About
“By digging and digging the truth is discovered.”
– Telugu Proverb
As a writer, I am interested in the intersections between memory, image, and narrative, and the ways in which the things we unearth – photographs, artifacts, ephemera, and other fragmentary evidence – can help narrate a life.
For quite some time, I have worked on Dangerous Archaeology: A Daughter’s Search for Her Mother (and Others) – a memoir in fragments (with photographs by Autumn E. Monsees), a mixed-genre project that springs from my research into my mother’s unusual and complicated childhood in rural South India as the daughter and granddaughter of foreign missionaries. I have imagined myself as an archaeologist, digging and digging my way to some kind of truth, some kind of understanding.
Started privately in 2013, interrupted, begun anew at a transition point in my life, this blog will move me into new territory. Where it will take me (and you, dear reader/viewer), I do not know. So…
With this blog – part field notebook, part gallery space, part meanderings, musings, and asides – I continue to unearth the fragments before me and sift out what it might mean to narrate a life, piece by piece.
Here, then, is one writer’s excavation.
Martha Andrews Donovan
Photo credit: ©Jamie Clifford Photography
Martha Andrews Donovan: One Writer's Excavation 
Love your page, Martha, and was able to click back to the Hayden’s Ferry piece…impressive…keep on going and keep me on your list!
Great to see you,
Ailsa
LikeLike
Thanks, Ailsa! I am continually inspired by my strong, independent, fearless women friends – such as you – so blessed by our friendship that has spanned four decades now!
LikeLike
I’m a graduate of Kodai School and wonder when your mother attended.
LikeLike
Hi, Paul. My mother graduated in 1940. She attended Kodai all but first and ninth grade when her parents were on furlough.
LikeLike
Hi Martha, I’m writing a book about Kodai School and would like to include the story your mother wrote “Indian Shangri-La.” It’s a wonderful story and I’d like to share it with others. I will of course credit the story to her. I can also include your name and mention your website or whatever you’d like said.
LikeLike