Barely Famous
Playing Out All Your Trauma in the Fictional World with Kathleen Glasgow
Fri, 03 Jan 2025
This week on Barely Famous, Kail talks with bestselling author Kathleen Glasgow about the transformative power of storytelling. Kathleen shares the inspiration behind her novels, including Girl in Pieces, and opens up about navigating mental health, grief, and addiction within her writing. They discuss the complexities of family dynamics, the resilience it takes to heal from trauma, and the journey from rejection to becoming a celebrated author. Kathleen's Socials: www.instagram.com/misskathleenglasgow www.tiktok.com/@kathleenglasgow Kathleen's Books: www.kathleenglasgowbooks.com Please support the show by checking out our sponsors! Posh Peanut: Go to PoshPeanut.com/FAMOUS, and use promo code FAMOUS for twenty percent off your first order. Quince: Go to Quince.com/famous for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order! Rocket Money: Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com/FAMOUS today. To watch the full episode + other exclusive content, join my Patreon community! Patreon.com/kaillowry See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What inspired Kathleen Glasgow to write 'Girl in Pieces'?
And she's her grandmother, who's the person who gave her her first drink, you know, playing Scrabble at her house, like here, just have a little bit of this. But her grandmother was also the only person that really accepted her and was unconditionally loving. And it is sort of a COVID book because...
Like, especially if you're writing fiction now, you kind of, even if it's not on the page, you have to understand that each and every one of your characters, if it's contemporary, went through the pandemic. And they probably lost people. Or if they were kids, they had to stay home and do remote learning. And that's like a whole other thing. And that affected like their social development.
It really affected like a lot of kids' anxiety levels. And like Bella is struggling through that because they worked really hard to keep her grandmother safe through that whole thing. And then suddenly her grandmother like goes to the curb to get a newspaper and drops that. Like, what was that all for? Do you know what I mean? And so, but she's 15. She doesn't know how to articulate this.
And it is very much a book about, um,
severe anxiety and self-medication because we don't really talk enough about why kids might be drinking or doing drugs in the first place and I think for some of them a lot of it has to do with anxiety and depression because you feel better that's the thing we don't talk about you're like don't do drugs and it's also like but sometimes they make you feel better and And they chill you out.
And maybe that's something that could be helped with like a medication that's prescribed and some therapy. But, you know, sometimes you don't have access to those things, especially as kids. But you have access to alcohol.
But also, I think when you're young and before we sort of get to, I guess, where the frontal lobe is developed. Right. You know, in high school or college, when you're sort of drinking and experimenting, you don't realize at that age that those things are, you know, quote unquote, You're not you don't realize that you're hoping or they're helping or they're making you feel that way.
And so by the time you realize, oh, I'm using alcohol for anxiety, it's too late. You're already an alcoholic. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so I actually had a conversation with a friend this week and she she was like acknowledging that she copes with anxiety.
with alcohol she's like i only realize that now but it's a little too late and i was like oh that's really interesting that you even made that connection i think in particular like girls and women do because it's acceptable yeah i like for me i stopped self-harming like physically but i i moved to alcohol like hardcore in my late teens and twenties and thirties. Right. Because that's acceptable.
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Chapter 2: How does Kathleen approach the topic of mental health in her novels?
No.
No, it's fine. Yeah.
they love it and then they're like yes it's so much pressure been lifted off them because i win i have i have the trophy but yeah you don't you don't go over into those spaces okay well now i know don't check my reviews on goodreads just okay um just touching on the fact that you just said you do writing workshops uh with teenagers is that public knowledge is that something that you advertise ever and where can people sign up for that if that's if it's public
It is.
I don't I don't like offer them. I do it when I do school visits because like I have like so much like social anxiety and like anxiety about speaking in public that when I do a school visitor, I have like a public event. I will usually say I don't want to come to your school.
school and stand up in front of 500 teenagers because i didn't i that's like no no i don't want to do that um but i i will do smaller breakout sessions with like 20 to 25 students and we will do a writing workshop and i will teach them how to draft a novel in 30 minutes
And that is actually the funnest exercise for me to do because everyone starts participating because it's like when you co-write a book like I did with Liz, the pressure's off you alone and you're not by yourself. And everyone has ideas and we can come up with this whole draft of the book in 30 minutes.
And usually in like six months, two of the kids from the class will email me and say, I wrote 100 pages based on what we did. And I'm like, you're yay. You're off and running. You did it. I gave you a little structure and ideas. You're doing it. I want to see your book on a bookshelf someday. And so I will do I do things like that. I love that so much.
That's incredible. People and I'm sure that that's just making a kid's day where you know what I mean to do that with you.
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Chapter 5: What is the significance of storytelling in healing?
When someone else is going through that, and especially if they're in the family, you kind of become invisible. Because their struggles suck up all the energy in the room. And there's none left over for you. And I think that that...
in and of itself is trauma, right? So when someone is going through addiction, the person that is addicted to whatever it is, is not the only one affected. I mean, that is real life trauma for the people that are directly impacted. And that's something that you live with, whether the person recovers and is in recovery or not, that is something that you carry with you for the rest of your life.
So I think I can appreciate that perspective so much, especially in this book.
There's so much collateral damage around addiction. Like, it touches everybody. Like, all of us have been touched by addiction in some way, shape, or form. And so Joey's addiction, it affects Emmy. It affects his parents. It affects his friends. It affects the school. Like, everyone.
And I don't think that we talk enough about the mental health of those people who are collateral damage of addiction. The people who are watching this happen, who are trying to help someone who can't help them, who desperately want, especially for Emmy, she desperately wants to figure out who she is and to have a life. But she feels guilty about it.
Because how can you have fun thinking about wanting to go to a dance when your brother...
is struggling so much and going through all this stuff and and we don't I don't think we talk enough about that guilt that people feel and it is really about like in the end figuring out what boundaries you're going to set like I love you and I can support you but also I have to go live a life and do these things that I want to do I can't make it all about you I can't
figure out where you are all the time i can't sit with you all the time i can't make sure you're safe all the time at some point all of that is it's up to you i'm just here for when you fall do you know and i and that's really hard for people to express because they feel they do they feel guilty but it really it ravages you like especially i think kids who are in families that that
have been ravaged by addiction, that is so difficult to grow up with. And it affects all the patterns of how you learn how to behave with other people and how you let other people treat you. And those are things that when you grow up later, if you do find a support system, you have to unravel and you have to start all over again and actually learn how to be a person without those other things.
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