Abbreviate

A small collection of small essays, Abbreviate examines how the injustice and violence of girlhood leads women to accept-and even claim-small spaces and stories. In lyric flash prose, Sarah Fawn Montgomery shares a girlhood shaped by neglect and abuse from adults and saved through the communal care of fierce female friends. The essays in this collection probe the girlhood play of Polly Pocket and planetariums, strobe with a sleepover blacklight illuminating teenage magic, and ricochet with the regret and rage of adult women whose lives have been constellated by harm. Full of stars and scars, Abbreviate examines what happens when girls and women are haunted by hunger and self-erasure, asking us to reconsider the space we make for our secrets, shames, and selves.