Change Me Into Zeus' Daughter

Barbara Robinette Moss burst onto the scene four years ago with an unforgettable autobiographical piece called "Near the Center of the Earth". That essay, a powerful, poetic account of Moss's poverty-stricken childhood and her artistic mother's desperate measures to provide enough food for her eight children, won the Gold Medal for Personal Essay from the prestigious William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition and immediately brought Moss to the attention of writers and critics everywhere. Now, with the long-awaited Change Me into Zeus's Daughter -- a poignant and wholly compelling memoir that grew out of the author's original essay -- Moss has not only made good on her initial promise, she has achieved a rare and abiding triumph of artistry and spririt.

Woven from humor, grief, love, and regret, Moss's memoir is the haunting story of a difficult and keenly felt life: plagued by her family's poverty, her father's alcoholic abuse, and her painful awareness of her own malformed face, she is rescued by a life-giving appreciation for literature and art, and a driving determination to achieve a life marked by beauty.