Her Say

Book excerpt: In 2013, Jackie Clark launched The Aunties, a grassroots charity helping women to rebuild their lives after a period of trauma. She quit her job, turning her back on her comfortable life, to focus on The Aunties full-time, becoming Aunty in Charge and assisting hundreds of women with material needs and emotional support. Jackie has long dreamed of a publication that gives these women a voice. This powerful new book features the stories of a number of very different New Zealand women, told their way. The collected stories chart their narrators’ lives and personal histories, through the lens of having lived with – and escaped – an abusive relationship. Her Say is spoken from the heart, uncompromising but offering hope, redemption, personal triumph. It’s a book for all women, showing how owning our stories gives us the power to write daring new endings. It will challenge, illuminate, and empower readers – not to mention the storytellers themselves.