Laurie Halse Anderson’s new memoir ‘Shout’

Guest: Laurie Halse Anderson

YA fiction author LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON won wide acclaim for her 1999 debut novel, Speak, one of the first books for young adults to tackle sexual assault. In the novel, high school freshman Melinda is raped at a party by a popular senior, is ostracized and barely speaks because of the trauma. Now twenty years after Speak, Anderson has written a memoir called Shout. It’s about her own rape at the age of 13, and how she coped and how she survived. It’s also about the experiences of sexual violence that her readers have shared with her over the years. Anderson joins us to discuss her new memoir, her groundbreaking first novel, and how to talk to young people about sexual violence in the #metoo era.