MOUNT VERNON — Iowa City author Barbara Robinette Moss, whose memoir “Change Me Into Zeus’s Daughter” details an impoverished childhood in 1960s Alabama, will give a reading at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 15, in Cole Library, second floor, on the Cornell College campus. Admission is free.
In her book, Moss talks about living with an abusive alcoholic father and a humble yet heroic mother who tried to expose her eight children to poetry, music and painting despite their poverty. Years of malnutrition and a lack of medical and dental care left young Barbara with incorrectly formed facial bones and teeth — and a wish to be made attractive, to be transformed into Zeus’ daughter, Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty. The book, however, is not absorbed in self-pity; rather it tells of the bond between the eight children, the fun they had with making-do and their devotion to their mother.
Moss holds a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Ringling School of Art & Design and a master of fine arts degree from Drake University. She has participated in more than 100 juried art exhibitions. In 1996 she won a gold medal for personal essay in the William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition for a story that became the first chapter in her book, published in 2000. Pulitzer Prize-winning screenwriter Marsha Norman is currently writing a screenplay of “Zeus’s Daughter” that will be produced by Goldie Hawn.