Jeannine Atkins, the writer of several biographies of remarkable women in history, grapples with her own past and the impact of a sexual assault she suffered during college in her new memoir in verse Knocking on Windows. Atkins reflects on her freshman year of college, and the lack of support from her peers and family after her sexual assault by turning to writers such as Sylvia Plath who helped her process her ordeal. PW spoke with Atkins about returning to that difficult period of her life, the writers who inspire her, and how writing serves as a safe space.

As the author of many biographies, what was it like to turn that lens onto yourself for a memoir?

Easy peasy! No, I’m kidding. But it wasn't as hard as I thought. I always loved reading books about other women as a child, and I worked on that through most of my career, but I think there was always a sense of what is the story in me. And it was during the pandemic, [when] I couldn’t go to the library—which was the place I loved and where I researched—that I was like, “Well, maybe it’s time to do this.” People ask, “Was it sad? Was it hard?” but the time was right for me. I’d done so much work; I’ve been in therapy. I’d lived my life as a teacher, as a wife, and a mother, and I knew that self, so it felt pretty safe to go back to the more vulnerable person I’ve been before.

What does the research for a memoir look like? How did you get yourself back into the mind of younger Jeannine?

I was moving away from research a bit. I’d written about this period many times, in many poems and an unpublished novel I wrote in my 20s. I had journals from then, and so I did look at those. But then it was going deeper than what I’d written, I think. And also, I had an impulse to connect to what was hard and what was beautiful, and for me, the beauty was being able to read and connect to other writers. And so I went back and read the writers who’d meant a lot to me then and revived that sense of hopelessness that I felt, but [found] some hope reading them. That was more where the research lay.

In this book, you turn to writers such as Maya Angelou, Emily Dickinson, and Sylvia Plath. Why do those writers resonate so strongly with you?

Sylvia Plath was the first poet who came to me, in my first broken semester of college. And I was amazed at first and amazed after [I learned more about her]. I think she was so important because of her anger, and how people got angry about her anger. I was raised to be a good girl, and [told] you don’t show anger, so I kind of clung to her. Emily Dickinson [resonated] partly because I lived down the street from her [house] and she was a poet I had read in high school and later, and I was attracted to the lack of the answers. I was always looking for answers to how to live. And this was a [reminder that] maybe there really aren’t answers, but try to find the best words for what you’re feeling and what’s around you. And Maya Angelou, I think partly because I did get to see her, as a student at UMass, and I was wowed as everyone is by her presence and her confidence and her belief in her own voice.

Can you talk about the importance of showcasing how writing can act as a healing tool for young readers?

That’s a subject so dear to my heart, because it really was for me. I had grown up as a quiet person in a very quiet household, and writing, putting words on paper, became my vehicle to feel more visible. I value therapy; I value speaking out. But for me, what happened on paper was working things out, finding the connections between me and what I was seeing and reading and finding "Gosh, it didn’t look as bad as I thought it did before I put it in words." I didn’t really seem as ugly as I felt and maybe I didn’t have to hide so much.

Knocking on Windows by Jeannine Atkins. Atheneum, Aug. 5 $19.99; ISBN 978-1-6659-7754-8