Neurological Illness in Australian Fiction
I don’t read fiction about illness much. I know that’s not what you expected, as it goes directly against the premise of this essay. But fiction allows me to inhabit another body; it’s a luxury. I’m not sure I want to read about a body that is ill like mine. Thinking...
Distilling Illness in ‘Shaping the Fractured Self’
Words || Katerina Bryant “Sometimes pus, sometimes a poem… but always pain.” —Yehuda Amichai, as quoted in Shaping the Fractured Self The first poem I loved was Sylvia Plath’s Tulips. I didn’t understand it; not at first. I was in the last year of high school and our...
Australian Writing and Essays on Illness || Katerina Bryant
Words || Katerina Bryant When I first became ill, I tried to find stories like mine. I needed to see myself on the page to believe I could adapt to a new life: a quieter, restrained life. I will not go into the particulars of my illness here—it is a sticky blend of...
How Australian writing contributes to conversations about chronic illness || September’s blogger is Katerina Bryant
I view writing as my way to understand the complexities of lives I have and haven’t lived. So, often my writing is far-reaching—I’ve yoyo’d from writing about hunting feral pigs to mental illness to my recent obsession, women clowns. It seems the only consistency in my work is that it’s nonfiction.