Cover Reveal of Fallout Girl by Katie Rose Guest Pryal

Gosh, it’s been a CRAZY long time since a cover reveal has happened here! Thanks Katie Rose Guest Pryal for trusting the reveal of Fallout Girl to happen here! 🙂

You’ve probably seen Katie on Twitter, tweeting about both mental health and many other things (Katie is outspoken and passionate about her opinions!)

However, Katie is also a member of Tall Poppy Writers and she writes an excellent series of blog posts for them- Writing Isn’t Sexy– all about the behind the scenes life of a writer balancing all the things they must balance!

When Katie is not tweeting, working hard on the latest installment of Writing Isn’t Sexy, she’s also working on her own books- hence the cover reveal.

Cover Reveal happening in 3, 2, 1………………..

Photo Credit: Blue Crow Books

Who is in love with this cover? Who? I am!!! Anybody else? Look at the woman… doesn’t she look like she totally has her life together? Well…. according to Katie in the following guest post- looks could be deceiving…

FALLOUT GIRL Cover Reveal & Blog Post: Using Fiction to Witness Mental Illness

FALLOUT GIRL is the fifth book in my Hollywood Lights series, but it was by far the hardest to write. It was the hardest to write because it dealt with mental illness, a subject close to my heart, and I really wanted to get it right—without getting preachy.

In many ways, the Hollywood Lights books stand alone (but like all series, they’re more fun if you read them in order). FALLOUT GIRL tells the story of Miranda George, who moves to Los Angeles after the funeral of her mother. Her mother died under mysterious circumstances, and Miranda’s not talking about it.

But the secrets slowly unfold. And one of the main points of the book is that Miranda has a mental illness—this fact is not too big of a giveaway. Those who know me as a journalist know that I write a lot about mental illness and disabilities more generally. (I recently published an essay collection on the subject called LIFE OF THE MIND INTERRUPTED.) And I think that one of the hardest things in the world to do is to write about people with mental illness in a way that is both authentic and empowering at the same time.

One failing that I see often in fiction about people with mental illnesses has to do with point of view (POV). My book, like many books, is told in third person POV with more than one narrator. The main POV character, of course, is Miranda. When I was writing this book, it was very important to me to have the reader be in Miranda’s POV when she is in crisis or witnessing her mental illness.

In other books I’ve read, when the main POV character who has a mental illness hits a crisis point, the POV suddenly shifts to those around the character. The shift signals that the disabled character is unable to express herself any more, and the only credible witnesses to the disabled character’s experiences are those who are not disabled. That signal might not have been the intention of the author, but that’s the signal nonetheless.

Furthermore, that signal reflects what happens in the real world. People with mental illnesses—people like me—aren’t seen as credible witnesses to their own lives and experiences. I didn’t want my fiction to reinforce stereotypes like that. Therefore, I wanted Miranda to have her say. I wanted her to be her own witness.

But I also wanted the book to be fun to read, like the rest of my books. So I had a delicate line to tread. I think I struck the balance. We’ll see what readers think!

Thank you for having me today.

-Katie

FALLOUT GIRL releases on Monday, May 7, 2018.

Photo Credit: Blue Crow Books

All about Katie Rose Guest Pryal

Katie is a novelist, freelance journalist, and erstwhile law professor in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She is the author of the Hollywood Lights Series, which includesENTANGLEMENT (2015), LOVE AND ENTROPY (2015), CHASING CHAOS (2015), HOW TO STAY (2017), and FALLOUT GIRL (2018), all with Blue Crow Books. She is also the author of many books of nonfiction, including LIFE OF THE MIND INTERRUPTED: Essays on Mental Health and Disability in Higher Education (Raven Books 2017).

As a journalist, Katie contributes to QUARTZ, THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, THE (late, lamented) TOAST, DAME MAGAZINE, WOMEN IN HIGHER EDUCATION and other national venues. She earned her master’s degree in creative writing from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins, where she attended on a fellowship. Katie has published many books on writing, including HOW WRITING WORKS with Oxford University Press. A professor of writing for more than a decade, she now teaches creative writing and works as a writing coach and developmental editor.