Featured ARTICLES and PERSONAL ESSAYS

• He Had AIDS and I Had Hepatitis C: A Love Story – Marie Claire
• Defriending My Rapist, The New York Times
• 9 Lives for a Weeble, New York Press, AWARD
• After Surviving Rape, I Had an Abortion at Age 14, Woman’s Day
• I Might Not Be Alive Today If It Weren’t for Obamacare, Woman’s Day

SEE ALSO: dorriolds.com/writing/

JOURNALISM

• How AI Changed My Life – TIME magazine
• What Do Those Pesky Cookie Preferences Really Mean, WIRED
• Mass Shooting Survivor Austin Eubanks Talks About Life After Columbine, UPDATE

BOOKS

My short stories and essays are published in 9 Book Anthologies

• City of New York’s Victimology Course Textbook
• My autobiographical short stories and artworks are published in eight book anthologies. I am also included in a ninth book: CUNY (City of New York) textbook for their Victimology course at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. My New York Times essay, “Defriending my Rapist,” was published in print and online and immediately went viral. That’s when my personal essay was added to the required reading lists. I was featured all over the web and in print. I became a sought after speaker for top universities, professional conferences. And I am a proud member of RAINN‘s Speaker Bureau.
• Essentials of Victimology, textbook for City of New York’s Victimology courses
• At Grandmother’s Table
• Power of the Positive
• Easy As A, B, C
• Creative People: What Makes Them Tick
• The Ultimate Christmas Oy, Come All Ye Faithful
• Chocolate Lover’s Soul – Skinny Dotty and Her Chocolates 
• Tea Lover’s Soul – Compassion and a Cannoli
• Chicken Soup for the Recovering Soul

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Register Now to Save!

To learn more about the Conference and How to Join
click here

This year’s New York City conference will be held at the
Sheraton Times Square Hotel
811 7th Avenue at West 53rd Street, New York City.

I owe so much of my full-time freelance writing career to ASJA

Conference Schedule • Friday, May 18 • Members-Only Day

Conference Schedule • Saturday, May 19 • Open to the Public

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

CONFERENCE TRACK CHAIRS

• Aimee Ross
Aimee Ross is the author of Permanent Marker: A Memoir (KiCam Projects, March 2018). She worked as a Regional Educator in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for ten years. In addition, she is a nationally award-winning educator who has been a high school English teacher for the past twenty-five years. @AimeeRoss
• Daniel Jones
Daniel Jones has edited the Modern Love column in the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times since its inception in 2004. His books include “Love Illuminated,” two essay anthologies—“Modern Love” and “The Bastard on the Couch”—and the novel “After Lucy,” which was a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Award. Jones appears weekly on the Modern Love Podcast, which had 20 million downloads in its first year. Jones has appeared on NBC’s Today Show, CBS This Morning, ABC News, CNN and NPR. His writing can also be found in The Times, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar and elsewhere. @DanielJones
• Katherine Reynolds Lewis
Katherine Reynolds Lewis is an award-winning independent journalist, author and speaker. Her book, The Good News About Bad Behavior (PublicAffairs, April 2018), grew out of her school discipline story for Mother Jones that became the magazine’s most-read piece. Katherine contributes to The Atlantic, Fortune, Washington Post and more.

TRACK CHAIRS

The conference theme is based on the three tracks:

Navigate (Beginner). Motivate (Intermediate). Captivate (Advanced).

• Carolyn Crist
Beginning Track Manager and Detailed Overseer @CarolynCrist

• Nancy Dunham
Mid-Career Track Manager and Volunteer Coordinator. @NancyDunham

• Dorri Olds
Advanced Track Chair and Social Media Maven @DorriOlds

Stay tuned for more info about #ASJA2018! Hope to see you there!

The post What to Expect at #ASJA2018 Writers Conference • May 18–19, 2018 • New York City appeared first on Award-Winning Writer and Graphic Designer.

• All Digitocracy
• AXS
• Brain, Child
• Honeysuckle
• Marie Claire
• Meat for Tea
• Sniff & Barkens
• Suburban Life
• Tablet
• Time Out New York
• The Establishment
• The Fix
• The Forward
• Woman’s Day

Not bad, eh? Let’s all raise the bar in 2017. I’m game. In other news, I stepped down from web design to keep writing full-time without having to lose sleep to keep up, I’ve been cured of Hepatitis C thanks to Obamacare, and deepened existing friendships while welcoming new ones. To stay positive in a year with a terrifying political landscape, I have begun a gratitude jar. I write something good that happened on a piece of paper on every single day and drop it into the jar. At the end of the year, I will be able to see 365 days with happiness in them — no matter what happens in the world at large.

And now, I must get back to work. I am adding the final touches to my 124th article for the The Fix, the largest addiction and recovery website. Thank you to my amazing writing mentor Susan Shapiro, American Society of Journalists & Authors, the amazing and supportive members in my weekly writing workshop, my wonderful editors and clients, and all of the amazing women in my private Facebook writing groups.

Here’s to a year of “YES”!

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Facebook suggested I friend him. I guess our social networks overlapped. I guided the mouse toward his photo, and the little pointed hand hovered over his face. Fear and anger swelled up but curiosity won out and I clicked “Add Friend.” He accepted within minutes. Stunned, I wondered if he had forgotten raping me, or if he thought I had.

At 13, I was a lonely upper-middle-class Jewish nerd living on Long Island, in search of a tougher persona. He was part of an edgy crowd that hung out in a parking lot behind the school, sprawling over the cement steps like bored cats on a sofa. It was 1973, and the boys wore black leather jackets, smoked Marlboros and stashed pints of Tango and Thunderbird in their back pockets. One afternoon, making sure my long brown hair covered the blemish on my cheek, I went over and said, “Hi.”

That was really all it took. A few offered nods. One of the girls asked if I wanted to come out with them that night to the cemetery.

“Isn’t that spooky?” I whispered.

She laughed. Her voice had a ring of confidence mine never did, so I went, wearing — against Mom’s orders — a shimmery, low-cut shirt. As dusk fell we ambled past the wrought-iron gates, onto the lawn. The guys set down brown bags with bottles. I reached for the pint of Bacardi. Sweet rum burned my throat. With my eyes closed I was Keith Richards chugging onstage at Madison Square Garden.

“Wow, you can really drink,” he said.

I nodded with fake nonchalance, as if this were my forte instead of my first time. Two other girls wandered off with their boyfriends to make out, leaving me standing alone, feeling like a loser. I grinned in relief when one of the boys waved “c’mere,” as if to confide something. But then the boy grabbed me, clamped his hand over my mouth and threw me on the ground, shoving a knee into my hipbone. At first I thought it was a joke. Then four other guys surrounded me. I realized this had been planned.

With the other boys holding me down, he slammed on top of me.

“Is that how you like it?” he said. His breath stank of cigarettes and beer.

Another boy said, “She may have an ugly face, man, but she has a really nice body.”

I’m not sure which was sadder, that I believed my face was ugly or that I was flattered he liked my body. I tried to scream, but it came out muffled. They laughed. I gagged. They took turns. Then it was over. I pulled myself up, retrieved my pink Hanes and almost fell over getting my foot through the leg hole. I leaned against a tree for balance and tugged up my jeans, and then I started screaming.

One of them said: “Oh, man, this chick is nuts. Let’s go.” And they did.

With a child’s logic, I figured the boys thought I wasn’t a virgin because of my sexy shirt. Too ashamed to confide in my parents or older sisters, I tried to tell a teacher after class one day. I stood by her desk shifting my weight from one foot to the other. But I was afraid of being shunned at school if I reported it, so all I said was “See you tomorrow.”

From those early teen years until my mid-20s, I let boyfriends come and go like subway cars, certain that they would trick and humiliate me. If they liked me too much it scared me away. Loneliness plagued me. When I saw happy couples I wondered, How do they do that? I drank heavily, hoping to forget what had happened. But I couldn’t forget.

Thirty-eight years later, I browsed through the Facebook friends of the boy who was the first to rape me, noticing names I remembered from high school. In his recent photos were snapshots of a boy with his nose and a pretty teenage girl with long silky hair parted in the middle. He gripped a beer while his belly drooped over his jeans. I found some older photos of his wedding, him with a pretty young bride.

The first time I talked about the rape I was 26 and in a therapist’s office. “I can help you,” she said, but it wasn’t a quick fix. I was in my 40s when I met Steve. He had a troubled past too, so we fit. When I buried my face in his hair, the smell, the closeness, made me feel safe. It still does.

Now I clicked back to my rapist’s wall for a link to his wife’s profile and sent her a friend request. I decided that my revenge would be to blow up his marriage. I planned what I’d tell her if she confirmed my request. A montage of memories flooded my head until I felt so queasy I had to lie down.

But when I looked at my computer again, I saw she’d written on my wall. She posted a sideways smiley face and complimented the photos of my dog. How could I tell her? She’d done nothing to me. My rage belonged to her husband.

So I went back to his profile page and typed a private message: “I hope that night has haunted you. I was naïve and a virgin. I see you have a teenage daughter now. Better keep her safe from guys like you.”

I wanted to hate him and hurt him but realized that the only way to be free was to let it all go. When I defriended him I felt strong. The past was the past, and my mouth wasn’t covered anymore.

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Wish I could blame nuclear weapons, a mutant virus or Hitler for the malformation in my Russian Jewish bloodline, but my theory is a suicide gene. That coupled with an inability to bond during difficult times. We held our sorrow separately, a silent pact—if we didn’t put words to it, nothing was awry. With a child’s vocabulary I tried to convey the dark storms in my head, but felt my efforts swept aside. “What the hell does that kid have to be depressed about?” Dad asked. Mom shushed him. I was unglued and my family found me exhausting.

But, I wasn’t the only spooked member of the herd. June 1973, my sister Jenny was fifteen, I was twelve. At dinner, Mommy said, “Please pass the peas.” As Jenny picked up the bowl I stared at her white-bandaged wrists.

“Does it hurt?” I asked softly.

She turned her head down to her plate, her lip quivered.

“A little,” she whispered.

 “Anybody want another Tab?” Mom asked. Before anyone answered, she disappeared into the kitchen.

In our Long Island home generations of ancestors marched in photo display up the foyer walls. I spent hours staring at what a perfect family we appeared to be—Ma, a bestselling self-help author, who looked like Jackie O in jeans, Dad, a radio man with Sinatra’s angular cheekbones and straight white teeth. People often said, “None of you look Jewish.” It was a backhanded compliment meaning we had nice noses and frizz-free hair.

Later that same year, 1973, I stepped on the third rail of the Long Island Railroad and nothing happened. So I stepped on it again. I was under the impression it would electrocute me instantly.

“Hey Kid.” a station worker called out. “You could get yourself killed.”

Next day in Science I asked a classmate, “Hypothetically, what would happen if I accidentally stepped on the third rail?”

“Nothing.” he said. “You’re wearing sneakers. Rubber can’t conduct electricity.”

At fifteen, in 1975, I ran away via the same train rails. Back to my native Manhattan, I’d absconded to escape despair and shake off suburbia. In Greenwich Village I found my Mardi Gras and became a street urchin. One day at West Fourth Street, I jumped a turnstile. While I fled from a cop, the subway tunnel summoned me. The iron rails promised an instant solution to loneliness—death. I looked back to see who or what I was running from. Then, magnetically pulled toward my dead heroes, Jimi and Janis, I jumped down onto the subway tracks in front of an oncoming train. Steel hurtled at me with the promise of ramming, crunching, killing. At the speed of that E train, it hit me I could be maimed and live. Existence would be far worse as an amputee. I squeezed tight against the wall. Blast of horn and screech of metal blew out my eardrums while manic swirls of grit choked off my breath. After the train passed, I followed the rails to the nearest exit and kept running.

Years later, shrinks attributed my morbidity to low levels of serotonin and poor impulse control. My dopamine receptors didn’t light up. That is, until I poured drugs and alcohol on them. Too bad Mom’s bestselling parenting books didn’t have all the answers. Both of us wished she knew what to do. I was missing the brain piece that signals enough. I might have learned to compensate for my genetic predisposition if anti-depressants had been the Tic-Tacs they are today.

In 1977, when I was seventeen, Mom’s brother Carl shot himself in the heart. He died before he fell back on his bed. Ma was angry. Words like selfish and thoughtless circled the air until she put the kibosh on that topic.

Last night, I googled my gene theory—if one family member tried to off themself were others more likely to try? The overwhelming proof shone on my monitor like a spiritual white light. I’d never known how to explain my self-destruction before. Questions regarding my suicidal tendencies seemed as cockamamie as asking me why was I allergic to cats.

At seventeen I was in a car crash. Three died and I almost did too. For years I’d prayed to God to get me the hell out of here, but clearly he’d aimed and missed. Apparently, my envy for the three dead was a peculiar response. Along with other deficiencies, I was told I lacked gratitude. Mom and Dad took me to doctors who fixed my broken bones. My reaction to this miraculous recovery was to guzzle Quaaludes, Valiums and vodka, then I laid down and waited to exit in repose. With no note it would appear accidental, nobody could ever label me selfish. But after two days I popped up again like the egg-shaped toy in a popular commercial, Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down. My response? I took to shooting up coke.

In 1983, more family woes. Dad’s sister wrapped a plastic bag around her head. Her sons were livid but relieved they found her in time. When we got the news, Dad slammed the Arts section down and said, “Jesus H. Christ.”

But it wasn’t all a grim deathwatch waiting for who was going to drop next. There were happy times. Dad worked in radio and cracked us up with on-air bloopers like the Princeton cheerleaders making a big “P” on the field. Ma framed my artwork and gave great birthday parties. At Broadway plays we all sat in orchestra seats.

I remember Ma’s soft hands against my forehead when I was sick. But more vivid is how our hard heads rammed into each other. Brutal words we couldn’t take back, scenes we could not rewind. My rebellion became predictable. I found life and everyone in it unacceptable. It wasn’t a fear of death that disturbed me, it was being stuck here endlessly spiraling down. I ached for a connection more intimate than my Washington Square dealer, but alcohol, amphetamines and acid consumed all of my trust and devotion. 

At 26, in a typical drunken haze, I wept. In my MacDougal Street apartment I cried for Jenny’s scarred wrists, poor Uncle Carl and my own failed attempts. I groped in the dark through ashtrays and bottles, dialed the phone and woke up in rehab. Too late for a do-over, I trudged through twenty years of therapy, the twelve steps and countless chocolates. I sold my first painting, opened a business, got my first dog. In 1994, I bought a one bedroom in Chelsea. By 2003 I’d paid it off. I treated Ma and Dad to dinners and orchestra seats. After years of breakups and a heart like ground chuck, I stopped picking what-was-I-thinking men and finally fell in love. Mine was a quick success story, it only took forty years.

Watching Rise of the Planet of the Apes recently, my adrenalin pumped at the thrill from bloodshed. I laughed at my continued fascination with death—bookshelves packed with true crime, OD’d rockers magnets on the fridge, prayers for the new season of Dexter to start—and the occasional urge to poke a bobby pin into the wall socket just to see what would happen.

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The first time I talked about the rape I was 26 and in a therapist’s office. “I can help you,” the counselor, Mary, said, “but it won’t be a quick fix.” My neck tensed up. I started bouncing my knee. Mary didn’t react. Her eyes were looking into mine: It was time to let go and get better.

At 13 I was a lonely Jewish nerd and straight A student living on Long Island, envious of popular girls who attracted boys. It was 1973 and guys who wore black leather jackets and smoked Marlboros looked hot so when “Elle” asked me to join her friends in the cemetery that night I agreed.

At home I looked for my new clingy shirt that Elle told me to wear without a bra. But it wasn’t there.

I called Mom, “Where’s my new shirt?” She called back: “I hid it. It makes you look…well, slutty.”

When Mom left I found the shirt, put it on and looked in the mirror, staring at my cleavage. I was a woman now. I also wore hip hugger jeans so a sliver of my belly showed. That’s what Elle did and I figured if I dressed right I would get a boyfriend.

When I met Elle and her friends the September sun had set. I thought it was weird to meet in a cemetery, but I was excited to be included. One boy, Willy, was 15, and sometimes we joked around at lunch. As we hung out listening to a big radio, smoking cigarettes and drinking Heinekens and no-name vodka, the girls and their boyfriends wandered off, leaving me alone and feeling like a loser. So when Willy smiled and motioned “c’mere” I practically skipped over.

He grabbed me, clamped his hand over my mouth and threw me on the ground. Then three other boys surrounded me and I realized this was planned.

Two boys pulled my pants down while a third pushed his hand up my shirt and grabbed a breast. He pushed on it hard. A different hand mauled my other breast. My pants were now down by my ankles; two boys pulled off my sneaker to get my pant leg off. They needed to widen my legs. Fingers shoved up me. I felt a penis in my mouth. I tried to scream, but it came out muffled. They laughed. I gagged. They took turns. “You better watch out,” one yelled. “She might bite it off!” They laughed some more and then ran off. It was over.

I pulled my clothes on and ran in a circle screaming. Elle and Bobby ran over and carried me to Elle’s house, where I spent a sleepless night. In the morning, my plan was to forget that night ever happened. I was too ashamed to tell my parents or my two older sisters.

For the next 13 years I lived by silently screaming at my memories. If I hadn’t worn the low-cut shirt, maybe the rape wouldn’t have happened. Telling my parents would’ve meant admitting to my stupidity and I was too proud for that. One day I tried to tell a teacher after class. I stood by her desk shifting my weight from one foot to the other. But I was afraid of being shunned at school if I reported it, so all I said was “See you tomorrow.”

I began drinking Bacardi rum and diet Coke and swallowing speed capsules hoping to forget. I forged Mom and Dad’s handwriting to sign myself out of school early. Then I’d go out on the big field, lie down on my back, and let my mind roam, while I tripped on acid.

I embraced tight sexy shirts and skin hugging pants and by the time I was 15, I was sneaking off to clubs in the city where it was easy to get drugs and find guys who dazzled me like shiny disco globes.

I fancied myself a feminist — if I seduced boys first it gave me the upper hand and they couldn’t hurt me. At home I stared at the poster of my best friend Jimi Hendrix who was dead. But I talked to him because he understood. And I thought of suicide all the time. One day I went to the train station and jumped onto the tracks with a speeding train aimed at me, but I thought about being maimed and not killed. Life would be worse without legs. I sucked my breath and made myself as thin as I could so the train didn’t touch me.

I was obviously troubled so my parents sent me to one therapist after another. But I fooled all of them and was proud of that. I chased euphoria. I swallowed more pills, snorted coke and drank. By 17, I was shooting cocaine. Sometimes I looked at my eyes in the mirror and it scared me how far away I looked. I couldn’t forget how helpless I had felt that night in the cemetery.

Nine years later, I graduated from college, found an apartment in Greenwich Village and landed a job as a graphic artist. But I was still haunted by memories. Alone in my room, I snorted cocaine out of paper packets and drank. One day at six a.m. I came out of a blackout sitting cross-legged on my bed surrounded by ripped photos of my artwork with suicidal song lyrics gouged into them with a ballpoint pen. It was my handwriting, but I had no memory of my actions.

I saw bugs scampering across the bed. No matter how often I blinked they were still there. I would’ve welcomed death at that point, but the fear I was losing my mind hit me so hard I reached over the empty bottles and picked up the phone to call my cousin Ang. She took me to Hazelden rehab in Florida.

That 31-day stay took out my brains, washed them and wrung out the toxins. I talked to my counselor Mary in the quiet room and told her what the boys did and how I had tried so hard to forget. She was the first person to say I had post-traumatic-stress disorder.

Clean and sober and terrified that I couldn’t stay that way, I went back to my life in the Village. I met Maddy who was kind and gentle. We began to hang out and go to parties.   I still dressed for men to look at me and watched their eyes scan my cleavage, my thighs, my face, my legs. At one party Maddy put her black cardigan around me. “Cover up,” she said. The miracle is that when I buttoned it up, I didn’t feel ashamed. I felt loved. I told her about that horrible night.

“You were raped and it wasn’t your fault,” she said. I cried and she hugged me tight.          

The longer I fought to stay sober, the more I learned that talking about the pain was the first thing that would heal me. But I couldn’t open up to my mother until I was 37. Her dark olive skin turned white and she cried. I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and begged her not to tell my father.

By 46 I was sick of the men I’d been choosing. Then I met Steve in a neighborhood movie theater. We got to chatting and I wanted to touch his wispy blond-gray hair. His eyes seemed soft as they looked right into mine. His angular cheekbones looked strong, like I’d be safe with him. He was a writer and he invited me to his Barnes & Noble book reading. It was standing room only. Afterwards I bought a book and Steve grinned when he wrote, “To the prettiest girl.” Our first date was brunch and a movie and we’ve been together ever since. When I told Steve about that night I showed him a photo of me at 13. He teared up and said, “You were such a little girl.” Our first December he gave me a thermal shirt with a card that said, “I want to keep you warm.”

Now, I’m 52 and Steve and I have been married for two years. Like my friendship with Maddy, our bond fills me with courage. Every time we share dark pieces of the past we grow closer. It smells so sweet when I bury my face in his hair.

***

It’s afternoon and I’m rushing to get to a film premiere for press only. I now interview celebrities and review movies and love my work and my hectic life. I reach in my closet,   pick a light blue button-down, and check my camera battery. Just before I leave, Steve comes over and hugs me. He says, “Good luck.” I start to walk towards the door, but he says, “Hey,” and I turn to look at him.  He smiles wide and says, “You look like a pro in that shirt.”

I know he’s right and I smile back.

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Not for sissies but a great book for those who love over-the-top insane humor. It’s a fun fast read and I guarantee you’ve never read anything like it before. There’s a lot to be said for original material in a world where the same formula is written and rewritten over and over again. This sure stands out amongst the crowd. Viewer discretion advised. Here’s an example of a para: “Having foraged on pink-pig-manured, solar-spot-bombarded topsoil-depleted, atmospheric-disturbed, machete-truncated sapling roots, one post-Hurricane Oscar termite colony in the foothills southeast of Port-au-Prince mutated into an army of marauding predators with an insatiable craving for the ‘other’ white meat. You didn’t have to dig deep to unearth their provenance.”

Bet you never read anything like that! Have fun. Read the book.

Synopsis from Gary Buslik’s Website:

“Iranian president Akhmed teams up with the leaders of Venezuela and Cuba and their American intelligence agents to smuggle radioactive matzo balls into Miami Beach. But intelligence being as slippery a concept to these nincompoops as chicken fat on linoleum, when each member of the gang decides to ladle out his own personal nuke soup, holy terror Akhmed is left steaming. Will his plan to destroy America float like a fly or sink like a lead dumpling? Star-crossed lovers, conniving academics, and blustery social climbers collide with ravenous termites, international do-badders, and multi-level marketing in a plot as fast-paced and hilarious as a runaway mountain bus. Roll along with these noodling crockpots as they dribble their way toward international chaos—peppering their antics with mayhem, destruction, and…well, pepper. Radioactivity has never been so much fun.”

Other books written by Gary Buslik include: “A Rotten Person Travels the Caribbean” and “The Missionary’s Position.”

To read more about Gary Buslik visit his website: GaryBuslik.com

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