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 46: Winter Festivals - Traditions and Stories in the Dark
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 45: Time and Tide and the Rose-tinted Glasses - Our Fascination with the Past
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 44: Writing Sex Scenes - it's not as Hard as You Think
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 43: Standalones to Series - the pros and cons of one-offs and neverending series
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 41: Let us make Men - From Golems to Androids
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 41: Balancing the Real and the Fantastical - Writing Relatable Epic Fantasy
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 40: Strange, Horrible and Who - the Egotism of Genius
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 39: Saints, Souls and Samhain - the Celtic Day of the Dead
Dissecting Dragons:Episode 38: Monsters and Men - Gothic Classics and the Origin of Horror - A Halloween Special
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 37:Breaking Out the F-jar - Our Favourite Swears in Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 36: Horcruxs and Heartbreak - of Books, Souls and Killing your Darlings
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 35: Three Goblins Walk into a Bar - Writing Humour in Speculative Fiction and How to Avoid the Accidental Funny.
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 34: The Unveiled Series Reborn - Books, Judgement, Heaven & Hell, and PTSD
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 33: Not so Charming - Male Stereotypes in Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 32: Escape to the Country - of Editing and Writing Weekends
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 31: The Devil in the Details - Lucifer on Modern Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 30: Bucky Barnes to the Winter Soldier - the Evolution of the Side-kick
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 29: The Frankenstein Complex - Why is 'Fan Fiction' such a dirty word?
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 28: Gobblefunk and Glyphs - creating words in Children's Fantasy
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 27: Harnessing Demons - How Writers use their own faults and insecurities in Writing
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