A menagerie of wounded beasts: essays

Elizabeth Bolton
Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:43:33 PDT

The essays in this collection, working title A Menagerie of Wounded Beasts, consider the ways in which we struggle with the limitations of our own bodies and minds, sometimes juxtaposing those against the related struggles of animals, from horses to chickens to mice to starfish. In the essays, I explore such diverse topics as grief and loss, domestic violence, modern parenting, the life of the artist, and the natural world. In building the collection, I considered how to match content with formal elements, so there are narrative essays, lyrical pieces, a speculative nonfiction story, a hermit crab essay, and flash and micro nonfiction. Beyond form and content, I am interested in thinking about how art forms interact and how artists can work across genres to tell stories. In engaging with the work of conceptual artist Yayoi Kusama, film director Baz Luhrmann, children's book writer/illustrator Marie Hall Ets, and even Olympic gold medal winning ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, I have done my best to consider how their experiences dovetail with my own, and how their art influences mine. The collection includes essays drawn from having lived in Southeast Alaska, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, New England, and my hometown of Brooklyn. The collection is built around an inciting incident: the decision my spouse and I made to terminate a pregnancy at 21 weeks, when it was determined that a chromosomal abnormality discovered in the fetus would be incompatible with life. I have wrestled with how to write about this subject in a way that invites readers to extend empathy and understanding to a subject that can be controversial and polarizing. My hope is that readers will be influenced to reconsider their internalized opinions about abortion, stillbirth, and miscarriage, seeing them as existing along a continuum. I hope, too, that those who've experienced pregnancy loss in any form will see the collection as a source of healing.