Guest Post: Cheryl Rainfield on Writing Bravely

By Cheryl Rainfield
for Cynthia Leitich Smith's Cynsations

I’ve always had a strong need to break the silence about abuse and oppression, and to speak my truth.

Even my abusers, who repeatedly threatened to kill me if I talked, couldn’t shut down that part of my spirit.

I just found another way to do it while they abused me—not through verbal speech, through “talking,” but through art and writing. There lay healing, release, and freedom. There lay reaching out to other people, trying to find saf...