I Am Twig, Bone, Feather - by Angie Athanassiades (Paperback)

About the Book

A lyrical memoir of trauma, memory, and renewal set on a remote Aegean island. Moving through fragments of nature, myth, and personal excavation, Angie Athanassiades traces her journey toward healing after sexual assault.

Book Synopsis

"Fiercely beautiful... cracks open the darkness and pain of sexual assault to reveal light, hope and a sense of freedom." Samantha Clark, author of The Clearing

On a remote Mediterranean island, a woman begins to unearth a long-buried memory. As migrating birds sweep across the sky and marine archaeologists dive into dark waters to recover the remnants of an ancient shipwreck, she, too, descends into her past-retracing an event that once threatened to break her.

But this time, she is neither afraid nor alone. The island's treeless slopes and its vast horizons of sea and sky become a refuge where she can finally breathe. And the birds, in their tireless passage from one world to another, reveal a simple truth: return is always possible-if she can find the courage to begin.

Review Quotes

"Angie Athanassiades uses language with the precision of a sculptor wielding a chisel, patiently chipping away hardened layers of trauma to free the clean-limbed life that has been buried inside the rough stone. Fiercely beautiful, this 'memoir in fragments' cracks open the darkness and pain of sexual assault to reveal light, hope and a sense of freedom." Samantha Clark, author of The Clearing

"Set on the remote island of Antikythera in the Aegean Sea, this haunting memoir by Angie Athanassiades reveals how the island became her sanctuary; and how the sea, the migrating birds, and the alchemy of time helped her heal from long-ago trauma. Lovely and lyrical, this book is a treasure." Clare MacQueen, founding editor and publisher of MacQueen's Quinterly

"Angie Athanassiades's writing is clear and precise, beautiful in the way it conveys the natural world and honest in how it renders a person moving forward after assault. There is pain here, and joy, and wings that feel real." Caitlin Jans, co-founder of Authors Publish Magazine

"How to honor this work with the deepest respect and gladness? Poet Angie Athanassiades offers us as readers an elemental healing gift. We have the chance to reclaim our bodies as she makes whole her own again, an act of sacred alchemy. The stark beauty and simplicity of her prose evokes comparison with Terry Tempest Williams. She fully dances with nature as she faces harsh realities and transforms into the next moment. She finds her own way back to a new place of safety with the birds of Antikythera in the Aegean Sea. So very glad I read this!" Amadea Morningstar, author of Breathe Free

"A lucid, unsentimental, and quietly beautiful collection. I Am Twig, Bone, Feather is a fittingly elemental title for a work that questions what shapes us, what makes us a person. I read it straight through." Bea Setton, author of Berlin