Review Tales
Book Magazine – Publishing – Editing
Creativity Birthed Through Pain by Emmanuella Hristova
Creativity Birthed Through Pain by Emmanuella Hristova
June 23rd
In the depth of
winter, the flowers do not
bloom, no fruits
appear, the leaves
fall off, and the tree looks
dead, but deep in the
darkness underneath,
the roots grow
and grow
and
grow.
It’s no secret that throughout my so-far short life, I have not been a stranger to pain. That is, after experiencing five familial deaths before the time I was twenty-five, among other brokenhearted experiences, the pain became far-too-familiar to me. But I also learned that during these moments, when I felt the weight of life crushing me, was when dark, reflective creativity flowed out of me the most. I learned that in order to create—one must go through pain. My recent self-published poetry collection The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Disorder, was wrought from such a time in my life. Less than three years ago, I watched my sister die from cancer. She was diagnosed and gone within less than nine months’ time. It was also during this time that I fell in love for the first time. And, experienced my first heartbreak too. This all happened when I was in graduate school becoming an English teacher, where I was given way too much work for no pay. And it was through this crushing that I began to compartmentalize; or rather, spill my emotions into a notebook that documented this nine-month period of hell for me. On those days when I realized I was falling in love, I wrote about it into my green Moleskin notebook, and during those nights when I cried myself to sleep, I also documented my feelings in that same notebook. I took it everywhere with me, and writing in a tiny café in between student teaching and going to class became my anthem. I wrote until there were no more pages left to write in. I had to get a purple Moleskin to replace my green one, and once that period of my life was over, nearly six months after my sister passed away, I tucked them away for a long time without looking at them again. I didn’t look at them for two years, and once I finally pulled them out, I realized I had a book. When I re-read them, disconnected from my previous heartbreak, I marveled at the beautiful work I had written. It was dark and depressing, but moving nonetheless and I realized I wanted to share my work with others. So, I self-published in April, less than two years after I finished writing the final poem. And these are the poems I wish to share with other readers, other women, so they too can heal through their pain.
Written by Emmanuella Hristova
You can pick up The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Disorder via eBook for $3.99 here:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CP43MLJ
iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-day-my-kisses-tasted-like-disorder/id1373349304?mt=11
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-day-my-kisses-tasted-like-disorder-emmanuella-hristova/1128549978?ean=9780578203942
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-day-my-kisses-tasted-like-disorder
Bookshout: https://bookshout.com/ebooks/the-day-my-kisses-tasted-like-disorder
Check out the ratings on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40772784-the-day-my-kisses-tasted-like-disorder
About the Author:
Emmanuella Hristova was born in Oakland, California and grew up in the Bay Area. She is the third daughter to Bulgarian parents who immigrated to California shortly before she was born. In 2015, she received her Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley. She began writing poetry at age twenty-four when she was in graduate school. She earned her Master’s in Education from the same alma mater in 2017. Emmanuella spent two years as an English teacher in Richmond, California. During that time, she self-published her first poetry collection: The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Disorder. Currently, she is writing her first novel. You can find her on Instagram: @emmy_speaks and her website www.ehristova.com
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