No Trespassing & Healing Through Creativity Art Festival

August 26, 2008, category

I have been writing creatively since the seventh grade. I have written poetry, prose, vignettes, short stories and have also written two novellas (that I have since lost, thrown out, will never see the light of day) throughout the past nine years. I wrote a vignette in 2007 and let it sit on my hard drive with the rest of my writing–All 100+ pieces that I have chosen to actually keep and let decay on my hard drive. Unlike the rest of my writing, however, one piece in particular, this vignette, has been changing my life in ways I have never even imagined possible. Just a few months ago, I first agreed to let a friend of mine and also a filmmaker, Dany Nieves, make it into a short, spoken word film that became part of a series of short films he has put together entitled ‘Cycle.’

I have spoken about the history of this piece on here once before and have also tried to keep everyone interested up to date on what has been going on with it and with that, I have some more exciting news!

‘Cycle,’ including the piece I wrote for it will be showing at Healing Through Creativity, an art festival for survivors of trauma and supporters of survivors which will include film, poetry, music, art, workshops and a lot more exciting events throughout a nine day festival. At the last Take Back the Night I attended here, a friend of mine commented about Take Back the Night being Christmas for survivors; if that’s Christmas, I can only imagine Healing Through Creativity being the New Years Eve, the bash of the year, for survivors.

The Healing Through Creativity Festival will be held October 10th-19th at The Davis Fine Arts Center at West Virginia State University in Charleston West Virginia. Not only will ‘Cycle’ be shown at the festival, but I will also be reading more of my work there, so it is a double-exciting-news event here. I really can’t encourage anyone who lives in West Virginia or can travel there during this 9 day event to do so enough. It is a great festival that helps the healing process for many, many survivors; plus I’ll be there from October 17th to 19th.

As for ‘Cycle,’ an image of the finished DVD can be seen below. I have the DVD sitting right here on my desk and no matter how many times a day I look at it, it never gets old seeing my name on a DVD, especially for writing; it’s a dream come true in many ways for me and I hope this feeling and this journey never stops.

Because of this DVD, the art festival, stepping forward and confronting my past abuse head on and years into the healing process, I have been greatly inspired to continue confronting my abuse and jumping over the hurdles that come with the healing process. I have always wanted to inspire people and I believe that I have started my journey with this and it certainly isn’t going to stop with this. I have been so inspired and in turn, have become so motivated to do more that I have a new project coming out so check back within the next few days to see the unveiling of that. I can’t tell you how excited I am about it and hope you’ll follow me on this incredibly journey.

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Mother’s Day and the Release of No Trespassing

May 11, 2008, category

film, sexual assault

Today is Mother’s Day and no matter how hard I try to forget about this day, it still manages to come, mock me and leave for another year.

This day is by far a great day for most people–Mothers for one. It is also a great day for people to show their mothers how much they love and appreciate everything that they have done for them. However, sometimes you get that special case where one day out of the year just doesn’t mean the same to someone as it does to others; and Mother’s Day is that day for me.

I have not seen my mother in almost a decade. No, she isn’t dead, but she may as well be. My mother was not like most out there. My mother was a child abuser. She was a child sex trafficker and a child molester. She was (and still is) a drug addict and an alcoholic. I stayed silent about so much that happened during my childhood for so many years and it was last year where I pretty much just deteriorated. My layers of walls that I had spent years of my life perfecting melted away and I started to talk about what I had gone through and that was the best time of my life. I had stayed silent for so long because I was afraid of what people would say, how they would see me and most of all, I was afraid of what the rest of my family would think about me. While I was still in my mother’s custody I had told her that I would tell on her some day and she said that no one would believe me and I believed her.

I still don’t know what the rest of my family thinks. I was never really given the opportunity to speak to them about all of this; whenever the subject of my mother has come up my grandmother would be the first one to say that she didn’t want to hear about anything because it made her upset to even think about what happened. My father, while I love him immensely, has never been one to show or voice his emotions and so the verdict is still out on that one. My aunt had talked to me very briefly about it, after reading an interview I had done with my local newspaper about being a survivor of child sexual abuse. Not being given the opportunity to actually speak to my family about my childhood, I decided to publish it in a newspaper and send it to the doorsteps of 70,000 people living in my area.

While I have undoubtedly progressed in this whole healing process (not to mention being raped when I was 18 at the one and only college party I had ever attended and starting the whole “healing process” over again,) I have quite a ways to go and with that, to further symbolize this day for me, my short film No Trespassing was released today.

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No Trespassing, My First Short Film

April 11, 2008, category

film

I usually keep my creative endeavors pretty secret until there is something super exciting to say about it and this is most definitely super exciting!

I wrote a vignette last year that I had never thought to do much with, especially since most of what I write ends up decaying on my hard drive, but upon meeting and speaking with filmmaker Dany Nieves, we spoke about my writing and he expressed much interest in my piece ‘No Trespassing.’ A month later, I am extremely proud to present the trailer for No Trespassing; the full film is due out on May 11. This film stars Anh Le (so no, that isn’t me in the film) and is produced by 307 Idea Factory.

This film is about child abuse, healing and having the courage to let go of your past and move on to a much brighter future.

* Click on image for full view.

There are some other creative endeavors in the works that will be surfacing here in the next few months, so watch for those and I will also be posting updates about No Trespassing as they happen.

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Watch Searching for Angela Shelton–For Free!

April 5, 2008, category

film, sexual assault

Searching for Angela Shelton is a documentary made by none other than Angela Shelton. It started as a survey of women in America who shared her name, but evolved into a mission to end sexual violence when she found that over half of the women she interviewed for her documentary had been either raped, beaten or molested sometime in their lives. If you haven’t already seen this movie, I cannot urge you enough to buy the DVD, it is absolutely phenomenal. But here’s the best news of all…

During the month of April, which is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, to raise awareness about sexual violence, you can watch Searching for Angela Shelton for free! All you have to do is go to Angela Shelton TV and click on the second tab over on top of the video player, click on “Searching” and the entire movie is the second option down.

I personally love this movie, I’ve seen it no less than 100 times, easy; it’s always the movie I go to when I need to get inspired or motivated to write something inspiring. It brings the comfort needed to survivors to keep going in the fight against sexual violence and it opens the eyes of those who may not know too much about the pandemic that is affecting so many men and women all over the world every day.

Go ahead, Watch the movie!

Some parts may be triggering, so if you find yourself in need of help or support, check out RAINN or the supportive community at After Silence.

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Releasing Lori: Poetry on Self-Mutilation

March 29, 2008, category

film

Self-mutilation is often not given the serious attention it demands; it is often chalked up to teenage angst or a person seeking attention, which is far from the truth.

Self-mutilation has become a major public health concern and affects a large variety of people including men and women ranging from teenagers to adults; although about 75% of self-mutilators are girls and women. It is estimated that 0.75% of the general American population practices self-mutilation.

There are many forms of self-mutilation, such as cutting, burning, hitting, bruising, biting, pulling or picking at skin and pulling one’s own hair. There are many causes of self-mutilation, such as the result of strong negative emotions and feeling the need for the outside to represent the inside of one’s self as well as technique for triggering the body’s biochemical responses to pain.

Those who self-mutilate often find comfort in the arts, such as writing poetry in order to rid themselves of their emotions and what drives them to commit such acts to themselves.

Here is another short film by filmmaker Dany Nieves, whom I’ve featured on this website once before with Alison’s Cycle.

Releasing Lori is another short film from Nieves with poetry by Alison Floersch, read by Lori Beaty. It speaks about the painful truths revolving around those who self-mutilate and the emotions behind it. It is a must-see film for those who currently or have self-mutilated in the past as well as for anyone who has been affected by it or just want to know more about this public health crisis.

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Happy International Women’s Day!

March 8, 2008, category

international

International Women's Day It’s International Women’s Day!

“International Women’s Day has been observed since in the early 1900’s, a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies.”

For history on International Women’s Day, click here and for web casts, news, events and logos up for download, go to the official International Women’s Day website.

International Women’s Day, to me, means a great deal. The jobs of women across the world are far from done. While women have seen great success in the last 100 years or so, they have fought tooth and nail for every bit of that success and we are still seeing administrations who are threatening to revoke our rights not only here, but in other countries as well and the women of Afghanistan, in particular, are not seeing the changes that were promised to them, making Afghanistan one of the most dangerous places in the entire world to be female.

When speaking about International Women’s Day with a friend of mine, filmmaker Dany Nieves, who for the record is a man, had this to say:

“I am a man but I also understand the dynamics of society. Men do have the supposed power and use it for evil. After thousands of years of civilization and male dominance, great turmoil still exists. The basic question to be asked is “Is rule by men good for society?” It isn’t. We are born to a maternal world and it should be that way. Women can make good choices and keep society in check. Of course, men should also be more involved with issues they don’t want to deal with, like women’s issues.”

Women have a great deal to contribute to the world and in some countries, women are being applauded and urged to go forward with their work for equality and for women everywhere, even for the women who live in parts of the world where their voices cannot be heard and who are treated not as second-class citizens, but as third and fourth class. International Women’s Day is for all women, everywhere–It is one day where we must really reflect on our history and the history of women and applaud those who have been activists and who have fought in the present as well as in the past for the liberties and freedom that we have as well as raise awareness for those who do not.

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Third Edition of Feminism at its Finest

January 13, 2008, category

Feminism at its Finest

feminism at its finest blog carnival The third edition of Feminism at its Finest is here! This week was a great turnout, a lot more than I expected. Thanks to everyone who contributed.

Firstly, my favorite feminist post I’ve seen this past week is from Cara of the The Curvature. In Whose Abortion? she talk about a new men’s rights, anti-abortion movement that seeks to change political and personal language from “I had an abortion” or “she had an abortion” to “We had an abortion.” This is definitely a must-read; I know I was seething from beginning to end!

Madeleine Begun Kane presents a great little piece on bras, Keeping Abreast Of Bras. Bras…a subject I am all too familiar with, yet not so familiar with at the same time. I know I hate them, I even know how much I hate them! This and much more is at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog.

D Robinson wrote a post warning people about an incredibly offensive T-shirt website that completely degrades women and uses their merchandise as their little sexism playground. Men behaving badly: sexist t-shirt slogans.

She also presents a post, ‘Right to Life’ bias in pregnancy counseling, which talks about anti-abortion pregnancy centers and pro-life extremists, citing a specific website, Pro-Life Victoria. This website has pictures of alive children and of course, being the extremists they are and carrying the entire pro-life “movement’s” belief that women have no idea what they are doing or are too unintelligent to care when seeking an abortion, aborted fetuses. For this, I issue a trigger warning because these types of pictures, while unnecessary and uncalled for, are rather disturbing. Both of these posts can be seen at Australian Women Online.

Vishal Gupta wrote a post, along with every other person in the blogosphere, about the one woman getting the most publicity in the media, Hillary Clinton. Iron my shirt?- Sexism and Leadership is posted at A Business Professor’s Weblog.

Megan Bayliss presents a great post on the traveling bra project that All For Women have going on right now, All for women, two sheilas and under cover BRAvery. She says:

Some women wear their bras on the inside, some on the outside. I wore mine up the street, in full view, as a consciousness raising walk about women’s issues and the circle of friendship between women the world over. Who stopped to talk to me about the bra - WOMEN.

Read this post at Imaginif child protection became serious business.

blue skelton presents Slippery Slope Movie Trailer, a trailer for a movie about Sarah Shenck and her dream to direct meaningful movies with a feminist message, but desperate for finances, finds herself directing a porno film. Could be interesting, especially if done right. This can be seen at Blue Skelton Publications.

For all of the business women or business women hopefuls out there, Bonnie Krueger has a post about business grants and loans–Where Do Women Go To Find Business Grants Or Loans? This is posted at Women Personal And Business Loans.

This week’s turn out was great! Thanks to everyone who submitted their posts, you can start submitting any feminist posts you may have for next week’s carnival!

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