Today, we are thrilled to share our latest author interview! In this episode, Fable and the Verbivore have the great pleasure of speaking with poet, author, and mental health counselor Marlene DeVose.

Marlene independently published her first work of fiction, Poinsettia, on May 1st of this year. This book follows the journey of the character Leemi from adolescence to young adulthood as she struggles with her identity, place in the world, and tries to understand and manage mental illness on her own. It’s an honest and unflinching story about the often messy and winding road to accepting and loving who we are, finding glimpses of hope in life’s struggles, and learning about and working to actively support, and daily manage, mental health.

While reading Poinsettia, Laura (the Verbivore) and Bethany (Fable) were struck by Marlene’s poignant and truthful representation of Leemi’s daily experiences living with depression and OCD, as well as the well rounded portrayal of Leemi as a person with many facets outside of her experience with mental illness. This story is a great example of telling an authentic and empathetic tale, while not shying away from some of the more painful and candid aspects of the human condition, but also finding a holistic view of a person and not defining them by their experience.

In this conversation, Marlene shares the story of how she came to write Poinsettia, which originally started as a journal to document the fictional character Leemi’s struggles with mental illness. This allowed Marlene as the writer to grapple with and start doing some self work in her own life by gaining distance and perspective on some of her own experiences. She discusses using the language of nature to help describe experiences that are difficult to pin down. She also gives some great advice about cultivating patience in the writing process and taking the time and care to make sure a story is meaningful, before releasing it out into the world. From a mental health perspective, she discusses the importance of finding beauty in the moment and focusing on it, clinging to those points of joy and having gratitude for them to help cope with the dark days.

Marlene explores more on the themes of mental health, grappling with spiritual uncertainty and identity in her writing on both her website https://marlenedevose.com/ and through her IGTV videos and story highlights found on her instagram channel @marlenedevose.

We hope you enjoy this episode, we greatly enjoyed speaking with Marlene and left this conversation having a lot to think about regarding writing truthful and heartfelt stories! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

We talk about several mental dissorders and mental illness in this episode. Here are a few important definitions:

• Mental illnesses are health conditions involving changes in emotion, thinking or behavior (or a combination of these). Mental illnesses are associated with distress and/or problems functioning in social, work or family activities. Mental illness is common and treatable. The vast majority of individuals with mental illness continue to function in their daily lives.

  Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of. It is a medical problem, just like heart disease or diabetes.

• Depression (major depressive disorder) is a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. Fortunately, it is also treatable. Depression causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease a person’s ability to function at work and at home.

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder in which people have recurring, unwanted thoughts, ideas or sensations (obsessions) that make them feel driven to do something repetitively (compulsions). The repetitive behaviors, such as hand washing, checking on things, or cleaning, can significantly interfere with a person’s daily activities and social interactions.

The Verbivore mentions Marlene’s website that has a reference for identifying what the character Leemi is mentally struggling with as she tries to explain her experience in her own words. Here is that link: https://marlenedevose.com/mentalhealth

Books Mentioned:

• Poinsettia by Marlene Devose

• Baby Alicia is Dying by Lurlene McDaniel

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
’Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)