
“It’s a strange thing when the highest praise you can offer for someone’s work is, “I wish this didn’t exist,” but that was the refrain that echoed in my head after I read Meggie Royer’s third book. As fans of her work know, Meggie takes the universal and makes it personal. With The No You Never Listened To, she takes the personal and makes it universal. As a sexual assault survivor, Meggie is well-acquainted with trauma: the aftermath, the guilt, the anger. She has never shied away from taking Hemingway’s advice – write hard and clear about what hurts – and that strength has never been more of an asset than with this body of work. The No You Never Listened To is the book you will wish you’d had when trauma climbed into your bed. It is the book you will give to friends who are dragged from their “before” into a dark and terrifying “after”. And yes, it is the book you will wish didn’t exist. But it is also the one that will remind you, in your darkest moments, where the blame really belongs. It will remind you that your memory will not always be an enemy. And it will remind you that none of us have ever been alone in this.” – Claire Biggs To Write Love on Her Arms Editor / Writer
Author

Meggie Royer is a Midwestern writer, domestic violence advocate, and the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Persephone’s Daughters, a literary and arts journal for abuse survivors. She has won numerous awards for her work and has been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize. She thinks there is nothing better in this world than a finished poem. Royer is the author of the viral 2015 poem, "The Morning After I Killed Myself," which has since been shared nearly 7 million times and has been the inspiration for hundreds of additional poems, short films, and art projects by other artists.