Mothsong A Liminal Autobiography

by Meads, Threasa

• ISBN13: 9781942600787
• ISBN10: 194260078X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2016-06-14
• Publisher: Rare Bird Books, A Vireo Book

Summary

A spiral, a magical realist labyrinth, a lyric essay, a mirror-maze, and a mandala, Mothsong celebrates art’s capacity to facilitate and map posttraumatic growth. It is a testimony of healing from child abuse that peers into the chrysalis. Through poetic prose, visual image, ekphrasis, and intuitive enquiry, the author carries the lamp of art into the magical realist labyrinth of the wounded soul to unveil the terrifying and the sacred. In the spaces between a heartbeat, the stories of Lolah—who represents the author from the age of sixteen to the present—and January—her younger self—are entwined with the silken threads of “You” and other voices to sing a song of transformation.

Mothsong creates a new myth for the moth as a symbol of the soul’s urge to heal, and in so doing, goes far beyond elevating the beauty within darkness.

Author Biography

Threasa Meads is an Adelaide-based writer and visual artist with a PhD in creative writing from Flinders University. Her first memoir, Nobody, was shortlisted for The Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award in 2008 and awarded a Varuna Fellowship in 2009. In 2012 she was an emerging writer in residence at the KSP Writers’ Centre. Threasa has a passion for nurturing writers and building creative communities, and since 2009 she has taught in the School of Humanities and Creative Arts at Flinders University, where she is currently an associate lecturer. Her writing crosses genres and has been published in local and international journals. Mothsong is the second in a series of three memoirs. At present she is turning her thesis into a computer game, researching her third memoir, writing a magical realist novel, and painting up a storm.