In Indelible in the Hippocampus: Writings From the Me Too Movement  (McSweeney’s, September), a diverse contingent of writers—including black, Latinx, Asian, queer, and trans women—offers fiery responses to gender-based harassment and violence. The collection uses humor, ire, and insight to show that by recording and retelling #MeToo stories, we can, as contributor Quito Ziegler says, start to “see through the turbulence to the light ahead.” Our reviewer notes that Indelible “functions as an empowered testament and treatise, a book for anyone interested in social justice.” We talk with editor and contributor Shelly Oria about the catalyst for the collection and her hopes for its impact.

Indelible in the Hippocampus, a multigenre collection, uses a range of styles and tones—wry, revelatory, funny, devastating, serious, seriocomic, informative, galvanizing. How do you hope it might change or inform the way readers view the #MeToo movement?

Um, can I use this list of adjectives as a blurb for Indelible? I love it.

One of my hopes in this context is that the book reaches some folks that maybe haven’t been too interested in the #MeToo conversation until now. Quite a few people (well, white, straight men) have told me in the last few months that they’re looking forward to reading Indelible even though the topic doesn’t interest them much, simply because they spotted some names on the list of contributors they admire. Something I love about the book is just how stylistically diverse it is—because of the mix of genres you mentioned but also because you get extremely personal accounts next to essays that are more like think pieces (and they will make you think, potentially even alter your thinking), gut-wrenching moments next to flat-out funny ones, etc. That, too, I hope, is a trait of the book that makes it easier for different types of readers to engage. And when you engage, you’re having a conversation and participating in the larger one.

I don’t know that that’ll happen, of course; changing minds, even just a few, or making some people consider a new perspective—that’s a big, heavy weight to put on the shoulders (spine?) of a pretty small book. But if it does happen, if I hear from some readers that Indelible made them see or get something they didn’t before—well, then I’ll feel like we’ve done our part.

How did the collection come about?

The book came about when I emailed Kristina Kearns—then Executive Director of McSweeney’s—asking if she’d like to publish a short story I’d recently finished. This was October 2017, soon after Harvey [Weinstein was first accused of sexual assault]. I never imagined #MeToo would become the global movement it’s become; I assumed the conversation and revived hashtag would stay in the news for a week at most. That story I’d written, But We Will Win, is told from the point of view of a woman whose ex-girlfriend ran into traffic to escape sexual street harassment. The narrator began murdering men on occasion after that as a way of coping with her grief and rage. It’s a commentary—though that’s perhaps a bit reductive—on the anger women have had to swallow for so long and also a metaphor for the necessity to ruin some existing structures to make room for the new.

I emailed Kristina thinking I should try to publish this timely story of mine as soon as I could. My email started an exchange between us; pretty soon we were talking about a book, and soon after she asked if I’d be the editor.

Throughout the collection, narrators gain strength from recounting or reframing #MeToo moments; for example: “It starts when you say it in words, that first push of bravery. The shock of hearing yourself tell another human: I was raped.” What is it about storytelling that allows for this alchemy?

There’s such power in language and in the written word in particular. I also work as a life and creativity coach—I’ve had my private practice for over a decade now—and so much of the work I do with clients involves various types of assignments they complete in writing. For most people—people, not just writers—writing is a necessary path to healing. Or at the very least, speaking, and naming. Trauma can never shift form if it’s stuck inside our head.

The #MeToo movement, as essential as it is, doesn’t really address the sexual assault faced by people of color and trans and gender-nonconforming communities. Is that something you wanted to counter in Indelible?

Oh, absolutely. This is such a messed-up brand of exclusion: women of color, queer and trans women, so many women who deal with gender-based bias and violence on a daily basis, fell outside the parameters of acknowledgment and discourse because the narrow idea the movement initially put forth for the type of woman who gets harassed or assaulted was “Beautiful Straight White Cis Woman Actress.” And of course everyone was talking about the hashtag as though it was something new, so there was also a lot of erasure of Tarana Burke’s work, who’d started the movement back in 2006. In light of all that, it’s safe to say inclusivity was a top goal for us in assembling writings for Indelible.

Karen Schechner is the vice president of Kirkus Indie.