Introduction By Ravenna Christie
‘ When the body escaped mutilation , seldom did the heart go to the grave unscarred .’
-Virginia Woolf , Jacob ’ s Room ( 1922 )
My name is Ravenna Christie and I ’ m the editor of These Starving Bones of Mine .
Upon arriving at the University of Liverpool to begin my masters in Creative and Critical Writing I was determined to produce the university ’ s first School of English Anthology .
The book contains carefully selected contributions from an accomplished array of writers across BA , MA and PhD cohorts . Each poem , fiction or critical enquiry articulates the body through different perspectives , states and spaces .
As an illustration , the writers have explored the concept of the body in mental or physical distress and how the body may be perceived in such a condition ; the body as transgressive or the body undergoing a process of ‘ othering ’ and our science fiction writers have created innovative short fiction exploring non-human bodies amidst episodes of metamorphosis . This is to name but a few of the many ways the contributors have interpreted the notion of the body inside creative and critical models .