“Jump and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.” - Ray Bradbury
ABOUT AMIRA
An author, advocate and “thriver survivor,” I have dedicated my life to giving voice.
Trauma silences. A great deal of my writing, teaching, advocacy and other work have centered on giving voice. To reclaim our own voice is core to healing. Voice is agency.
I have a dramatic history of serial sexual trauma extending from ages 11 to 30. I have healed from Dissociative Identity Disorder, fourteen years of suicidal depression, a decade of eating disorders, PTSD, psychogenic seizures and two brief periods of borderline psychosis. I also manage my bipolar disorder through a healthy lifestyle. (I do not recommend a drug-free approach for everyone.)
I have healed deeply, joyfully and almost entirely without medication.
I was born in Ottawa and raised on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. At sixteen I dropped out of school, moved away from home and became a professional stage actress for almost a year. I have lived in eight countries and studied seven languages at eight universities around the world. In addition to my BA and MA in French and general linguistics from Université Laval, Quebec City, I hold certificates in advanced Arabic, Spanish philology and German language and literature from universities in Jordan, Spain and Germany.
In 1986 I moved to the U.S. My husband and I raised our two children in Maryland. Both are now engineers.
Professionally, I have taught languages or translation at two universities in Canada and Jordan and at immigrant, language or public schools in Quebec, Bonn, Paris and Baltimore. After working as a suicide and crisis hotline counselor out of a homeless shelter, I spent years as a caseworker and grantwriter at a nonprofit center for immigrants. Then for twenty-one years, I ran my own national interpreter training business. It licensed more than 400 trainers in 44 U.S. states, Washington, DC, Guam, Puerto Rico and six other countries. Some of our programs focused intensively on trauma-informed interpreting.
Once the world project leader for an ISO international standard on interpreting, I have sat on national and international boards, plenaries and advisory committees while giving keynotes and presentations at conferences across the U.S. and abroad. Prior to its sale, my business’s publishing imprint sold interpreting textbooks and manuals to 30 countries and all 50 U.S. states.
Since 2020, I have lived with my husband on Amelia Island, Florida, our paradise of ocean, intracoastal waterways, marsh, tropical and maritime forest. Here we have found peace, beauty and stillness.
“The wound is the place where light enters you.”
but… WHO AM I?
Bios draw our lives in crude lines. They do not portray who we are.
I was born Marjory Bancroft. In 2022, I changed my name legally to Mira Wallace. On this website, and for The Interpreter of Love Project, my name is Amira. Why? You’ll find the answer to that question in my second blog, “Why I Changed My Name.” That answer, and the reason my name here is Amira, both speak deeply to who I am.
As I write this, it is a spring morning before dawn. The frogs are singing. I am a woman who loves beauty, truth and sunlight, the coming of spring, green and blue landscapes, and the seasonal singing of the frogs.
Most importantly, I love you: my fellow survivors of extreme trauma.
WHO are WE ALL?
We are the sum of our genes, family, environment and choices. We are also, to a degree, the trajectory of our lives. That journey through a lifetime molds us. We can drive the journey or be driven. It is better, I feel, to hew to a path of choice.
The more we choose, the more we can choose wisely.
I choose to be myself.
MY WRITING
At its core, most of my writing and work are about three things: trauma, meaning and agency.
Trauma is a dark road into truth. Yet it can also lead us to the foundations of human consciousness and the wellsprings of true being. Like patience, trauma is bitter but bears a sweet fruit.
Meaning is our roadmap out of darkness.
Voice is agency. It is a tool of connection and a call for community. For trauma survivors, claiming our own voice allows us to script our life story with clarity and vision. If we heal deeply enough to share that story with others, we not only make it so real and true that it reshapes our own lives, our hearts and our spirits. We can also inspire hope in others.
In my work, I delineate both the descent to hell and the long climb into light. In that sense, my writing is keenly spiritual by intent. It is work that forges meaning.
I do this work for you. For us. It is my gift to the world.
I write especially for anyone in pain and darkness. May you taste light and joy.
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”