In 2012, as a stressed-out graduate student battling imposter syndrome, I attended the Southern Women Writers Conference at Berry College, where Dorothy Allison banged her fist on the podium and told us to write what bleeds. The previous day, Melody Moezzi, an Iranian American journalist, encouraged us to write the stories that are hard to talk about—because those are the important stories. Sitting in that banquet room with silverware clanking as people ate conference chick
