This week, the dragons are delighted to welcome Kayla Ancrum, author of The Wicker King, to the show. Kayla's debut novel is a dark, contemporary YA thriller that delves deeply into hard hitting issues such as mental illness and codependency, which is why Jules and Madeleine were thrilled to have her join a discussion about portrayals of mental illness in YA fiction. Still labouring under the Gothic tropes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as meeting resistance and misunderstanding in the modern day, mental illness can be a knotty issue. In a previous episode (You Fancy Me Mad) the dragons deconstructed the Gothic tropes surrounding MH. In this episode, they look at how literature can help normalise a health issue that is far more common than people realise, and how it can help combat misinformation. What is good mental illness representation in YA fiction? And where are the areas in which it falls down or could use work? Is mental illness in fiction suffering from being, in many cases, an example forced to bear the weight of an entire spectrum?
Join us for a lively discussion and find out.
Title Music; Ecstasy by Smiling Cynic
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 152: The Universe in Motion - Expanding Series & Reader Opinion in Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 151: Reading Like a Writer - How Critical Reading Informs the Writing Process
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 150: The Twilight Zone - When Fandoms are Attacked in Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 149: 2018 - The Good, the Bad and the Utterly Bizarre
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 148: The Holly and the Ivy - The Root of the Carol
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 147: Trading Capes - When Villains become Heroes
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 146: The Hollywood Treatment - What the Movies Changed
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 145: Away with the Faeries - Girls versus Supernatural Queens
Dissecting Dragon: Episode 144: Private Eyes and Underworlds - Crime Meets Urban Fantasy
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 143: Making Sh!t Happen - Avoiding the Number One Writing Fail
Dissecting Dragons Episode 142: Battlefield Earth - Intergalactic Invasions in Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 141: Spirits of the Deep and Dark - A Dissecting Dragons Hallowe'en Special
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 140: Parody, Farce and Exaggeration - Satire in Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 139: That is Illogical - Murderous, Wacky and Wise-cracking AI in Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 138: Streetwalkers, Courtesans and Companions - The World's Oldest Profession in Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 137: This Year's God - The Human Need for Archetypes
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 136: Remus Werewolf McWerewolf Lupin - The Importance of Character Names in Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Ep 135: Grimalkin, Mogget and Mr Kindly - Cats in Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 134: Love Ladies Lost! Revisiting Arthurian Legend
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 133: Every Hero Needs a Sam - The Unlikely Best Friend in Speculative Fiction
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