Holding on & Letting Go: A Timeline for a Novel
by Bill Baldwin
Our February speaker, Kathleen Founds, treated us to an amazing tale of writing, persistence and self-discovery that demonstrated how patience and humor can help overcome hardship and achieve our dreams. The young Kathleen felt drawn to both writing and social work. At twenty-two, she decided to dedicate an hour a day to writing. This, she thought, would provide an outlet and escape: a place to be reckless, irreverent, and free.
After completing college, Kathleen moved to Texas to pursue social work. This dream did not work out. Social workers need to be iron-willed saints with absolute faith in their work. They must sail through paperwork, counsel defiant teens, and ward off aggressive principals in the breaks between classes.
As a hypersensitive, dreamy, conflict-averse introvert, Kathleen found herself utterly drained every day after interacting with people. How did she cope? By deciding to work on her Great American Novel!
At twenty-three, Kathleen began writing about a Texas palm reader and burro farmer with a tragic virtue (rather than a tragic flaw). The farmer’s profound honesty leads to a downward spiral of tragedy. But: if a profound virtue can lead to tragedy, isn’t that actually a flaw? Trapped in this dilemma, Kathleen never got past the third chapter. Now what???
Kathleen moved to New York to pursue an MFA at Syracuse. This sank her deeper into a pit of doom as she repeatedly began new projects only to abandon them. Eventually, though—encouraged by writers like Tobias Wolfe and George Saunders —she made progress and published several stories in The SUN Virtue of the Month described thoughtful young women experiencing existential angst.
Kathleen well understood the Bipolar II condition, characterized by mild, infrequent, hypomania and chronic, intractable depression. When Mystical Creatures Attack! won the Iowa Short Fiction Award in 2014 and was named a New York Times Notable book! She won international praise: “This dark, rich little novel in stories shows Founds as a talented moralist of nearly Russian ferocity.”
She explored various writing strategies: 300 words a day for three months, twenty-page chapters every month. She was now raising a young daughter. She continued to write and cope as she could. A few years after the birth of her daughter, she realized that she could do her writing but not much else: no exercise, cooking, or personal grooming. Her willpower had limits. She and her daughter were living on microwaved burritos. She was losing muscle tone; mold grew around the sink—but she kept writing! Incredible stress led to disaster and…breakthrough!
Kathleen consulted the Tarot: “How do I move forward as a writer?” The Tarot shot back the Ten of Swords, not a pleasant card: a dead corpse lies on the ground with ten swords in its back. Shortly thereafter, Kathleen underwent substantial medical treatment. Her insurance, however, denied her claim; she had to pay a $10,000 deductible.A person in a deep depression is barely equipped to take a shower let alone navigate the health care bureaucracy.
This experience led to Bipolar Bear & the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Health Insurance: a Fable for Grown-Ups (2022), a graphic novel about a bipolar bear named Theodore who calls the number on his insurance card and drops into the cold, dank, labyrinth of health insurance claims.
Success, of course, took a while to arrive. Rejection Letters appreciated Kathleen’s writing, but…
I worried that this book would be challenging to place successfully in this very competitive market.
But success came! Publisher’s Weekly called the book “Zany with a zinger of a political message.” The book is now taught in college social work classes and featured on psych ward book carts! In November, Kathleen signed with Creative Artists Agency and received an offer three days later.
What an inspirational speaker! What a writer! What a human being!
Thank you so much, Kathleen, for honoring us with your visit!