Fiona Giles – författare

Still Here: Memoirs of Trauma, Illness and Loss explores the history, ethics, and cross-cultural range of memoirs focusing on illness, death, loss, displacement, and other experiences of trauma. From Walt Whitman’s Civil War diaries to kitchen table survivor-to-survivor storytelling following Hurricane Katrina, from social media posts from a refugee detention centre, to poetry by exiles fleeing war zones, the collection investigates trauma memoir writing as healing, as documentation of suffering and disability, and as political activism. Editors Bunty Avieson, Fiona Giles and Sue Joseph have brought together this scholarly collection as a sequel to their earlier Mediating Memory (Routledge 2018), providing a closer look at the specific concerns of trauma memoir, including conflict and intergenerational trauma; the therapeutic potential and risks of trauma life writing; its ethical challenges; and trauma memoir giving voice to minority experiences.

The argument has been made that memoir reflects and augments the narcissistic tendencies of our neo-liberal age. Mediating Memory: Tracing the Limits of Memoir challenges and dismantles that assumption. Focusing on the history, theory and practice of memoir writing, editors Bunty Avieson, Fiona Giles and Sue Joseph provide a thorough and cutting-edge examination of memoir through the lenses of ethics, practice and innovation. By investigating memoir across cultural boundaries, in its various guises, and tracing its limits, the editors convincingly demonstrate the plurality of ways in which memoir is helping us make sense of who we are, who we were and the influences that shape us along the way.

While countless breastfeeding guides crowd bookshelves, not one of them speaks to women with anything approaching bestselling author Fiona Giles' level of intimacy and vitality. In FRESH MILK, through a provocative collection of stories, memories and personal accounts Giles uncovers the myths and truths of the lactating breast. From young mothers grappling with the bewildering trappings of maternity wear to the woman who finds herself surprisingly aroused by new sensations, and the modern dad who learns the ins and outs of breastfeeding, the portraits in Giles' eye-opening book offer a funny, wise and comforting resource for women - and even their friends and partners who have had, or expect, intimate experiences with the pleasures and pain of lactation. By turns poignant and informative, sexy and witty, empathic and empowering, FRESH MILK delivers everything we wanted to know about breastfeeding that our mothers never told us.

Still Here: Memoirs of Trauma, Illness and Loss explores the history, ethics, and cross-cultural range of memoirs focusing on illness, death, loss, displacement, and other experiences of trauma. From Walt Whitman’s Civil War diaries to kitchen table survivor-to-survivor storytelling following Hurricane Katrina, from social media posts from a refugee detention centre, to poetry by exiles fleeing war zones, the collection investigates trauma memoir writing as healing, as documentation of suffering and disability, and as political activism. Editors Bunty Avieson, Fiona Giles and Sue Joseph have brought together this scholarly collection as a sequel to their earlier Mediating Memory (Routledge 2018), providing a closer look at the specific concerns of trauma memoir, including conflict and intergenerational trauma; the therapeutic potential and risks of trauma life writing; its ethical challenges; and trauma memoir giving voice to minority experiences.