Author Sarah Fay on Healing Her Own Mental Illness and Applying Less and Less of More and More to Life and Substack

Today, Debbie talks with Sarah Fay, a 52-year-old award-winning author, writing teacher, and mental health keynote speaker whose work has been featured on NPR, Oprah Daily, Forbes, The Los Angeles Times, and more. Her journalistic memoir Pathological: The True Story of Six Misdiagnoses (HarperCollins, 2022) was an Apple Best Books pick and was hailed in The New York Times as a “fiery manifesto of a memoir.” Her sequel, Cured: The Memoir, tells the story of Sarah’s full recovery from serious mental illness and how recovery is possible for everyone. She writes for many publications, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, Time, and The Paris Review, where she was an advisory editor. Her essays have been chosen as a Notable Mention in Best American Essays and nominated for Pushcart Prizes. As a teacher, she’s on the faculty at Northwestern University and runs Writers at Work, a weekly publication with workshops to help creative writers produce their best work on Substack and get paid (very) well to do it. Her master plan is to make Substack the literary center of the universe.  They talk about the parallels between Sarah’s journey of recovery from misdiagnosis to curing her own serious mental illness and her work teaching Substack writers to think big (and get paid for it). Debbie wanted to know if Sarah’s journey to mental health was connected to her success as a writer AND to her ability and desire to help other writers. The answer is yes. They touch on emotional literacy, the prerequisites for healing from mental illness, how to deal with anxieties as writers, what Substack is and who it is for, and what Sarah loves most about helping other writers.    ////////// Don't miss the Behind The Scenes for every episode in Debbie's [B]OLD AGE newsletter.  ////////// Mentioned in this episode or useful:Sarah Fay’s websiteSubstack, the publishing platform dubbed "a new economic engine for culture"Substack Writers at Work, Sarah’s weekly newsletter and community with workshops, a featured expert guide to SubstackSarah’s Less and Less of More and More, a Substack featured publicationPathological: The True Story of Six Misdiagnoses by Sarah Fay (‎HarperOne, 2022)Cured: The Memoir by Sarah Fay, serialized on Substack in 2023Best Of: Diagnosing Mental Health and 'A Molecule Away from Madness' (NPR: April 10, 2022)Without a biological basis, how reliably can we diagnose and treat mental illness? (NPR: April 2, 2022)Thomas Insel, MD, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and author of Healing: Our Path from Mental Illness to Mental Health (Penguin Press, 2022) where he mentions the 3 Ps Sarah talks about on this episode.   Connect with Debbie:debbieweil.com[B]OLD AGE podcast[B]OLD AGE newsletter on SubstackEmail: thebolderpodcast@gmail.comDebbie and Sam’s blog: Gap Year After SixtyInstagram: @debbieweilLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/debbieweil   Our Media Partners:CoGenerate (formerly Encore.org)MEA and with thanks to Chip ConleyNext For Me (former media partner and in memory of Jeff Tidwell)   How to Support this podcast:Leave a review on Apple PodcastsSubscribe   Credits:Host: Debbie WeilProducer: Far Out MediaMusic: Lakeside Path by Duck Lake