Francisco's book focuses on her personal journey with rape, and the students in both classes sat focused intently on her as she recounted aspects of the rape itself, the effect it had on her interpersonal relationships, and her emotional and physical recovery. I found her words very powerful and being so close to her while she discussed such a traumatic event was overwhelming. Francisco, a fiction writer who teaches creative writing at Hamline University, wrote Telling 15 years after a stranger raped her. She was very open and frank with the students, reading passages from the book and fielding questions about fear, marriage, and societal and cultural stigmas.
Rape is the unspeakable crime.
I realized there were no stories from women who had traveled down the long road of recovery-we hadn't discovered a language for that yet. Francisco advised the students, who are working on their own memoirs and whose topics range from relationships with parents to struggles with disease and addiction, that finding the appropriate voice and time span is essential. I didn't want readers to relive my rape in a visceral way. In the process, writing the book became a transforming event in her own life. She told the student writers that writing a memoir is challenging because it means you have to write about something in an interesting way for someone who doesn't share your memories.