Adrienne Rich famously noted, “ we are none of us either mother or daughter: to our amazement, confusion and greater complexity we are both”. Maternal Connections: daughter to mother reclaims the right to acknowledge both the connection and the longing, the trauma and the creativity, the pride and the disappointment in the mother-daughter-mother relational matrix; the ties that bind and the shackles we would wish to shake off.
With chapters that include innovative uses of graphics and poetry, the reinstatement, two generations on, of a maternal craft practice as art, and exploration into the work of Elena Ferrante, the book privileges a blend of theory and personal experience that highlights how we think best when we work from the inside out as well as the outside in.

-- Ros Howell, psychodynamic counsellor, movement psychotherapist, DBT therapist and writer.

This is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary exploration of mother-daughter connections. Moving between prose, poetry, and graphical representations, the contributors collectively explore the grief, admiration, love, conflict, connection and disconnection that infuses relationships between mothers and daughters. Importantly, many of the authors consider the complexity of inhabiting both mother and daughter roles, and how relationships and identities change (and are re-examined) over the life course. From raw and vulnerable personal narratives to socio-psychological, political and literary analysis, this collection takes the reader on a thought-provoking emotional and intellectual journey.

-- Dr Leah Williams Veazey, Department of Sociology & Social Policy, University of Sydney; author of Migrant Mothers in the Digital Age