Jen Cross has been writing about trauma and desire for fifteen years. She tours nationally with the Body Heat queer femme porn tour, and her work has been included in a number of anthologies and magazines, including Women in Lust, The Healing Art of Writing 2010, Visible: A Femmethology (Vol. 1), Best Sex Writing 2008, Nobody Passes, and Naughty Spanking Stories A-Z 2. Since 2002, Jen has facilitated sexuality and trauma survivors’ writing workshops in the SF Bay Area and at colleges and organizations across the country. Find out more, and read her blog, at writingourselveswhole.org.
Read Jen Cross
[sticky octopus of depression
Date: February 28, 2023, 11:21 am
Another thing I learned back in high school -- when the Bad Things seemed like they'd truly never end -- is that time was going to keep moving forward, and the next day (or sometimes even the next minute) would bring something new. I learned to wait to see what was going to happen next. Continue reading
Silence or caesura?
Date: February 15, 2023, 10:56 am
Our voices get to be music and rhythm, they get to be poetry and bread, they get to be keening and the shredded screams of the vengeful. We get it all. And if "social media" doesn't want it or can't hear it and if the journals and editors aren't able to comprehend, we still share our songs amongst ourselves. Continue reading
AWA facilitators – join me for a conversation about writing with trauma next weekend!
Date: October 2, 2022, 6:40 pm
Join me for an AWA post-certificate training about writing with trauma next Saturday, 10/8! Continue reading
it’s ok to feel whole in our skin
Date: March 3, 2022, 11:07 am
Doing all right doesn’t mean that any of the harm done to us was ok. Doing all right doesn’t mean that we are ok with the fact that someone (or more than one sometime) decided it was acceptable to put their hands on us and break us apart for their use. For me, today, being ok means having made it long enough and far enough in this process of healing that I can step away from that rage and know I am still whole. Continue reading
What we were looking for
Date: February 28, 2022, 10:54 am
That moment, when it comes, is like a lightning bolt across the skies of our inside selves. Everything illuminated, singed, changed — even if it still takes a little while before that change manifests outside ourselves, even if it takes a little while before we start to take the steps we could see burning bright ahead of us when the lightning struck. Continue reading
