Writing a PhD is a challenge for anyone. A PhD is a marathon of writing, thinking, getting it wrong, making breakthroughs, but with the ultimate aim to reach the crowning glory of being called a 'doctor', with the hope that it will bring the start, or the enhancement of a career, usually in academia. Writing a PhD, however, does not just come with the challenges of writing, but it is accompanied with life's challenges, therefore, writing a PhD inevitably ensures that you reflect on life, in what you have gained and in what you have lost or not had. This book is a collection of villanelles that reflect on a 'lost childhood' of not being in Wales, a hiraeth, a yearning and a nostalgic feel for the 'land of my fathers'.

As human beings we know what home is, or for some of us the hope or ideal of what home should be: friends, family, nostalgia, all interlaced through love. It is an emotional, spiritual, and physical connection to a place that goes beyond the superficial level. In the broad sense I ask you the reader, ÔIs this world your home?Õ If you are honest with yourself you must confess it doesnÕt always feel like home. This path that you are about embark upon, the journey of my soul, to discover humanityÕs home. Not a home exclusively for one race, religion, or political creed, but a home for all, each accepted as members of one family and one creation.

Hiraeth is a story of myself, how I felt tangled in my own thoughts. I lived in my own world of love, hate, Friendships and frustrations. But never once did I regret it. Living that made me write this book, become a poet. To cry out my emotions verbally made me feel alive, made me the person I am now. And I’ll keep growing from now on. The books is also about how to find light after ages of being in shadows. I hope you all find your way of expressing yourself too.

Have you ever felt like you miss someone but you can't really understand who it is that you miss or what it is that you miss? Have you ever felt something empty in your heart, no amount of laughter, no amount of joy seems to fill it up? Then, my friend, you are experiencing a feeling called Hiraeth. Hiraeth is a Welsh word meaning longing for someone (a home). People into spirituality believe that this feeling is the first of the eight stages in a twin flame journey. Sounds magical? Sure does. This anthology tries to justify this feeling through various works by the co-authors. Through this book, the reader is sure to understand what Hiraeth would feel like and connect to the feeling if they are going through or have gone through the same.

Dreaming of Hiraeth is a heart-rending tale about a true testament of friendship, drawing on a deeper meaning on what it means not just to survive, but to live. Julian Hayes--the moon: loner, introvert, dreamer--is haunted with the guilt of his actions one scarring night six years ago, when he ran away against his will from his twisted home, leaving him unable to remember most of his childhood. Theo Wilson--the sun: bright, bold, realist--was dropped off on the front steps of a group home as a newborn, with a record of the group and foster homes he has run from. No two people could be more opposites than Julian and Theo--yet they have more in common than most would believe. Both orphans, living in a group home in Brooklyn's Fort Greene, they suffer from dark pasts as they try to navigate their youth in the bustle of New York City and pave a worthy future for themselves. Despite their falls, secrets, adventures, and the many obstacles stacked against them, the best friends learn that perhaps the key to their survival is in each other--and that the fight is not in the fall, but the rise. A coming-of-age story about adolescence's innocence and life's meaning, Dreaming of Hiraeth deals with the realities of the foster care system, racism, sexuality, mental illnesses, and addiction in the twenty-first century.

Hiraeth: A feeling of longing for a home that no longer exists or for one that never was. Mike and the crew fight for their right to survive, to carve out a new home, even though Mike cannot help but carry with him all the group has lost. He now wonders if he can continue to sacrifice his own for the sake of others. Terrifying new monsters are born amid the chaos, do our heroes have the will and the firepower to overcome these latest threats? Friends and foes alike will fall, and there may be no human victor. Follow along in this heart-slamming, non-stop thriller, Michael Talbot’s final journal, the conclusion of the epic adventure series: Zombie Fallout.

There are a few things in life which will always be important, and the most important things in that list are - You and Your Family. At every step of the way, the people who stand by you, no matter what the situation or how hard the situation is are you and your family, because no matter how silly or stupid your action may be, they will always always have your back. Self-love seems so often unrequited, but the truth is that to fall in love with yourself is the first secret to happiness - and happiness comes when you love yourself unconditionally, just as you love those closest to you despite their faults - like your family and the ones in your closest circle. The most important things in life are often misunderstood to be money and wealth, and everything that comes with it - but what good would any of those things be if you don't have your family or your nearest and dearest to share those moments with. Things may come and go, but the one thing that will remain the same till the end of time is the your family. Que Sera Sera is a book compiled by Aafreen Zafar, with 15 co-authors who talk about the importance of not just family and self-love, and making the world believe that the most important thing in the world is family and self-love because those are the things that matter.

Having grown up on stories of her mother's wild youth in California, Elena Berg relocates from New England to the Bay Area in 2011 for a placement as an English teacher with Teach for America. Once there, she is eager to inspire a love of poetry and literature in her diverse but underprivileged students. Her own grandfather—a Holocaust survivor—was a storyteller and teacher who touched the lives of his students for years to come. Elena’s mother followed in his footsteps, leaving behind the hippie lifestyle of her twenties to become a university professor. But Elena quickly finds herself feeling disconnected from teaching, unable to inspire her students, and before long, she grows disillusioned with her career. She transitions to a role in an education technology startup—though she questions her decision, her motivations, and her values. Coming of age between the Occupy and #MeToo movements and against the backdrop of the 2016 election and California's ever-worsening fire season, Elena reckons with California as she imagined it and California as it really is. As she does so, she must also ultimately reconcile the person she envisioned herself to be with the person she actually is.

Paul Thomas chronicles a multi-level reception study of the Bible at both the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter in Kentucky, USA. Thomas explores the commercial presentation of biblical narratives and the reception of those narratives by the patrons of each attraction, focusing upon three topics; what do young Creationists believe, how they interpret their beliefs from the Bible, and what is the user experience at the museums? The volume begins by explaining how Answers in Genesis (AiG) use Bible passages to support young-Earth creationist arguments, allowing for the chance to consider the Bible via physical means. Thomas then examines how the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter visitors receive the Bible (as presented by AiG) and how this presentation informs visitors' understanding of the text, exploring concepts such as the most prominent displays of the two attractions, the larger context of museums and theme parks and the case studies of the Methuselah display and The Noah Interview. He concludes with the summary of the user experience generated by the attractions, analyzing the degree to which patrons accept, negotiate, or resist the interpretation of the Bible offered by AiG.

‘PICK OF THE WEEK’: “Sara Rena Vidal's imaginative story of her parents' war …” - Steven Carroll in Spectrum (The Age (Melbourne) & Sydney Morning Herald) 9/12/2017 “... the author has used the power of multiple sources of words to conjure the immediacy of a vanished world. I haven’t read anything quite like it before.” - Lisa Hill ANZLitLovers. “Wonderful book; deeply researched, scholarly, heartfelt and well written.” - Emeritus Professor Roger Fay, University of Tasmania ‘.. what an intrinsic and fascinating … ultimately beautiful dedication to family to faith and to life. So thoroughly researched too. A life's work for sure …’ - Stella Kinsella, Williamstown. “This memoir ... refuses to defer to hate and yearns to inspire a more humane future.” - Emeritus Professor Richard Freadman, LaTrobe University. “… a beautiful way to end, so full of a sense of our common humanity and our connection to everything on this planet if we are open to it.” - India Bell, Sydney In which my longing for that which is lost as well as for that which might yet be as told from memory fragments, journal jottings, and delving into history past and present, intertwining with my parents’ stories of more than survival, traverses despair to find transformation, home, and gratitude. So the generations will know, and choose life – after all it is a commandment. For Bella and Chaim. And for those to come. Encompassing this true story of Bella and Chaim, the author’s parents, with the intergenerational trauma of being a child of survivors, this memoir of love, loss and gratitude, is a testament to the human spirit as well as a call to rise above: ashes, victimhood, and generalizations. Bella and Chaim met and fell in love in the Warsaw Ghetto where they witnessed the destruction of a way of life; sole survivors of both their families, they were in the ghetto until its last days then endured entombment for eighteen months before rescue, liberation, and immigration to begin anew in Australia. A flowing collage embracing and mingling survivor-memory, recorded and analyzed historical context, and memory-fragments of Melbourne in the 1950s, with real-time musings on the light, dark and potential of being alive. Honoring the murdered and the righteous, reminding us that our choices matter, ever present are the dilemma’s and challenges facing us today. Augmented with photos, maps, a chapter on sources, bibliography, endnotes and an index, this book can be read as an inspirational story and/or utilized as a well-researched resource for in-depth study.