Kate’s emotional and inspiring memoir is written with the verve and intelligence of someone who has experienced all the world has to offer in her heroine’s journey and embraces the power of creativity and love. Weaving fairy tales through the book invites readers to think of the universality of these stories in their own lives. As she fights the dragons of neglect, abuse, and poverty, Kate’s brilliant mind and indomitable spirit lead her to embrace the power of stories and the wisdom of archetypal themes that burn through the darkness and lead her to the light. ONCE is a woman’s saga of teeth gritting determination to not only survive but heal early primal wounds on a mind, body, and soul level. Hardscrabble childhood in outlier towns, homeless, impoverished, edgy. Glass Castle: A Memoir, Jeannette Walls, 2009 – Simon & Schuster. Retells Fa Mu Lan, the Chinese woman warrior, and the talk-stories of Brave Orchid, her mother. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, Maxine Hong Kingston, 1976 – Alfred A, Knopf, 2010 – Vintage Reissue. In the Dream House: A Memoir, Carmen Maria Machado, 2019 – Graywolf Press. Living in poverty and confusion, I found security and meaning in stories and folktales, and learned the courage to overcome obstacles as the heroines and maids did in the old tales- to eventually find my own voice as a career storyteller and the strength to tell my own story.Ĭomparative Titles: Braided Personal Narratives Once is a survival story of my abusive childhood with constant, chaotic moves, my dad on the run, afraid of being outed when a gay man was criminal, who found refuge in backwater towns of the Deep South and Southern Texas during Jim Crow.

It describes the effects of both negative and positive mothering-the abuse of my own mother and the nurturing of “other mothers” outside the home-the intersectionality of marginalized people, as secrets are revealed within my own family, and the healing lessons of intimate relationships: Part One – Girlhood Part Two – Adult & Motherhood.

It follows the extraordinary journey of a woman crippled by infant trauma to become an independent, accomplished single mother of a thriving toddler boy. Once: A Storyteller’s Memoir will reach women of all ages as it explores my first forty-two years in a narrative shaped by the Jungian concept of the heroine’s quest archetype, while interweaving elements of feminine myth and fairy tales. Feminine Actualization through Myth and Fairytales

The Magic of Memoir by Linda Joy Myers