These early experiences stick with us, for better or worse, and they mold us into the people we become later in life. Those teenage years can be such a volatile and beautiful time, full of both pain and joy. I’ve always been drawn to the coming-of-age story. As I began to use writing more and more on its own, I was eventually able to make the leap into writing - a move that truly opened up my creative world. But it took many years for me to recognize that what I had been trying to accomplish through visual art was in fact a form of storytelling, and one that would - for me, anyway - be better served with words rather than imagery. I had always used the dual practices of art and creative writing together, as part of a mixed-media approach. Often, it was a way of simply trying to work through my own thoughts and emotions surrounding this topic, to take my feelings of frustration, confusion, anger, and fear and turn them into something constructive. It’s a topic that I’ve carried around for a long time but was never quite sure how it would figure in to my work as a writer.Ĭoming from a background in the visual arts, I had worked with the themes of trauma and sexual violence time and again over the course of a decade. Sexual violence, in particular, is an issue that has always been close to my heart. They are the ones that keep me up at night and inspire me to ask questions, to understand further, and to try to somehow make a difference. These are the issues that fuel me creatively. (Mar.I’ve always felt a need to explore the tough subjects - trauma, violence, social justice.

Agent: Jessica Regel, Foundry Literary + Media. The long-term view Smith takes of Eden’s story makes it all the more satisfying when she does find her voice. It’s painful to watch Eden disintegrate but also true to the double burden she carries-the violation of the rape and the weight of carrying the secret. Smith tracks Eden through her four years in high school, spotlighting her shifting relationship with her friend Mara, the caring boyfriend she lies to, and her increasing acting out with booze and sex. While Eden changes virtually overnight, no one knows what happened-largely, it seems, because no one wants to.

Kevin tells good-girl, band-geek Eden that no one will believe her, and she’s sure that he is right: Kevin is her brother’s teammate and roommate, and her family revolves around her brother. These statistics underpin Smith’s debut, which opens with 14-year-old Eden being raped by her brother’s best friend while her family sleeps down the hall. According to RAINN, the largest anti-sexual-violence organization in the U.S., 80% of rapes are committed by someone the victim knows, and 68% go unreported.

The book the way i used to be