"Unpacking the Attic" by Ann M. Mracek
Does your inner child still carry hurt and longing for acceptance?
Does the experience of childhood impact who we are today?
It truly does!
Is it possible to rewrite the scripts of fear and insecurities holding us back? This insightful and playful look at the author’s childhood will encourage you to reflect on your own life.
Many of us had to navigate childhood through a maze of broken relationships, dysfunctional families, neglect and even trauma, yet as adults we can empower the child we were, to gain clarity, self acceptance and forgiveness through the healing journey of retrospection.
A unique blend of memoir and healing practices, the author takes you along in real time through the process of emptying her parents’ home as they transitioned into assisted living.
She expertly weaves the vivid stories of her childhood with compassion and intent to heal and forgive.
Told with humor, honesty, and empathetic insight, you are guided to gain adult perspective, to send love and acceptance back in time to the child still living within. Retrospection can be a powerful healing elixir.
You will cry, you will cheer, you will learn self acceptance and forgiveness. You will learn to let go, to stop fighting old battles, to rewrite the recordings others imposed upon you of self doubt and fear, with new ones of empowered acceptance and understanding.
Looking back has a way of clearing your vision for looking forward.

The Dream Collector is an exploration of the psychological consequences of betrayal, abandonment--and the redemptive power of art.

Sabrine, hospitalized for five years at the infamous Salpêtrière Asylum for Women, gains her release due to intervention of her sister Julie Forette and a young Sigmund Freud. The reunited sisters are introduced to the dazzling art milieu of 1886 Paris, and soon become close friends to the leading Impressionists. Sabrine attracts a cult following as a poetess, the enigmatic ""Haiku Princess."" Seemingly cured by Freud of her Grand Hysteria, Sabrine soon enters into a tumultuous relationship with Vincent van Gogh.
Jule and Sigmund Freud, alarmed by the eerie parallels between the emotionally volatile couple and their self-destructive impulses, begin an urgent search to discover the root causes for Sabrine and Vincent's growing psychoses. Julie, 'The Dream Collector' seeks their most unforgettable dream for Freud's interpretation and revelations occur.
The Dream Collector is an exploration of the psychological consequences of betrayal, abandonment--and the redemptive power of art.

Anita Selzer speaks the female gaze and its impact on the female representation in photography and art.

Historically, male artists have re-presented women through their eyes. The Female Gaze in Art and Photography redresses this imbalance, looks at art through women’s eyes. It shines a light on the work of twenty contemporary women artists and photographers from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and United States of America, placing these creatives and their works centre stage.
The female gaze is not singular; it is multifarious, often based on the creative’s lived experience. It positions subjects as whole people and not objects. The female gaze reclaims women’s bodies as repositories for multiple meanings. It emphasises the emotions of and intimacy between creator and subject, who are at times the same person.
The Female Gaze in Art and Photography offers an empathetic re-presentation of women, men and those identifying as LGBQTIA+. The art and photography covered is also thematic, addressing issues affecting our lives today: love and loss; lifecycle of women; motherhood; gender, sexual and racial identity; the fractured self; autonomy and agency; strength, resilience and vulnerability; relationships; racism; marginalisation and diversity; feminism; migration and dispossession; and climate change among others.