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Water Spell

A Memoir

Catherine Broadwall

$43.95   $37.12

Paperback

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English
Cornerstone Press
26 August 2025
Water Spell is, at its heart, a work of bibliotherapy. In this practice, counselors prescribe books as they would medicine, using stories as entry points for reflection, confrontation of pain, and eventual healing. Catherine Broadwall acts as both doctor and patient throughout her debut memoir, suturing her own wounds. While bibliotherapy and ekphrasis-writing inspired by visual art-are often reserved for traditional, canonically-approved texts, here Broadwall applies them to things like Pixar films, music videos, fairy tales, and video games. She democratizes these tools, showing that a reader's delight in any narrative can spark profound revelation and growth.
By:  
Imprint:   Cornerstone Press
Dimensions:   Height: 216mm,  Width: 140mm,  Spine: 11mm
Weight:   222g
ISBN:   9781960329943
ISBN 10:   1960329944
Pages:   188
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Catherine Broadwall is the author of Fulgurite (Cornerstone Press, 2023), Shelter in Place (2019), and other collections. She teaches creative writing and literature in the Pacific Northwest.

Reviews for Water Spell: A Memoir

A balm, a salve, for the way observing is processing, is creating, and a reminder that the myth of healing's finality is as inscrutable as a mermaid living on dry land. -Katie Fuller, author of Careful A testament to how symbolic narratives confront, embrace, and recreate our broken past, allowing us to become whole in the here and now. -Christine Butterworth-McDermott author of The Spellbook of Fruit & Flowers I want to buy a movie screen, furl it, bless it, then staple it to my campus library so readers may play the video games and watch the films referenced throughout this book that makes sea tomes of the cerulean-2020s. Water Spell is that nuanced. -Jon Riccio, author of Agoreography A hypnotic, kaleidoscopic meditation on rupture and repair, on the ways a life can shatter and the unexpected magic of putting it back together. -Malia Collins, University of Hawai'i Press Broadwall writes, ""I want to flush out the wound."" And she does so, repeatedly, with vigor, until the water runs clear and you can see the exacting marks of where the blades cut and where you'll need to press your needle and thread to suture it together again. -Shilo Niziolek, author of Fever and Little Deaths


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