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The Drunken Odyssey

~ A Podcast About the Writing Life

The Drunken Odyssey

Tag Archives: Memoir

Episode 80: Melanie Neale!

11 Saturday Jan 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Memoir, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Amiri Baraka, Andrew Simpson Guthrie, Boat Girl, Hubert Selby, Jr., Melanie Neale, Memoir, Saving Mr. Banks

Episode 80 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this week’s show, I present my interview with the memoirist Melanie Neale,

Melanie Neale

plus Andrew Simpson Guthrie shares his memoir essay-in-verse, “The Weighty Page.”

TEXTS DISCUSSED

boat girl Boat Kid

Last Exit

NOTES

Check out the Transit Interpretation Project here, or read Ryan Rivas’s essay, “Rider’s Block,” here.

Amiri Baraka, author of Dutchman, dies at 79.

Read Kip Robisch‘s “Fun Dads, Loss, and ‘Saving Mr. Banks.'”

The Heaven of Animals, the forthcoming collection from friend-of-the-show David James Poissant (my co-host of the mailbag episodes), is available for pre-order. Please support the launch of this stellar story collection.

The Heaven of Animals

Episode 80 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

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Gutter Space #16: Cartooning through Delicate Subject Matters (Marbles, by Ellen Forney)

20 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Gutter Space

≈ Leave a comment

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bipolar, cartooning, Ellen Forney, Graphic Novel, gutter space, leslie salas, Marbles, Memoir, mental illness, Sequential art

Gutter Space #16 by Leslie Salas

Cartooning through Delicate Subject Matters: Marbles, by Ellen Forney

Part of what makes cartooning such a powerful medium of expression is the ability to tweak one’s words and pictures to express tonality and nuance in a way that words and pictures alone cannot. This is most clearly illustrated when writers+artists(=cartoonists) cover delicate subject matters—such as Ellen Forney’s discussion of her bipolar disorder diagnosis in her memoir, Marbles.

Forney does not beat around the bush about her diagnosis. After giving her audience a taste of her constant mania, we get the slap-in-the-face news and it’s weighty implications. Once we focus on the image in the magic eye stereogram of “let’s take a look at the symptoms”—she emboldens the image:

How does she deal with this news? What does it mean? What are it’s implications?

At first she handles it rather well—and attributes it to joining “Club Van Gogh.”

And soon she runs away with the idea.

Forney draws herself in a typical manic fashion—surrounded by stars and bright emanata, she is excited and vibrant and full of life, jostling around, knocking things over, starry-eyes and happy.

But note the sword precariously perched above her. It’s not literally there. Damocles’ sword is just a metaphor, as are the stars and the swipes and the dotted lines and the squiggles. But all of those extra marks add meaning—they enrich the reading experience and clue the audience in on the internal happenings in Forney’s brain.

This continues on when Forney “revvs”  from neutral to high gear and gets swept away into becoming manic.

She draws herself as literally being swept away, when in reality the distraction and excitement is all figurative. The illustration is compelling and insightful  for those who have never experienced the highs of losing control while being manic.

The lack of control is dizzying. Even Forney’s eyes and face are starry and unfocused. She is a blurry whiz of energy, and we see that by how she’s presented herself on the page.

Conversely, we get the stark stillness of her plummet to depression.

She is an amorphous shape, wrapped in a blanket, laying on a couch.

The simple act of getting out of bed is a tremendous victory.

And still, panel by panel, with the tiny changes between them, it’s clear that there is a heavy weight of depression. It’s oppression, and her immobility. The panels lack detail and shading. There is no richness or depth during depression, and we get that through her illustrations.

Forney also covers some of the unforeseen side-effects of bipolar disorder, such as the awkwardness of telling family members.

And the frustrations of finding a treatment plan that works for her.

She uses humor as a buffer for the sensitivity and intense personal nature of her diagnosis. But what is more telling are the additions to her illustrations. She includes sound cues and a director’s “cut” for her disappointment. She turns herself into a pill bottle, surrounded by mountains of pills and an excessively long list of failed treatment plans.

And there is her sheer frustration.

The small illustrations in the background are more telling than anything else I’ve discussed. She uses each of these images as themes throughout her memoir—moods like rainstorms, a merry-go-round as a tool for discussing the various types of bipolar disorder, the constant emotional rollercoaster—we’ve seen these symbols before, so when we get to this panel on this page, we sympathize with her even if we haven’t experienced any of these ourselves (let alone all of it at once).

Marbles is a powerful account of a woman learning to live with a diagnosis and telling her story through the best tools she has available: her voice and her art. By putting both of those tools together, she expresses more than either could alone, resulting in effective storytelling about a sensitive and personal subject matter.

___________

Leslie Salas (Photo by Ashley Inguanta)

Leslie Salas writes fiction, nonfiction, screenplays, and comics. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Florida and attended the University of Denver Publishing Institute. In addition to being an Associate Course Director at Full Sail University, Leslie also serves as an assistant editor for The Florida Review, a graphic nonfiction editorial assistant for Sweet: A Literary Confection, and a regular contributing artist for SmokeLong Quarterly.

Episode 58: Philip Raisor!

22 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, James Joyce, Memoir, Poetry, Sports

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Craft of Writing, Creative Writing, Literature, Memoir, Poetry, Writing Podcast

Episode 58 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this week’s show, I talk to the poet Philip Raisor,

Philip Raisor

Plus Melissa Crandall brings us some Xmas in July!

Melissa Crandall and Holly

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Hoosiers the Poems

Swimming in the Shallow End

Outside Shooter

Tuned and Under Tension

A Christmas Carol

NOTES

J.K. Rowling is Robert Galbraith, the author of The Cuckoo’s Calling.

The Cuckoos Calling

Episode 58 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 53: Cheryl Strayed!

15 Saturday Jun 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Cheryl Strayed, Craft of Fiction Writing, Episode, Memoir, Poetry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Cheryl Strayed, Craft of Writing, Creative Writing, Memoir, Poetry, Writing Podcast


Episode 53 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this week’s show, I talk to Cheryl Strayed,

Cheryl Strayed

Plus I share the piece that first made me read Cheryl Strayed’s work, Deborah Weaver’s essay about Wild.

Debbie Weaver

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Wild

Torch

Tiny-Beautiful-Things1

Mentors Muses Monsters

NOTES

Pages from Cheryl Strayed’s PCT journal.

Wild journal2

Wild journal3

•

On June 22, The Drunken Odyssey will be here:

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Recent reports about the National Security Agency’s PRISM data collection program have apparently lead to a spike in sales of George Orwell’s 1984 (although PRISM is really only  a minor example of the erosion not only of our privacy, but our reality, according to the philosopher Peter Ludlow).

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Episode 53 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 50: David Sedaris

25 Saturday May 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Bloomsday, David Sedaris, Episode, Recommendation

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Craft of Writing, David Sedaris, Fables, Humor, Memoir, Miami Book Fair International, Writing Podcast

Episode 50 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this week’s show, I talk to the memoir writer David Sedaris,

David Sedaris

plus Pamela Skjolsvik discusses David Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day,

Pamela Skjolsvik
and Adriana Lecuona writes about Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Those Who Leave Omelas.”
Adriana Lecuona

Texts Discussed

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk

Me Talk Pretty One Day

The Unreal and the Real Volume 2

Notes

Sedaris autograph

David’s inscription in my copy of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.

One of Ian Falconer's illustrations from Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk.

One of Ian Falconer’s illustrations from Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk.

Episode 50 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 39: Rick Moody!

06 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Craft of Fiction Writing, Episode

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Craft of Writing, Creative Writing, Fiction, Homer, Literature, Memoir, Poetry, rick moody, Theatre, Writing Podcast

Episode 39 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this week’s show, I talk to Rick Moody,

Rick Moody

James Best explains why he isn’t afraid of sharks,

James Best

Plus I talk to the playwright and actor Charlie Bethel about his current one man show of The Odyssey.

Charlie Bethel's Odyssey

Texts Discussed

On Celestial Music

The Four Fingers of Death

DemonologyThe Ring of Brightest Angels

Notes

The Drunken Odyssey will be making a pub crawl in Boston this Friday.

AWP Conference

Episode 39 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 3

24 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Craft of Fiction Writing, Episode, Poetry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Craft of Writing, Creative Writing, Memoir, Poetry, Writing Podcast

Episode 3 of TDO is available on iTunes, or right click here.

This latest show features the fabulous Lisa Claire Roney,

Plus Vanessa Victoria Volpe discusses Deborah Landau’s The Last Usable Hour.

Books Discussed:

Episode 3 of TDO is available on iTunes, or right click here.

Online, shop here:

If you must, shop Amazon and help the show.

Audible.com

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