Nuanced Narratives and False Accusations with Sarah Viren

In March of 2020, today's guest, Sarah Viren published a piece in the New York Times Magazine that left me seriously questioning some of my long-held beliefs about false accusations of sexual violence. It was an engrossing story that read like some kind of mystery or detective novel—except it was all true and had all happened to Sarah and her wife. And at the heart of it was this deeply nuanced conversation  that I had never considered about false accusations being used to target the very people that laws like Title IX were created to protect.

From that piece came a podcast, and eventually a book that leaned into the complicated and very human narratives that can surround false accusations. In this episode, Sarah and I talk about why it was so important for her to tell her story, the larger implications of overly-simplified narratives, and how (like we often do over here at Both/And!) we can sit in the discomfort of many things being true at once. 

Sarah Viren is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and author of two books of nonfiction. Her essay collection Mine won the River Teeth Book Prize and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. Her memoir To Name the Bigger Lie was a New York Times Editor's Choice and named a best book of the year by NPR and LitHub. A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow and a National Magazine Award finalist, Viren teaches in the creative writing program at Arizona State University. She lives in Tempe, Arizona with her partner, two kids and adorable rescue dog Oki. 

LINKS:
Learn more about Sarah Viren!

To Name the Bigger Lie - A Memoir in Two Stories

The Inbox - Part of The 11th, a podcast series from Pineapple Street Studios

The Accusations Were Lies. But Could We Prove It? - Sarah’s New York Times Magazine piece 

Both/And is a project of the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs.
www.nmcsap.org

Intro music: "Can't Get Enough Sunlight" written and recorded by Michelle Chamuel http://michellechamuel.com/
Logo: Alex Ross-Reed
Produced by: Jess Clark
Edited By: Dacia Clay at Pillow Fort Studios
https://www.pillowfortpodcasts.com