"From Trauma to Healing"

In MacCurdy's essay, she talks about the relationship between trauma and memories. She argues that trauma stays with us as snippets of memory rather than the more linear thoughts of everyday life. MacCurdy believes that the best writing comes from healing, because the writer is able to take those ragged emotions and memories associated with the trauma and translate them into another story.

I thought this chapter was really interesting, especially when you consider how a writer is educated. In all of our writing classes, we are asked to write in scene, using vivid images and senses to put the reader in the same space as us. I think these traumatic memories are the stuff that makes up a scene and is why we remember them in such small and vague snippets. MacCurdy's desire for good writing to be healing goes along with the same idea, because the writer is able to get their emotions and memories in order so they can rewrite the story, a story that the reader can then relate to.

I agree with MacCurdy that good writing comes from healing because these traumatic memories an only be made un-traumatic when they are processed and understood--much like the other chapter in this book-- in order to take back the incident and heal.