Walks on the Margins: A Story of Bipolar Illness (ISBN 978-0-9891414-0-6, trade paperback and e-book, 180 pages), a memoir by Kathy Brandt and Max Maddox, was released in April 2013 by Monkshood Press. It is available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble online. Kathy Brandt blogs about writing and mental health issues at www.kathybrandtauthor.com. Kathy Brandt and Max Maddox will sign and discuss Walks on the Margins: A Story of Bipolar Illness Sunday, July 14, 3:00 to 5:00 PM, on the patio at Rico's (Poor Richard's), 322 N. Tejon, in Colorado Springs.
A mother salvages her son’s poetry from a mental hospital garbage can. For her, Max’s verse is a reminder of her son’s promise and a souvenir along the footpath of bipolar disorder. It’s the whiz kid and his vexed mother. His emotional unrest and her gentle compassion. In Walks on the Margins, mother and son weave two narratives into a single compelling story of what it means to suffer from mental illness.
Max takes us under the seas of
psychosis as Kathy narrates her struggle to decode her son’s disease in a world
beset by institutional failure. She strives to piece together a semblance of
her son as Max takes another walk to the margins and into the melancholic
abyss.
A finalist for the Iowa Review Award
in Nonfiction, Walks on the Margins is a fiercely candid story about the
emotional turmoil and confusion of those who struggle with bipolar disorder.
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Kathy
Brandt is a published author who taught
writing at the University of Colorado for ten years. After her son, Max, was diagnosed with
bipolar disorder, she became active in mental health issues. She was on the Board of Directors of the National
Alliance on Mental Illness in Colorado Springs (NAMI-CS) for six years, and
served as President. In 2012 she
received the NAMI National Award for her outstanding service to the
organization. She is currently the
NAMI-CS liaison to the Mental Health Court in Colorado Springs. Kathy has published four novels with the Penguin Group. She has a B.A. in English and an M.A.
in Rhetoric. She lives in the mountains of Colorado.
Max Maddox
has a BA in philosophy from Grinnell College and an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of
Fine Art, where he was nominated for the Joan Mitchell Award and received the
Fellowship Trust Award. He has exhibited his work in galleries including The
Slought Foundation, The Print Center of Philadelphia, and the Ellen Powell
Tiberino Memorial Museum. He was the preparator, photographer, and curator at
the Sun King Gallery and Pyramid Museum in Philadelphia and also assistant to
artist and curator Richard Torchia, Director of Arcadia University Gallery. He now
lives in Colorado where he teaches and continues to pursue his career in art.
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