To celebrate the end of 2019, we've re-released our highest rating non-fiction interviews of the year: #3 is Kate Richards.

Kate Richards is a memoirist, poet and most recently, a novelist. 

Her first work, 2013's Madness: A Memoir, received the Adelaide Festival's Award for Literature and was shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards. Kate followed that stunning debut with 2014's Is There No Place For Me: Making Sense of Madness, which was shortlisted for the Human Rights Award. 

In 2019 Kate moved from non-fiction to the world of fiction with her first novel, Fusion.

Her work goes where few writers have ever gone. It is profound and honest, and represents not only a contribution to Australian literature, but a contribution to literature on mental health and identify.

This episode comes with a content warning, as Kate's memoir and our discussion of it touches on trauma and mental illness.

Related episodes:

• Sam Twyford-Moore, mentioned in this interview, spoke to The Garret about writing mania and chronic ill health.
• Fiona Wright, whose creative non-fiction works explore chronic ill health, also spoke about writing one's own story and how to represent illness on the page.

About The Garret

Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram.

Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.