in or close to the family. I am grateful and heartened that the Bridport judges valued my story; this is an international, prestigious competition, open to all unpublished memoirists. The judges could have turned away, as so many in daily life do, choosing ‘not to think about it’. But they didn’t, and this makes all the difference. Thank you.

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On 26 July 2022, I was interviewed by author Lucinda Hawksley for Goldster, on their Purpose, Passion, Grit series. I spoke about Child Sexual Abuse — my own, and in general — and delivered a reading from my memoir LEARNING TO SURVIVE. It was a tangibly engaged and intense audience, with several unexpected close family disclosures of sexual abuse. Ultimately, we must raise awareness, acknowledge CSA, and break through the accompanying silence and stigma. Doing nothing is tantamount to allowing abuse to continue. The Goldster link is here, and free to access. There is also a YouTube link of the interview:

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