![]() ![]() How Does Mental Illness Fit Into Your Story Having said that, there are a few important points to consider when writing about mental illness. I would encourage any author to consider including mental illness in their books as a challenge for their character, the same way we often include divorce, job loss, death, and medical illness as a challenge for the characters. All mental health professionals are strongly dedicated to promotion of normalization of mental illness and understanding of it, as well as decreasing the stigma associated with being mentally ill. In the last few years, I have been thrilled to see that many authors are writing books with characters who struggle with mental illness. My Psychologist job has greatly influenced my writing as all my published books focus on writing about characters with a form of mental illness and on their recovery from mental illness. ![]() In fact, I practice in mental health full-time as a Pediatric and Perinatal Psychologist and I write in my spare time. In addition to the joy of being an author, I have also had the privilege of being a clinical psychologist for the last fifteen years. ![]()
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![]() ![]() ![]() Her revelatory work, Holding Change, arrives at the intersection of activism and whole-wellness, at a time when the world needs it most. “adrienne maree brown is powerful both as a healer and as a thought leader. Includes contributions by Autumn Brown, Sage Crump, Malkia Devich-Cyril, Ejeris Dixon, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Prentis Hemphill, Micky ScottBey Jones, N’Tanya Lee, and Makani Themba. ![]() The majority of the book is sourced from brown’s twenty-plus years of facilitation and mediation work with movement groups. Is about attending to coordination, to conflict, to being humans in right relationship with each other, not as a constant ongoing state, but rather as a magnificent, mysterious, ever-evolving dynamic in which we must involve ourselves, shape ourselves and each other. How do we practice them in ways that align with nature, with pleasure, with our best imagining of our future? How do we attend to generating the ease necessary to help us move through the inevitable struggles of life? How do we practice the art of holding others without losing ourselves? Black feminists have answers to those questions that can serve anyone working to create changes in our world, changes great and small individually, interpersonally, and within our organizations. In our complex world, facilitation and mediation skills are as important for individuals as they are for organizations. ![]() ![]() I downshift to push uphill and pump to the rhythm of the line: Nothing gold can stay. Writing calls, and before long, the Indian summer sun makes me sweat. I can take my bike out at will, ride for seven hours if I want. ![]() I’ve sent all my children to school, the first year all three are gone. And the day before that, crushed under snow. Then woods open to prairie again, alight with false sunflower, which just yesterday, it seems, was budding. A few asters pop through the spotted shade. I glide down a slope and cruise over a small steam. ![]() As I enter the prairie, stalks of goldenrod wave by the thousands, their studded strands hanging like the light that drips from a firework seconds after it explodes. I hop on my bike and ride to McDonald Woods, the forest preserve nestled behind our neighborhood. ![]() I just can’t get this line out of my head. ![]() Yes, the phrase features famously in The Outsiders.īut I don’t care about that now, don’t care about the scores of articles and web sites siphoning the meaning from the poem, the students across the country hammering out their theses for their first poetry paper of the year. Yes, the line’s from a famous Frost poem. As September flickers out like a candle, this line of poetry marches through my brain: “Nothing gold can stay.” ![]() ![]() ![]() He avoids the “quasi-religious terms” encountered in others’ experiences of deep dives, yet still offers an acute sense of wonder and respect for the ocean, from the disappearing diving traditions of ancient cultures to the diversity of life in earth’s deepest trenches. A surfer with a lifelong connection to the ocean, Nestor interpolates his own training to “go deep” with encounters with scientists researching at the limits of ocean knowledge. ![]() While free diving may have earned YouTube notoriety as a danger-laden sport with “fringe disciplines” and stunning depth records, Nestor is only briefly fascinated by the “ego-driven competition,” and focuses instead on free diving as the elemental mode for accessing the wonders of the ocean. This exploration of the “human connection to the ocean” begins with free diving, the technique of depth diving on single breaths of air. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Day, of course, we all loved from the beginning. Readers will find June much more sympathetic and likable in Prodigy. Smart as she is, she has to learn about independent thinking. Torn between her childhood leanings and her new alliances, June has to learn how to evaluate the world on her own, no longer accepting what other people tell her to be true. Where June spent most of Legend being an annoyingly perfect, almost robotic, girl, completely devoted to her role in the Republic, she really develops in Prodigy. The ending leaves the plot poised to be completely epic in the next book, but I hope Lu is cutthroat enough to do what she needs to do, because that's where a lot of young adult authors miss the mark in dystopian novels. Without spoilers, I really cannot tell you much specifically about what is awesome, but just believe me that it is. The first book set the pieces perfectly for her to branch out. The plotting of Legend follows a pretty standard dystopian outline, but, in Prodigy, Marie Lu really does something different. ![]() |