Spotlight image: Authors A.S. King, Mitu Malhotra, Jane Houng and Heather Demetrios at the 2024 Highlights Retreat.
In the spring of 2024, I attended a Highlights Foundation In-Community Retreat organized by the Rebecca Dykes Writers. This transformative retreat, designed for authors crafting books for children and teens, helps writers find a way to write empowering stories on tough topics by channeling their own lived experiences.
Registration for the next Writing Through Trauma & Grief to Empower Readers: A Retreat for Storytellers – Highlights Foundation (November 6 – 9, 2025) is now open. In addition, the Rebecca Dykes Writers website has a great resource list of books for young readers about violence against women and girls.
Today, we welcome Jane Houng (founder), Heather Demetrios (program director), and Yvonne Ventresca (communications director) of the Rebecca Dykes Writers to share their journey with Cynsations.
Tell us about your personal connection to Rebecca Dykes Writers.
Jane: I’m the founder, and the mother of Rebecca Dykes. My daughter was raped and killed by a taxi-driver in Lebanon in December, 2017. She was a project manager of humanitarian projects at the British Embassy. Since then, I devote my life to raising awareness about gender-based violence, and donating panic buttons—’Becky’s Button‘ to very vulnerable people living in dangerous places.
Before losing my daughter Becky, I’d happily been writing for children for around ten years. Heather Demetrios was in my cohort at Vermont College of Fine Arts where we did an MFA in Creative Writing. Upon hearing the news, she organized the purchase of a real star for Becky! Rebecca Dykes Writers is the result of us brainstorming about how else Becky could be remembered.
Heather: Jane and I were in the same VCFA cohort, the Allies in Wonderland, and immediately connected over our love of vampires. We both had great fun writing fantasy and when I needed to do research for one of mine that takes place in an archipelago, Jane immediately invited me to visit her in Hong Kong. And so I did! We had a wonderful time there together and made memories I’ll cherish forever.
Jane’s always been someone I’ve been able to have girl-talk with, someone who is endlessly enthusiastic about engaging with her writing friends about their work and their lives outside of writing. She and I have always connected a lot about our spiritual lives, too.
When I heard what happened to Becky, I was devastated. Our class had a star named after Becky and VCFA followed the launch of Rebecca Dykes Writers once Jane had figured out what she wanted to do—it feels like the institution is baked into the RDW journey, as so many alumnx attend Highlights retreats and Yvonne, another member of the RDW team, also went to VCFA.
A.S. King, one of our faculty members, also taught at VCFA and was one of my mentors there. Before Jane and I cooked up RDW, I was working in communications with Becky’s Bathhouse, the wellness center she founded in Lesvos, Greece that served the refugee women and children at the camp there. It’s incredible to think that we met each other through our love of writing for children and all that we have done together as a result of that passion—and tragedy.
Yvonne: I attended the first RDW retreat (Writing Stories to Empower Through Trauma: A Workshop in Memory of Rebecca Dykes) as a participant in 2022. After getting to know Jane and Heather, I knew immediately that I wanted to become more involved with this small team doing mighty work. Now I volunteer as their communications director, which includes creating the RDW newsletter (subscribe here!) and planning future retreats.
What was your role in the conception and designing of the Highlights Foundation In-Community Retreat and how has it impacted you as a writer?
Jane: Personally, RDW has really focused my attention on what I want to write for young children about violence.
Heather: As Program Director, I’ve worked alongside Alison Green Myers from the beginning at Highlights to design the program for each retreat, and together we’ve built a structure that works really well for us. We wanted there to be a really strong foundation for writers in craft and story while also offering solid instruction in how to meet trauma and emotional dysregulation when working with difficult material. We go way beyond the “do some box breathing” stuff.
When we brought Bethany Walker onto the team to do narrative therapy, this felt like the final important puzzle piece clicking into place. What has been so important from the get-go is creating a trauma-informed container. I’m finishing up my master’s in clinical social work, which I’m pursuing because of this program at Highlights, actually! And Bethany is an LICSW with a specialization in child trauma and will soon have her PhD in Narrative Therapy.
There are too many creative spaces that are simply not safe for writers, and I think it took two award-winning professional writers who are also mental health professionals specializing in trauma and gender-based violence to actually make this happen. A lot comes up at these retreats. Bethany can meet clinically with people 1:1 and in groups. I can meet in a coaching and mindfulness capacity in 1:1 and in groups (once I’m licensed, I’ll be able to do therapy, too). We have yoga, we have a beautiful space for people to move their bodies. In fact, the whole retreat invites a somatic approach. We want it to feel spacious and as safe as possible.
Are there any takeaways, success stories or breakthrough moments from the past retreats that you would like to share?
Jane: Meeting participants at previous retreats has shown me that grief is the price we pay for love. We all suffer at some stage of our lives. It’s how we get through it that matters. Writing has been very cathartic.
Heather: Honestly, there are too many to share! I almost don’t know where to begin. All I can say is that there is an alchemical process that occurs at each and every one of our retreats. Something happens when you bring hurting women together who don’t know each other, who connect over their art and their pain. By the end, we’re family. It’s so beautiful.
I will share one thing. Last year, Azra Rahim led us all in Sufi whirling. It was wild. Here are all these women whose bodies have been hurt by others or by cancer or by themselves or by systems of oppression and they are whirling to the drumbeat of a fellow survivor. It’s the kind of moment you want to write into your book.
The love in my heart when I am at our retreats is almost too big to contain. I feel such a sense of rightness and purpose. It’s absolute magic, to see how pain can be transformed into that. It hurts to think that the moment wouldn’t have happened if Becky hadn’t been killed. It’s really painful to think about that and I don’t know how to make sense of it. It’s a koan I live with every day.
What are some of the writing adjacent practices that you have and find beneficial in crafting a creative life?
Jane: Leading a disciplined life of writing in the morning, eating healthily, and exercising regularly. I’ve since hosted a podcast called Mending Lives, in which I speak to people who have found ways to get through significant loss. But another focus of my current life is running another charity in my daughter’s name: Becky’s Button. We raise awareness about gender-based violence in educational institutions, and distribute Becky’s Button, a panic alarm which I believe could have saved my daughter’s life, to vulnerable people living in dangerous places.
Heather: There are so many parallels between writing and Zen. What I appreciate most as a Zen practitioner is how much it reveres silence. In a world full of so much useless noise, in late-stage capitalism that only wants you to buy-buy-buy, there is an invitation in mindful practice to just be with yourself and the world as it is. This is so hard! But the dividends are enormous. My writing is so much better, for one.
I talk all the time about Mary Oliver and how she was a buddha—she said, “Attention is the beginning of devotion.” Isn’t it? You can only get such great work as hers from paying attention. From being quiet. From having the humility to listen.
As a writing coach and teacher, I also think it’s so helpful with the inner critic. Zen has taught me to befriend myself. To hold myself in positive regard. To be curious when I’m uncomfortable, frustrated, or stuck. To offer myself the same kindness that the practice is naturally causing to occur within me towards others. (Frankly, not all others. I, like my writing, am a work-in-progress).
Which is your favorite book baby and what inspired you to write this particular book? Please share some of the challenges you faced and the narrative choices you made as you brought this text to life.
Jane: I was inspired to write Asian Elephant Art (illustrated by Tam Cheuk Man, 2022) after meeting the founder of a charity that takes care of traumatized Thai elephants. I’ve always been a believer of the healing power of art. A picture paints a thousand words, and the anthropomorphizing of a family broken by violence is a writerly way of reducing the potential threat of traumatizing children. An oral rendition of the book is available on my website link.
Heather: For RDW books, I usually say, Bad Romance (Macmillan, 2017) because it’s about teen dating violence, but I love Little Universes (Macmillan, 2020) so much, so I want to say that this time. It came out right during the pandemic, so it got lost to that, but I’m so proud of it and it deals with the trauma of grief, addiction, and it’s about sisters and the universe and love.
It was really painful to write: it hadn’t been long after I’d lost my father figure, my grandfather, and I was also suffering from major depression, like one of my main characters in the book. I had to dig really deep and resource myself as I was writing.
I was living in multiple places while working on it, too, so, like my main characters, I felt really adrift. It was an incredible experience, though, and I really got to nerd out about astrophysics and astronauts and Yoko Ono, who is a goddess. It was so important to me to show grief, addiction, sisters, and the complications of relationships and found family and adoption and abortion and betrayal and all the things that come up in this book in ways that land authentically and straight to the heart. I think I did it. I put all of myself into it.
Craft-wise, it was a joy. I worked with inspiration from Yoko Ono’s instruction pieces for Hannah’s “acorn” pieces, I had logs that resembled those on the ISS (International Space Station), I worked in lists and other ways that Mae’s very logical brain works, but with Hannah’s chapters (it’s dual POV), I had long, rambling sentences because she is often high or depressed or trying to connect with her mom with yoga or tarot. It’s really tough to write someone who is depressed in a way that is engaged and urgent, so I really did a lot of work on her chapters and actually used tarot to help me plot the book and get to the heart of both of the girls and what I call their Character Keys.
I had the challenge of trying to explain what it’s like to meditate and to overdose and to be the sister of someone who overdoses. There was a ton of research about what happens when you have loved ones who go missing in a natural disaster (in this case, a tsunami). That was me facing a fear, because I lived in Asia for a while and I had this fear that there would be a tsunami while I was there. Mae and Hannah’s parents are vacationing when one happens and they are home, in LA.
I had to do a lot of research scientifically and had the amazing opportunity to speak to Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, the American cosmologist, about being a woman of color in science. (What?! It was so amazing and scary).
I had an astrophysicist and geophysicist review my book and was so proud of myself that they actually had no notes. I was never good at science. When/if you read the book and see me talking about black holes and like actual math and I didn’t get it wrong…honestly, that was the mic drop of my life. And I did while amid a mental health crisis while living abroad and going to NHS to get meds (and yes, they charged me nothing, I love the UK).
This book is a big example of why I am so passionate about teaching writers how to take care of themselves while writing tough stuff. Sometimes I would go lay out in the English garden on rare sunny days or watch spiders spin amazing webs. Or it would be all “hello darkness, my old friend” and I would know that the only way through was the book, was the research that gave me joy. I know so much more now and it is the pain of that period that I want our RDW writers to have tools to avoid. But I also want them to write a book they love so much, and I love Little Universes. Both/and. Story of our lives.
Yvonne: My YA debut, Pandemic (Sky Pony Press, 2014), was published six years before COVID. In 2022, Sky Pony Press released a new edition with updated backmatter and the words “A Novel” added to the cover, so that people wouldn’t confuse the book with nonfiction. I’m still astounded at having lived through a real pandemic after creating one in a fictional world.
I had the honor of being interviewed by Cynsations when Pandemic was first published. The blog post, which details the story behind the story, is available here.
Are there any books you read or mentor texts that influenced your writing of this work? Do you have a favorite poet or author who inspires you to write?
Jane: Zen Buddhist philosophy.
Heather: I loved reading Carlo Rovelli’s Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (Penguin Random House, 2016), Yoko Ono’s Acorn (Algonquin, 2013), and various astronaut memoirs. Mary Oliver, Anna Akhmatova, Jane Hirschfield, Walt Whitman, and Rumi have never let me down.
Carving out a daily writing habit is a hard task and it’s easy to give up in today’s stressful environment. Any thoughts, advice for emerging writers on how to manage writing momentum with the other demands of life?
Jane: Just do it daily, even if it’s for a very short period of time. Also, working on a number of manuscripts at the same time so that you can jump from one to another if you get stuck.
Heather: I love having a writing log – kind of like a ship captain’s log. Get a notebook that has a date spot on the top of each page. Each day just write something – a log of the day. How was the weather of your writing day? What direction are you heading? Are there storms on the horizon? I’ll write if I wrote that day or not. I’ll write why I didn’t. How I feel about writing. Or myself as a writer. Some good quotes I came across. An idea I had. Why writing is pointless. Why writing is the only thing that matters. Etc. That’s a good place to start.
If you think about writing as practice – again, here we see the connection between Zen and writing – then you just do it. Like the 30 minutes a day of meditation. If you’re into it, you’ll go for longer, but at least get that 30 minutes in. It adds up. It doesn’t have to be a book, necessarily. Think of how prima ballerinas still go to class every day. So go to the barre and do your writer plies.
Have some exercises, prompts, write haikus, do morning pages. Whatever. Just do it. (Read Ann Patchett’s essay on writing, The Getaway Car. That’ll get you going). Sometimes I want to be British and tell myself to stop whining about it and just get on with it. Keep calm and carry on. Right, Jane?
Yvonne: One of my favorite topics is the intersection of productivity and creativity. I don’t believe that writers necessarily need to write daily. And I don’t think productivity for creatives revolves around efficiency, like getting more words written per hour (although sometimes that can be a result).
Instead, productivity becomes: how can we make the work of creating easier for ourselves? That being said, it’s best not to postpone writing until you’re inspired. Writers sometimes wait for the incredible idea or for “a visit from the muse” before beginning work. But inspiration often occurs the other way around.
Maya Angelou said, “When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come…’”
So, it’s not: If inspired, then write. But instead: If write, then inspired. Sometimes, though, it’s difficult to get started. Here are some ideas to help:
- Create story questions (or use writing prompts) to jumpstart your writing. I print my questions (anything I’ve realized I don’t know and need to figure out) on slips of paper and put them in a bowl. If I’m stuck, I pull a question and focus on writing a scene that answers it. I find the random nature of choosing a topic brings joy to the process. My questions tend to be story specific, but you can also use a character questionnaire.
- Set a timer and write. When the period ends, give yourself permission to stop if you want. But more often than not, it’s easier to keep going once you overcome the inertia. “The idea behind the rule is that taking the first step is often the most challenging part of any task,” Ali Abdaal says in Feel Good Productivity (Celadon Books, 2023). He recommends five minutes, or you can use the popular Pomodoro Technique of twenty-five minutes of concentrated work, followed by a five-minute break, another twenty-five minutes of focused work, followed by another five-minute break. Dividing a larger task into smaller pieces makes it more manageable and the timer helps encourage undivided attention, so you can actually use any amount of time that works for you.
- Keep a notepad (or document) nearby to track all the things that invariably pop into your head while you’re writing. Research can often be done later, and having a place to save ideas keeps you focused on the task at hand. If you’re tempted to go online during writing time, putting your computer in airplane mode can help.
- Track time, not words, especially during revision. Revision means wordcount often goes down. And for me, tracking the wordcount can lead to rushing to reach the goal. But if I’m going to revise for a set amount of time regardless of the wordcount, I might as well do my very best work during that session.
- Creative thinking can take place away from the desk. Going on walks (especially in nature), reading, and taking good self-care are all important parts of the creative process.
Cynsations Notes
Jane Houng is a long-term resident of Hong Kong and China. She received an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts in the US in 2014. Since then, she has published seven children’s books for The Commercial Press Hong Kong and Sing Tao Publishing Ltd, including the YA novel Bloodswell (2012), the middle grade books Pun Choi: a Hotchpotch of Chinese Folk and Fairy Tales (2016); Cat Soup and Other Short Stories (2016); Hong Kong Movers and Shakers (2017); Hong Kong History Girl (2018), Asian Elephant Art (2022) and Under Lion Rock (2023). Her memoir Beirut is More Beautiful by Bike was published in Arabic in Lebanon by Dal El Machreq in 2023.She has also published with Oxford University Press, Pearson Publishing and The Asian Review of Books.
Tragically, late 2017, Jane lost her 30-year old daughter, Rebecca Dykes to rape and murder. Since then, she has established a charity in Greece called Becky’s Bathhouse for refugees, launched a free panic button for vulnerable women around the world called Becky’s Button, and set up a community for kidlit writers theming violence called rebeccadykeswriters.org.
Heather Demetrios is a critically acclaimed author, writing coach, and mindfulness facilitator based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She has an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is a recipient of the PEN America Discovery Award for her debut novel, Something Real. Her non-fiction includes the Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection Code Name Badass: The True Story of Virginia Hall.
Heather works with writers on integrating mindfulness into their writing practice, process, and life. In addition to being the Executive Director of Clouds in Water Zen Center, she is a Trained Mindfulness Facilitator through UCLA Mindfulness Awareness Research Center. She is also the program director of Rebecca Dykes Writers in collaboration with the Highlights Foundation, where she works with writers who tell stories about trauma for young readers. She is currently pursuing her Master’s in Clinical Social Work to further support creatives. Find out more about Heather and her books at heatherdemetrios.com
Yvonne Ventresca is an award-winning author with an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her published work includes the YA novels Pandemic and Black Flowers, White Lies, as well as two nonfiction books and several short stories for tween, teen, and adult readers. She serves as the communications director for Rebecca Dykes Writers and mentors other writers through AWP and Mystery Writers of America. Her writing-related workshops and events are featured on her website, YvonneVentresca.com, where she also blogs about writing productivity and features writing resources.
Mitu Malhotra holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. The 2021 winner of the Katherine Paterson Prize for Literature for Young Adults and Children, Mitu has also won scholarships from the Highlights Foundation, Tin House, and a writing residency at the Djerassi Program. Her short story “Toxins” is part of ELA curriculum. Her writing has appeared in Hunger Mountain, Thin Air Magazine and elsewhere. In previous avatars, Mitu was a textile and fashion designer, and has taught in India, the Middle East and the US. Mitu is an active member of CBIG: Children’s Book Illustrators Group, NYC. More on www.mitumalhotra.com. Follow her on Instagram @mituart or Bluesky @mitumalhotra.