Kate Richards – författare

Winner of the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature 2014 nonfiction prize. Shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards 2013 nonficiton prize. It''s not every day you get to admit you''re mad. The thing with psychosis is that when I''m sick I believe the delusional stuff to the same degree that you might know the sky is above and the earth below.  And if someone were to say to me that the delusional thinking is, in fact, delusional, well that''s the same as if I assure you now that we walk on the sky.  Of course you wouldn''t believe me, and that''s why it''s sometimes so hard for people who are sick like this to know that they need treatment.  Psychosis and severe depression have a huge effect on how you relate to other people and how you see the world.  It''s a bit like being in a vacuum, or behind a wall of really thick glass . . . you lose any sense of connectedness.  You''re cast adrift from everyone and everything that matters. I''ve lived with acute psychosis and depression for the best part of twenty years.  This is the story of my journey from chaos to balance, and from limbo to meaning. Kate Richards is a trained doctor currently working in medical research.   ''Demands to be read'' Sunday Age  ''Heart wrenching, mind bending'' Daily Telegraph ''A mysteriously beautiful book'' Michael McGirr, The Age  ''A gifted writer and storyteller'' Courier-Mail ''Astonishing'' Herald Sun

Almost half the Australian population will experience some form of mental illness in their lifetime yet it is still difficult to find the right treatment and stay well. Kate Richards is well positioned to ask the hard questions about our mental health system. She experienced episodes of depression and psychosis well into her adult life and is a trained doctor. Kate argues for empowering patients and their families to be active members of treatment teams. She challenges the common belief that patients are responsible – even somehow to blame – for the existence of their illnesses and makes a plea for mental health professionals to reach out across the patient–therapist divide and find a human connection. When mental health patients are heard, respected and understood, sustained healing can begin. Kate''s experiences are detailed in the critically acclaimed Madness: A Memoir, winner of the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature 2014 nonfiction prize. She is now a full-time writer, working part-time in medical research, and has learnt how to live a happy and productive life with a chronic mental illness. ''With swift, bold brushstrokes she plunges us into [these] fractured worlds . . . These powerful vignettes show those suffering mental illness as ordinary people rather than as statistics or ''''patients''''.'' The Saturday Age

Forever entwined, Sea and Serene live isolated in the Australian alpine wilderness, together with Wren - the young man who helps care for them. Each have found peace in this wild, fierce landscape, and they live in harmony, largely self-sufficient.One day Wren discovers a woman on the road nearby, badly injured and unconscious. He brings her back to the cottage, and he and the twins nurse her back to health. But the arrival of this outsider shatters the dynamic within, with unforeseen consequences.Lyrical and poetic, Fusion is a unique and haunting modern-gothic tale that has at its heart questions of selfhood, dependency, difference and love. It is the compelling first novel by the award-winning author of Madness: A Memoir.