Willa Goodfellow
Author Interview - Willa Goodfellow
Author of Prozac Monologues: A Voice from the Edge.
“She was going to stab her doctor, but she wrote a book instead.”
Author Interview - Willa Goodfellow
Author I draw inspiration from: Words have power. Toni Morrison pays exquisite attention to individual words: their multiple meanings, the sounds of them, what they accomplish in sentences, what they do to their readers' brains. The effects she gets are breathtaking. I put an essay she wrote about the opening paragraph from Song of Solomon in front of me when I sat down to rewrite my own opening paragraph.
Author Interview - Willa Goodfellow
Favorite place to read a book: My living room sofa, under my weighted blanket
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with: Ma Joad from Grapes of Wrath. I figure she'd hold it and me together.
Author Interview - Willa Goodfellow
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author: Fred Craddock is a story-telling preacher. I heard him give a lecture on preaching (Overhearing the Gospel) that ended with a story from his childhood about collecting fallen stars on his grandparents’ farm. He hid his obsession but was found out by his grandmother, who then showed him her own drawer-full of fallen stars. At the conclusion, the audience held its breath for a full five seconds before bursting into applause. When I finally drew breath myself and my stunned brain reengaged, I thought, “I’m going to do that!”
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook: Paperback: to carry, take to bed, hold to my chest, throw across the room.
The last book I read: Bound: A Daughter, a Domme, and an End of Life Story by Elizabeth Anne Wood. I started this a couple weeks into social distancing and identified with an oldest daughter of an unusual mother who was having multiple medical crises. It helped me realize that, like the author, I was dealing with the current crisis by over-functioning. That saved a lot of time in my next therapy session.”
Author Interview - Willa Goodfellow
Pen & paper or computer: Pen and paper when I'm hypomanic; computer when I'm on an even keel.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with: The Syro-Phoenician woman in Mark 7. Yes, I know it's obscure. But she was a woman of determination who would do whatever she had to do. With one sharp comeback, she got Jesus to change his mind. She's my soul sister.
Author Interview - Willa Goodfellow
If I wasn’t an author, I’d be a: Preacher - I still am an occasional preacher. I am, in fact, the batshitcrazypreacher online. I use words to spin spells both in print and in the pulpit.
Favorite decade in fashion history: 1920s. I don't have the body, but I love the wearable art.
Place I’d most like to travel: Ah, Ireland... I have an ancestor who was dean at St. Patrick's Cathedral. The first time I went there, it felt inhabited by his young daughter, my greatxxxgrandmother, running up and down the aisles. I wonder if she ever snuck up the stairs to the pulpit? They wouldn't let me. I could hardly leave. I will return.
My signature drink: Hypomanic: Sazerac makes me feel like I'm Phryne Fisher in a beaded dress from the 1920s. Depressed: single malt scotch. Seriously depressed: make that Laphroig.
Favorite artist: David Mensing - American west meets Monet.
Number one on my bucket list: An endorsement from Kay Jamison
Find more from the author:
willagoodfellow.com
prozacmonologues.com
@willagoodfellow on twitter and instagram
Author Bio: Willa Goodfellow’s early work with troubled teens as an Episcopal priest shaped an edgy perspective and preaching style. A bachelor’s degree from Reed College and a master’s from Yale gave her the intellectual chops to read and comprehend scientific research about mental illness—and her life mileage taught her to recognize and call out the bull.
So, she set out to turn her own misbegotten sojourn in the land of antidepressants into a writing career. Her journalism has attracted the attention of leading psychiatrists who worked on the DSM-5. She is certified in Mental Health First Aid, graduated from NAMI’s Peer to Peer, and has presented on mental health recovery at NAMI events and Carver Medical College of Medicine at the University of Iowa.
Her first book, Prozac Monologues: A Voice from the Edge, will be published by She Writes Press in August, 2020.
Today she hikes, travels, plans seven course dinner menus, works on the next writing project, Bar Tales of Costa Rica, and stirs up trouble. She lives with her wife Helen in Central Oregon and still misses her dog Mazie.
