Looking Back, Moving Forward: Writing Well About Trauma

By Jessica Handler

Two hatboxes covered in beautiful malachite-green marbled paper, big around as snare drums, sit high on a bookshelf in my studio. I keep them safely out of my reach until I need them.

My mother stored mementos in those boxes. Yellow Kodak envelopes of family photos, their brown acetate strips of negative tucked into the flaps. Birthday cards that smell of talcum, fading beige Western Union telegrams, typed letters whose return addresses are buildings that no longer st...