On HuffPost Live

hey buddies,

Here's me, talking to you, on a HuffPost Live episode called "No Easy Choices." The segment covers personal abortion experiences and also features my pro-voice friends Aspen Baker and Natalia Koss-Vallejo, as well as Sarah Tuttle-Singer and Kate Blanchard.

xx

K

San Francisco is Pro-Voice

Photo Credit: Reny Photography

Dear San Francisco Bay,

I wore a striped sequins dress for you, because you’re so special, and I love your folks.

By which I especially mean the folks of Exhale, the pro-voice organization that supports all people with abortion experiences. You might have noticed the drumbeat pulse of the city on October 4th, when Exhale threw a party celebrating their ten-year anniversary. That night, they honored Aspen Baker, the executive director of Exhale, for spearheading the operation a decade ago and being amazing ever since; they honored Bridget Carpenter, an executive producer for Friday Night Lights, for writing an episode about abortion called “I Can’t”; they honored Carolina Gonzalez-Villar for volunteering ten years of her life to Exhale’s talkline callers; and hey, they even gave me the Pro-Voice Storyteller Award. THANK YOU, EXHALE!

A huge part of my healing involves showing love to the people who have walked through abortion. I show love by telling my story. The pro-voice movement gave me the courage to do that. A pro-voice activist is anyone who unconditionally supports the people who have had abortions, but the movement as a whole takes no position on the procedure itself.

Having founded the movement, Exhale practices pro-voice values: Since 2002, Exhale’s trained volunteers have listened to thousands of callers on the free post-abortion talkline, which has no political or religious affiliation. In 2007, the organization launched a line of free post-abortion e-cards. Since the beginning, Exhale has taken a public stand with everybody who has told their abortion story, from the stars of MTV’s "No Easy Decision" to yours truly, after I wrote essays for The New York Times and the Daily News.

The pro-voice movement is making people like me feel more at home in the world:

Remember how people used to judge the folks who had abortions as trashy or hell-bound or eternally sad? These days, when I hear someone say that sort of thing, I figure they’re pretending to be a nasty ghost from the early 2000s. The stigma has not vanished, but it's a little less powerful today, because pro-voice sets an example of love, capital L, to counter those cruel and passé assumptions about the worthy human beings we are.

Remember how people who had abortions used to keep it a secret because they were almost certain to be treated with intolerance, disrespect, and spite? Today, people are beginning to have a fair choice about whether they want to tell their story, because pro-voice leaders teach the public to listen instead of slinging insults, shutting us up, or exploiting our stories for a political end. 

For ten years, SF, the pro-voice message has been projecting love from the contours of your fine land. Your people are my people. 

I had so much fun at the party.

This is me with Natalia Koss-Vallejo, star of MTV's 16 and Pregnant abortion special, "No Easy Decision."

Photo Credit: Reny Photography

Look at all these pro-voicers.

Photo Credit: Reny Photography

Here’s where those good citizens find out that I stalked Aspen Baker, because I tell them [VIDEO].

Natalia Koss Vallejo presents Pro-Voice Storyteller Award to Kassi Underwood from Exhale on Vimeo.

I met lots of lovely Exhalers, talkline counselors, feminist artists, and pro-voice leaders.

Photo Credit: Reny Photography 

During my visit, I dined on handmade pasta and vegan cheesecake with Sam, a dear friend of mine from college. He told me a family story so overwhelming in its magic that I started thinking about how you never know what’s coming next. Take, for example, this photo, circa 2003, of me with Sam and my roommate Amanda, all of us nineteen years old, doing god knows what in my dorm. I had no idea that I would ever stop wearing arm warmers with bathing suits.

The girl here has no idea that six months later, she will get pregnant, and the girl of six months later has no idea that having had an abortion does not make her a sick, stupid, twisted, heartless, reckless, worthless, unloveable turd. It made me a human being with a story to offer other human beings who might benefit from knowing. Believe me, there are worse things.

The day before the party, I rolled my suitcase through the San Francisco airport, thinking I love my life, I  l o v e  m y  l i f e, IlovemylifeIlovemylifeIlovemylife.

SF, I miss you already.

xxx 

K

Ira Glass and I Will Teach You Stuff at the NYWC's Write-A-Thon!

Hey, Writer!

Remember that time you scaled the wall of your girlfriend's fifth-story walk-up to show her the prison tattoo of her face on your ear, and then she dumped you, and you got down on both knees and wept, and then she gave birth to your son in the bathtub of that fifth-story walk-up, and the baby was born with a tattoo of your face on his ear?

You totally remember. Let's make your neuroses meaningful. Let's have epiphanies together. Let's write a personal essay!

I'm teaching a personal essay writing class this Sunday, June 24th, at the New York Writers Coalition's 7th Annual Write-A-Thon, located at the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn. The Write-A-Thon begins at 10:30 a.m., but my class runs from 3 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. in studio C on the first floor.

Ira Glass, the man, the myth, the voice behind NPR's This American Life, is giving a talk at 2 p.m.

Register for the Write-A-Thon here.

xxx

K

Reading in Hudson, NY on Saturday, May 12th

Hi there, special friend!

Do you love boxed wine? Will you be in Hudson, New York this Saturday? Oh, wonderful. Come find me at the Hudson Loft Reading Series hosted by Chloe Caldwell and located at the Hudson Loft on N. 4th and Warren St. 

I'm honored to be reading alongside...

JILLIAN LAUREN, author of the novel, PRETTY, and of the New York Times bestselling memoir, SOME GIRLS: My Life in a Harem. 

JASON DIAMOND, founder of Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and the New York Deputy Editor of Flavorpill. His writing has been published by The New York Times, The Paris Review, Vice, NPR.org, the A.V. Club, Tablet, The Rumpus, Thought Catalog, and the Chicago Tribune.  

HALLIE GOODMAN, whose work has appeared in Paper Magazine, Self Magazine, Redbook Magazine, The Knot Magazine, Chronogram, Women's Health and countless newspapers including the world renowned, Register Star.  

COURTNEY MAUM, a humor columnist for Electric Literature and writer for [adult swim], whose work has recently appeared online in Tin House, Blip, Bomb Magazine, The Rumpus, and others.  

JOSEPH RIIPPI, whose books include A Cloth House (Housefire Publishing, 2012) and treesisters (Greying Ghost Press, 2012). He is also the author of the story collection The Orange Suitcase (Ampersand Books, 2011) and novel Do Something! Do Something! Do Something! (Ampersand Books, 2009).  

ROBB TODD, author of the collection Steal Me for Your Stories. 

See you there!

Reading at KGB Bar on Thursday, September 1st

  

 I'll read something sassy from the manuscript. 

Columbia Faculty Selects series

at KGB Bar

85 East 4th Street, NYC 

Thursday, September 1st

7 p.m.

Also featured: poet Cherry Pickman and fictionist Stephanie Arndt