Chipmunky is pleased to bring this exclusive interview with Chipmunka author Katy-Sara Culling. Katy is the author of Dark Clouds Gather , and Too Good For This World
Chipmunky:Why did you want to write a book?
Katy-Sara: I had read a brutally honest book about bulimia (by Marya Hornebacher) and wanted to do the same for bipolar disorder and anorexia - absolute fly on the wall honesty to prove I am not ashamed of my mental illnesses and to help sufferers out there.
Why Chipmunka and how did you find out about the publisher?
A fellow chipmunka author Stephen Drake told me about Chipmunka Publishing. I agree with the company aim of giveing a voice to the mentally ill so I was happy to be recognised and sign. "The thoughts written on the walls of madhouses by their inmates might be worth publicising.” ~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, critic, (1742 – 1799).
What do you feel is the biggest hurdle for people with mental health problems to overcome today?
Stigmatisation within and out of the medical profession, we are treated as stupid (I took a PhD at Oxford), below 2nd class citizens. It is worse to be mentally ill than to do anything else e.g. abuse drink/drugs which a lot of us end up doing just to cope with our symptoms making it a double problem.
How did you feel about being published?
Fantastic. It really did save my life. I can't have children because of the medicine I have to take so it is my way of leaving a legacy and as such my books are my children, each one special and beautiful in it's own way. I can go on creating.
Overall how has the reaction to your books been?
My first book was a very academic style of memoir but it sold well. What mattered to me were the messaged I got from readers since I left my email address and website address in the book. I can honestly say I got no negative comments and many positive, "thank you for having the bravery to write this book" messages. I even had emails saying my book had saved readers' lives. For me that makes it all worth it.
Are you glad you wrote your books?
Extremely glad. The first memoir was painful but cathartic, but most importantly has saved lives out there. If I have saved just one it is worth it. My second book was far easier to write and I hope when the paperback is released it will sell well because it is so much easier to read than my first book.
What do you do to relax/ what’s good for your mental health?
I listen to music. I'm working hard to lose the weight I've gained on newer antipsychotic medication so I can take up my real passion again - skiing. What is vital for my day to day mental health is sleep and minimal stress. Without those two things I can guarantee I will become manic or depressed, usually in that order.
How do you feel about the ‘cannabis causes mental health’ debate?
I think more research is needed in that I think smoking and drinking are just as dangerous and they are legal. I have an unusual standpoint when it comes to drugs: I'd legalise everything, make everything safer and get rid of drug crime overnight. That doesn't mean I think someone like me should use cannabis, I absolutely shouldn't, not with my mental health history.
How do you feel about some peoples view, that people who have mental health problems and are claiming welfare are ‘scroungers‘?
It makes me both sad and angry. I'm sure there are scroungers out there and I wish the government would catch them quickly so that more money could go to those who really need it. Those people give the rest of us a bad name. Currently I could not work more than the odd hour here and there because I get so ill and if people think of me as a scrounger it's sad - but I wont let it beat me.
What are you currently working on?
I am working on book number 3 in collaboration with a professor of psychiatry - the rest is secret!
Any advice for aspiring authors?
Never give up, keep improving your manuscript if you keep hearing "no"until one day you hear "yes."
If you could change one thing about the mental health service, what would it be?
I would make it stick to its promises and be consistent - for which it needs money. For example my therapist left suddenly and I was promised I was top of the list for a new therapist, that was 5 months ago. When I was in hospital I wasn't supposed to be allowed to leave the ward but a nurse let me out (unsupervised) and I almost killed myself. There is so much inconsistency in mental health care, I'd get rid of that.
Chipmunky would like to thank Katy-Sara Culling very much for taking the time for this interview. More information can be found on her website here:http://www.katysaraculling.com/
Saturday 28 November 2009
Chipmunka's Latest Releases!
Here's the latest e-books by Chipmunka Publishing, from both new and experienced authors alike! :
Love That Waited Forty Years On The 321 Bus - Dr Rosaleen O'Brien
"Book Extract
As I waited at the bus stop in the rain
I saw you just cruising along
Laughing and chatting with your usual customers
On the 321
Listening to their joys and tears
We only saw each other for six short weeks
Our friendship had remained at the back of our minds
For forty long years
Never got to know each other better
Never once dated and never sent letters
Once I got off your bus at Park Square
I had to walk home through the dark roads
For me you showed you cared
`That is a dangerous risk to take you warned`
Some one could attack
And you are walking alone
So dark is the night and you are far from home
Having said `goodnight` you drove off your day was done
I often think of you and how you cared
On the 321
Each night as we said our `goodbyes`
And I was off along these roads
But I knew that I would miss you loads
One night as you looked at me so lovingly
With that far away look in your eyes
You offered to drive me home
Why was I not surprised?
Kind thought for me as you were worried about my journey home
Which could easily have compromised my safety
Remembering that you said that I would be safe with you
And that to me dear meant a lot
I gladly accepted and got into your car..."
How To Be Sectioned - Zekria Ibrahimi :
"Let us be as unrepentantly weird as possible about this play...
We do not want to be respectable and precise... Schizophrenia is not a neat thing. It is amorphous, it is grotesquely psychedelic, and this play wants you to participate in schizophrenia at its most macabre, all the way to death and beyond...
We are in the underbelly of society, we are where shame and terror intersect, we are amidst the predators and the vulnerable...
This is the story of the System that feeds off the doomed...
This play hopes that you too will seek to be a part of schizophrenia, of what is the ‘other’. Why stagnate in a complacent sanity? Explode into insanity instead... "
Shakespeare's Little Sister - Fatma Durmush
"Shakespeare's Little Sister Is about a woman’s circumstances when she loses everything. She loses her husband and her job, her sanity her house. She is also raped but she is such a person that no one cares about. Helicopters is the metaphor for men, so without going into it because I don’t want to spoil the pleasure. It is me and what I became all those years ago and now.
It is also about books. "
Dark Side Of The Loon - Ben Lee Almond
"I have been in and out of a lot of different institutions since the age of six. The first time I was admitted was to the Mary Burbury unit at Burnley general hospital. I have been to prison a few times, a few children’s homes and many different types’ of wards and psychiatric units.
After spending so much time in these places, I started to write poems about how I felt and what was going through my mind. I made lots of them flow and rhyme with long dark descriptive words which reflects where my head was at the time. I documented my experience with schizophrenic affective disorder and the results are profound.
I was into drugs heavily which took me to dark places. Some of my poems explain the negativity that they create and the nasty world around them when you take them. I have seen many people in prisons and hospitals with drug induced psychosis and been through to myself. I would love these poems in particular to serve as a deterrent for any one even thinking of trying drugs.
Some of these poems are here to give you an insight into drugs and the affects on mental health disorders that people experience, my self included. This book was mainly written as I was moved from one institution to the next and became a big part in my self counselling which has helped me greatly along the road."
The Wobbly - Sid Prise
"This book centers on a young Australian man named “Wallaby” in the early twentieth century. Though he is white, a “Balanda” boy, he was raised the first six years of his life in an Australian Aboriginal camp, until the government of Australia stole him and all the other children from his adoptive family, and raised him as a “white” child in Darwin. He leaves his home there at the age of sixteen, to seek his love, Mary Delilah, who has been sent away to a convent in Sydney. His journey to find her takes him to America, where he seeks her out for the next ten years. Along the way, Wallaby discovers the Industrial Workers of the World, a revolutionary union movement, to which he pledges his life. As a person “in between” black and white, Wallaby always sees American civilization as an outsider, even as he battles to make his way in it. Before he can find his love, he discovers many things about himself and the civilization he's trapped in, and dreams much of its possible revolutionary future. "
Click on the books title on this page to find out more!
Love That Waited Forty Years On The 321 Bus - Dr Rosaleen O'Brien
"Book Extract
As I waited at the bus stop in the rain
I saw you just cruising along
Laughing and chatting with your usual customers
On the 321
Listening to their joys and tears
We only saw each other for six short weeks
Our friendship had remained at the back of our minds
For forty long years
Never got to know each other better
Never once dated and never sent letters
Once I got off your bus at Park Square
I had to walk home through the dark roads
For me you showed you cared
`That is a dangerous risk to take you warned`
Some one could attack
And you are walking alone
So dark is the night and you are far from home
Having said `goodnight` you drove off your day was done
I often think of you and how you cared
On the 321
Each night as we said our `goodbyes`
And I was off along these roads
But I knew that I would miss you loads
One night as you looked at me so lovingly
With that far away look in your eyes
You offered to drive me home
Why was I not surprised?
Kind thought for me as you were worried about my journey home
Which could easily have compromised my safety
Remembering that you said that I would be safe with you
And that to me dear meant a lot
I gladly accepted and got into your car..."
How To Be Sectioned - Zekria Ibrahimi :
"Let us be as unrepentantly weird as possible about this play...
We do not want to be respectable and precise... Schizophrenia is not a neat thing. It is amorphous, it is grotesquely psychedelic, and this play wants you to participate in schizophrenia at its most macabre, all the way to death and beyond...
We are in the underbelly of society, we are where shame and terror intersect, we are amidst the predators and the vulnerable...
This is the story of the System that feeds off the doomed...
This play hopes that you too will seek to be a part of schizophrenia, of what is the ‘other’. Why stagnate in a complacent sanity? Explode into insanity instead... "
Shakespeare's Little Sister - Fatma Durmush
"Shakespeare's Little Sister Is about a woman’s circumstances when she loses everything. She loses her husband and her job, her sanity her house. She is also raped but she is such a person that no one cares about. Helicopters is the metaphor for men, so without going into it because I don’t want to spoil the pleasure. It is me and what I became all those years ago and now.
It is also about books. "
Dark Side Of The Loon - Ben Lee Almond
"I have been in and out of a lot of different institutions since the age of six. The first time I was admitted was to the Mary Burbury unit at Burnley general hospital. I have been to prison a few times, a few children’s homes and many different types’ of wards and psychiatric units.
After spending so much time in these places, I started to write poems about how I felt and what was going through my mind. I made lots of them flow and rhyme with long dark descriptive words which reflects where my head was at the time. I documented my experience with schizophrenic affective disorder and the results are profound.
I was into drugs heavily which took me to dark places. Some of my poems explain the negativity that they create and the nasty world around them when you take them. I have seen many people in prisons and hospitals with drug induced psychosis and been through to myself. I would love these poems in particular to serve as a deterrent for any one even thinking of trying drugs.
Some of these poems are here to give you an insight into drugs and the affects on mental health disorders that people experience, my self included. This book was mainly written as I was moved from one institution to the next and became a big part in my self counselling which has helped me greatly along the road."
The Wobbly - Sid Prise
"This book centers on a young Australian man named “Wallaby” in the early twentieth century. Though he is white, a “Balanda” boy, he was raised the first six years of his life in an Australian Aboriginal camp, until the government of Australia stole him and all the other children from his adoptive family, and raised him as a “white” child in Darwin. He leaves his home there at the age of sixteen, to seek his love, Mary Delilah, who has been sent away to a convent in Sydney. His journey to find her takes him to America, where he seeks her out for the next ten years. Along the way, Wallaby discovers the Industrial Workers of the World, a revolutionary union movement, to which he pledges his life. As a person “in between” black and white, Wallaby always sees American civilization as an outsider, even as he battles to make his way in it. Before he can find his love, he discovers many things about himself and the civilization he's trapped in, and dreams much of its possible revolutionary future. "
Click on the books title on this page to find out more!
Monday 16 November 2009
Author Peter Mackie Releases Album
Peter Mackie, author of The Madhouse of Love , has released his own album! The album titled 'All Over The Shop is available at his site Peter Mackie Music
You can hear samples of his work here: http://www.myspace.com/petergmackie. Chech his funky piano skills!
Nice Work Peter!
Saturday 14 November 2009
Nigel Pearce Makes The Papers
Nigel PearceChipmunka author Nigel Pearce is continuing to get interest from local papers about his new book Icarus Did Not Die
Read one of his interviews HERE
Nigel is also the founder and editor of 'wake your MIND', a self made magazine featuring a range of creative pieces and articles from people who've had mental health problems. The publication can be fround free from the Garcia Co-Op and community art's workshops in the Warickshire area.
New E-Book's This Week!
There's some great poetry work now available as e-books this week! :
Aspects Of Life - Janet Qureshi :
"'Aspects of Life’ is a collection of poems based on my personal experiences. Perhaps the predominant mental health issue relating to my book is ‘creativity evolves from the depths of depression.’ The poems incorporate my strong belief in a Higher Power who invades my mind and enables me to turn Negatives into Positives. I believe poetry is for sharing and in my darkest days I was able to produce something for my family, friends and anyone else who loves creativity to remember me by. I hope the book will inspire people to be optimistic about mental health problems. "
Poetry From My Heart - L M Scatizzi
"This is a collection of poems written in 80s and 90s, to use words to get feelings out in a sort of poetic way. Many of the issues that bothered me then have become big topics, such as ecology, the questioning of capitalist and gun wielding philosophies. Hopefully reading these poems will make people think about what their own values are, how they perceive life at the moment. "
If you like modern, heartfelt poetry, then these are for you!
Aspects Of Life - Janet Qureshi :
"'Aspects of Life’ is a collection of poems based on my personal experiences. Perhaps the predominant mental health issue relating to my book is ‘creativity evolves from the depths of depression.’ The poems incorporate my strong belief in a Higher Power who invades my mind and enables me to turn Negatives into Positives. I believe poetry is for sharing and in my darkest days I was able to produce something for my family, friends and anyone else who loves creativity to remember me by. I hope the book will inspire people to be optimistic about mental health problems. "
Poetry From My Heart - L M Scatizzi
"This is a collection of poems written in 80s and 90s, to use words to get feelings out in a sort of poetic way. Many of the issues that bothered me then have become big topics, such as ecology, the questioning of capitalist and gun wielding philosophies. Hopefully reading these poems will make people think about what their own values are, how they perceive life at the moment. "
If you like modern, heartfelt poetry, then these are for you!
More Free E-Books!!!
Following on from Chipmunka's generousity during last months World Mental Health Day, Chipmunka is making more E-book's available to download for FREE!!! Please check here to see what bargin's there are: Free E-Books!
Sunday 8 November 2009
Nigels Success
Chipmunka author Nigel Pearce is having a successful start to promoting his new e-book Icarus Did Not Die. Here's a link to his interview which appeared in the Coventry Evening Telegraph on World Mental Health Day: Coventry Article
Well done Nigel!
Well done Nigel!
New E-Book's This Week!
There's a whole new batch of really diverse e-books from Chipmunka this week, worth checking out!:
Where is the Key? - Sheila Brook
"This book follows on from when the story of my childhood, told in ‘Child of the Thirties,’ ended. I begin this memoir in the summer holidays after I left school in 1945; free time in those days is very different from free time today! My mother was still in a psychiatric hospital. I have tried to contract the events of over sixty years into a single book, giving a personal view of some the many changes that have occurred in society, together with some incidents in my personal life. I discuss a number of issues concerning the changes in care of the mentally ill. There are many contrasts made between aspects of life during the past sixty years with expectations and aspirations of today.
Constancy is a theme that occurs throughout the book. The constancy of my father’s concern for my mother; his regular visiting, and unsuccessful attempt to have her living at home again; his lonely life was impressed upon me as I wrote. In 1959 I met m mother again, and saw her for the first time in twenty years. From then on I kept in constant touch my mother, visiting her regularly until she died in 1992
"
As The Cold Wind Blows - Mark Jones
"‘The sickening murders of two close friends, Imelda Hart and Mabel Bright, begin a terrifying and sinister journey into the strange happenings of a small English town where sleep can mean torture, extreme psychological torment, and ultimately death for millions of other people worldwide. To fall asleep means to be watched by those who have appeared from nowhere and sleep when their work is done. The long, black, deathly cars patrol the streets now owned by this group of unknown, evil and crazy men called the Masters. On the streets their drones, powered by thoughts and callous orders, collect wandering spirits and still wide-awake souls for the nightmarish world they have created.
Min, Ritchie and their friends find themselves caught up this seemingly unending hell. The Masters can take you when you are awake and also while you sleep, in a place where the real world and the imaginary one collide with devastating consequences.
The Masters and drones are symbols, symbols of something else, deep within the subconscious mind, creating a strange scenario that just won’t let anyone go – not today, tomorrow or at any time in the future, whether in this world or the next.
"
Christmas Poems - Zekria Ibrahimi
"This difficult volume is about the far side of Christmas. We prefer to see only the tree and the tinsel, the mere exterior, and we forget, neglect, ignore the inner soul of religion. And religion can be the most dangerous thing of all...
How is this a schizophrenic spin on the Yuletide trivialities? Here is a querulous book that does not witness Christmas and all Christianity through the gaze of respectability, but through the poisoned eyes of the doomed homeless outsider. Some of the verse- which aspires to be as dubious and questionable as possible- was actually done on a psychiatric ward. Christmas and the Faith become emblems of that conventionality which may be so choking for a schizophrenic. The two faces of Christmas- the cynical and the celebratory- are bleakly investigated.
Christmas on a psychiatric ward! This is able to be the most pathetically poignant period of all for a patient. Amidst the loud crackers and the greasy mince pies, and those cards and presents from the nurses and other patients, after the all too flatulent Christmas dinner, the merciless medication is still to be dealt out. The schizophrenics are still locked up. Baby Jesus does not intend to liberate the lunatics...
So we offer Christmas, Easter and the Church through a schizophrenic’s shattered prism, with everything intentionally deformed, everything chaotically distorted! "
Goodbye Ana - Kate Le Page
"'Goodbye Ana’ is Kate Le Page’s first publication of poetry. This collection of poems shares the author’s battle to achieve and maintain recovery from anorexia nervosa. The work offers the reader a powerful, emotive insight into what life is really like when viewed through the eyes of an anorexic.
This book aims to explain the cognitive distortions that accompany starvation and seeks to hold the sufferer captive as well as to challenge the many misconceptions about the illness. "
Trust Yourself - Alexandria R Wesley
"The book is a story of my childhood written in poems. I am an incest survivor. As a child I was forced to take part in many rituals as my family worshiped satan. Many times I thought I would be killed. I was also forced to abuse others. These poems were written over seven years as I learned these things about my family and myself, as I learned the history that I was brought up to believe wasn't true. Instead of a perfect christian home, I was abused, and brought up to worship satan. "
Poetic Licence - Blu Tyler
"My poems are very self explanatory and some have sharp twists.
I went to university, but was bullied really badly, i had to go to hospital because of it, when I returned to university i was again bullied, and the my art department including teachers treated me really badly, and did not help me, even after i left i asked help in getting things like documents and they did not help.
this situation made me worse and i went to a crisis center and again to a hospital, all the people around me did not help me at all and even one of the doctors tried to blame me about things that happened in university, in a later incident the same person asked me if I found her rude, I skilled fully avoided her question, as doctor and nurses have a lot of power, better not to piss them off, one of my workers after painful months finally acknowledged what I went threw and the truth of the matter, where as my social workers and others wouldn't.
This really helped me, unfortunately that was not the end...
I have had mental health problems and people around including nurses and hospital workers have treated me badly, also the patients, my social worker not knowing what my diagnoses is, start telling me am I laughing because I am hearing voices? "
Where is the Key? - Sheila Brook
"This book follows on from when the story of my childhood, told in ‘Child of the Thirties,’ ended. I begin this memoir in the summer holidays after I left school in 1945; free time in those days is very different from free time today! My mother was still in a psychiatric hospital. I have tried to contract the events of over sixty years into a single book, giving a personal view of some the many changes that have occurred in society, together with some incidents in my personal life. I discuss a number of issues concerning the changes in care of the mentally ill. There are many contrasts made between aspects of life during the past sixty years with expectations and aspirations of today.
Constancy is a theme that occurs throughout the book. The constancy of my father’s concern for my mother; his regular visiting, and unsuccessful attempt to have her living at home again; his lonely life was impressed upon me as I wrote. In 1959 I met m mother again, and saw her for the first time in twenty years. From then on I kept in constant touch my mother, visiting her regularly until she died in 1992
"
As The Cold Wind Blows - Mark Jones
"‘The sickening murders of two close friends, Imelda Hart and Mabel Bright, begin a terrifying and sinister journey into the strange happenings of a small English town where sleep can mean torture, extreme psychological torment, and ultimately death for millions of other people worldwide. To fall asleep means to be watched by those who have appeared from nowhere and sleep when their work is done. The long, black, deathly cars patrol the streets now owned by this group of unknown, evil and crazy men called the Masters. On the streets their drones, powered by thoughts and callous orders, collect wandering spirits and still wide-awake souls for the nightmarish world they have created.
Min, Ritchie and their friends find themselves caught up this seemingly unending hell. The Masters can take you when you are awake and also while you sleep, in a place where the real world and the imaginary one collide with devastating consequences.
The Masters and drones are symbols, symbols of something else, deep within the subconscious mind, creating a strange scenario that just won’t let anyone go – not today, tomorrow or at any time in the future, whether in this world or the next.
"
Christmas Poems - Zekria Ibrahimi
"This difficult volume is about the far side of Christmas. We prefer to see only the tree and the tinsel, the mere exterior, and we forget, neglect, ignore the inner soul of religion. And religion can be the most dangerous thing of all...
How is this a schizophrenic spin on the Yuletide trivialities? Here is a querulous book that does not witness Christmas and all Christianity through the gaze of respectability, but through the poisoned eyes of the doomed homeless outsider. Some of the verse- which aspires to be as dubious and questionable as possible- was actually done on a psychiatric ward. Christmas and the Faith become emblems of that conventionality which may be so choking for a schizophrenic. The two faces of Christmas- the cynical and the celebratory- are bleakly investigated.
Christmas on a psychiatric ward! This is able to be the most pathetically poignant period of all for a patient. Amidst the loud crackers and the greasy mince pies, and those cards and presents from the nurses and other patients, after the all too flatulent Christmas dinner, the merciless medication is still to be dealt out. The schizophrenics are still locked up. Baby Jesus does not intend to liberate the lunatics...
So we offer Christmas, Easter and the Church through a schizophrenic’s shattered prism, with everything intentionally deformed, everything chaotically distorted! "
Goodbye Ana - Kate Le Page
"'Goodbye Ana’ is Kate Le Page’s first publication of poetry. This collection of poems shares the author’s battle to achieve and maintain recovery from anorexia nervosa. The work offers the reader a powerful, emotive insight into what life is really like when viewed through the eyes of an anorexic.
This book aims to explain the cognitive distortions that accompany starvation and seeks to hold the sufferer captive as well as to challenge the many misconceptions about the illness. "
Trust Yourself - Alexandria R Wesley
"The book is a story of my childhood written in poems. I am an incest survivor. As a child I was forced to take part in many rituals as my family worshiped satan. Many times I thought I would be killed. I was also forced to abuse others. These poems were written over seven years as I learned these things about my family and myself, as I learned the history that I was brought up to believe wasn't true. Instead of a perfect christian home, I was abused, and brought up to worship satan. "
Poetic Licence - Blu Tyler
"My poems are very self explanatory and some have sharp twists.
I went to university, but was bullied really badly, i had to go to hospital because of it, when I returned to university i was again bullied, and the my art department including teachers treated me really badly, and did not help me, even after i left i asked help in getting things like documents and they did not help.
this situation made me worse and i went to a crisis center and again to a hospital, all the people around me did not help me at all and even one of the doctors tried to blame me about things that happened in university, in a later incident the same person asked me if I found her rude, I skilled fully avoided her question, as doctor and nurses have a lot of power, better not to piss them off, one of my workers after painful months finally acknowledged what I went threw and the truth of the matter, where as my social workers and others wouldn't.
This really helped me, unfortunately that was not the end...
I have had mental health problems and people around including nurses and hospital workers have treated me badly, also the patients, my social worker not knowing what my diagnoses is, start telling me am I laughing because I am hearing voices? "
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