Alison Flood of The Guardian wrote this piece about Moira’s revelations about her mother Marion Zimmer Bradley.
Damien Walter has another piece, “How far can culture heroes’ work stand apart from their lives?”
By Deirdre
Alison Flood of The Guardian wrote this piece about Moira’s revelations about her mother Marion Zimmer Bradley.
Damien Walter has another piece, “How far can culture heroes’ work stand apart from their lives?”
Deirdre Saoirse Moen is a science fiction and fantasy writer, photographer, and graphic designer from Menlo Park, California.
You’re awesome. Thanks for being awesome.
meanderingsofmemory.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/ said:
She really is. And she’s brilliant, has a dark and mordant wit, and writes excellently in both fiction and non-fiction.
I might plausibly be accused of bias, and yet the above is completely true.
Best Regards,
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
I keep it in a jar by the door.
And it’s now made Entertainment Weekly: http://shelf-life.ew.com/2014/06/27/marion-zimmer-bradleys-daughter-accuses-her-of-abuse/
And the Washington Post.
I found the Guardian piece through Entertainment Weekly. After subsequently finding your blog (as well as Stephen Goldin’s site), I am convinced of the truths you’ve told and am beyond shocked and heartsick.
Like many MZB readers, I fell in love with The Mists of Avalon. I loved it to the point of choosing to illustrate it as a comic book for a high school project that earned me an A+ in 1993. The book remained with me long after, and I often referred back to it whenever I needed an insight over who to be, or how to deal with a current hurdle.
But, though I loved MZB’s work, I connect more with Moira Greyland. As someone who also has an emotionally abusive mother- someone who was jealous of my father’s love for me when I was born as his first daughter, designated me her figure to scream at while competing for attention, and constantly demanded deference while engineering humiliating situations around my family- I cannot ignore Moira’s truth. It is one that calls out even more powerfully than Mists of Avalon ever did, and it is one based in this life- one where we aren’t rendered more poetic from Arthurian legend, but we only have ourselves and the power of our choices to use as our compass. All we can do is keep standing, and to choose to do so with our full truths visible is a powerful, powerful wonder.
I am beyond glad to discover your blog Deirdre, and am thankful that Moira told her truth. Hope my well-wishes from New York find their way to you.
I couldn’t figure out how to authenticate this comment. I haven’t commented here before; only on my personal blog, and somehow that link shows up on the right in your recent comment section. I did post my blog entry on Facebook. Abuse is news and MZB most certainly was a sacred cow. I am also a sexual abuse survivor. I also disclosed the abuse once death had provided a measure of psychic safety and distance, if not answers or truth.
Be Well Moira.
Heidi, thank you, and I hope that disclosing your abuse has also brought you some peace. Carrying this about for years is a terrible thing, and since I spoke out publicly I have felt both worse, through endless triggering and flashbacks, and so much better, because finally I am allowed to exist in my own skin: I do not live solely as an inconvenient keeper of secrets, and I do not have to tiptoe around, choosing even my repertoire for performance carefully lest I betray SOMETHING with what I am singing.
Best wishes to you, –Moira Greyland.