Stonecoast Voices: Meredith MacEachern

Introduction

This story is a com­po­nent of my third-semes­ter project for the Stonecoast MFA program. The full project—Voices From the Monster’s Belly—deals with the unique poten­tial of oral sto­ry­telling to address trauma and agency for both indi­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ties. Though I also con­duct­ed research and held inter­views with sto­ry­tellers, elders, and his­to­ri­ans, I felt it was impor­tant to put my research into prac­tice. Oral sto­ry­telling has been an impor­tant part of my life and my recov­ery from my own trauma.

“The Monster Skinned” was ini­tial­ly com­posed without any form of written record or prompt­ing. I record­ed and tran­scribed it to address minor errors and stream­line the time, and this version was the final, re-record­ed one. It con­tains a number of images and ideas that have formed my per­son­al mythol­o­gy over the years and are often mir­rored in my writing.

Oral sto­ry­telling can forge con­nec­tions between tellers and lis­ten­ers, is a great cathar­tic tool, and allows indi­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ties power over their own nar­ra­tives. Though this, as a record­ing, does not com­plete­ly repro­duce that poten­tial, I hope it begins to demon­strate the value of oral sto­ry­telling as a cre­ative medium.

A special thank you to my mentor, Indigo Moor, for all his help with this project.

Mered­ith MacEach­ern has been writing since before she could phys­i­cal­ly hold a pen. After a child­hood spent trav­el­ing with her archae­ol­o­gist parents, she earned a BA with Honours from Acadia Uni­ver­si­ty in Nova Scotia, where her work appeared in Estuary and The Athenaeum. She is cur­rent­ly working on her MFA in Cre­ative Writing through the Stonecoast program.

Mered­ith pri­mar­i­ly writes novels and long fiction, though she occa­sion­al­ly dabbles in poetry. She also enjoys study­ing lan­guages, par­tic­u­lar­ly Inuk­ti­tut and Vamé, in what little spare time she can muster.