Stories of Mental Disturbance
It often feels to those who suffer from mental illness that words cannot convey their experiences. The twenty voices in this issue of the London Reader take up that challenge in creative writing. If there are any words that come close to capturing our mental states, it is the climactic sentence of a short story, the concluding line of a sincere confession, or the final metaphor of a sharp poem. Within these pages, writers and poets, essayists and lyricists, psychologists and sufferers, lay bare their experiences with mental illness, showing us both its ugly and its sympathetic side, with their Words from Within.
What is mental illness? It is different for each of us. It is being awake all night and feeling the buzz of a neon sunrise without looking. It is a ransom note demanding you give up normality in exchange for your life. It is sitting at an empty shoreline and deciding whether to swim or give in. It is a troubling phone call from a close friend that could be the last. These images come from the emotional and captivating stories and poems within the pages of this volume.
Featuring…
Interviews with award-winning novelists Matthew Quick, author of The Silver Linings Playbook, and Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from renowned writers like Beth Aviv, Amy Bee, and Alexis-Rueal, award-winning poets like Fern G. Z. Carr and Leland James, psychologist Alberta Nassi, sisters Rebecca and Carinya Sharples, and many others whose work has been inspired by their or their loved ones’ struggles with mental illness.
The creative writing of Words from Within: Stories of Mental Disturbance brings to the page both the pain and the perseverance of the everyday and the extreme experiences of those who suffer from mental illness.
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