24 March 2017

While on a Fulbright grant in Nicaragua, I met a woman whose story of courage blew me away. She agreed to give me the honor of telling her story. After a series of interviews, I wrote a first-person account from her point of view. It was published as an “as-told-to” memoir in The New York Times Magazine‘s beloved “Lives” column.

As the judicial secretary in a court devoted to domestic violence cases, I transcribe everything said in our hearings. So I remember the day this one couple came in. They arrived at the courthouse well dressed. The husband was large and stocky, and the wife was in slacks and a blouse, thin and fair-skinned, with curly hair and a delicate face. She looked frightened.

Keep reading at The New York Times Magazine