S138.
Beyond Romanticism, Beyond Shame: Writing About Mental Illness
Saturday, March 26, 2022
10:35 am to 11:50 am
“Illness,” writes Lauren Slater, “medicine itself, is the ultimate narrative: there is no truth there.” While there is much more awareness and less romanticising of mental illness in literary culture than there once was, writing about diagnosis and recovery still brings with it plenty of stigma and shame. With work that ranges from graphic forms to narrative nonfiction, our panelists discuss their approaches to writing about mental illness, family history, and psychiatric care.
Participants
Liz Harmer is the author of two novels: The Amateurs (2018) and Strange Loops (2022). She is at work on a memoir about her experience with and family history of mental illness.
Courtney Cook is the author and illustrator of the graphic memoir The Way She Feels: My Life on the Borderline in Pictures and Pieces. Her personal essays have been published by outlets such as TIME, the Guardian, and the Rumpus.
Ashley-Elizabeth Best (she/her) is the disabled author of Slow States of Collapse and Alignment. Her poems have appeared in New Welsh Review, the Literary Review of Canada, Ambit magazine, December magazine, and others. She holds an honors degree from Queen's University.
Claire Phillips is the author of the memoir A Room with a Darker View: Chronicles of My Mother and Schizophrenia and the fantastic novella Black Market Babies. She is a lecturer at Cal Arts, a recipient of the American Academy of Poets award, and a notable mention in The Best American Essays 2015.
Hollay Ghadery is a writer living on Anishinaabe land in rural Ontario. She has her MFA in creative writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir in mixed race identity and mental illness, was released by Guernica Editions’ MiroLand imprint in the spring of 2021.
