Dissertation
Laura Lives on Cloud Nine: a reassertion of the validity of women and mental disorder in fiction
University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
Doctor of Creative Arts, University of the Sunshine Coast
2019
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25907/00492
Abstract
This Doctorate of Creative Arts (Creative Writing) reasserts the validity of women's mental disorder in fiction by addressing the question: 'How can creative writing practice simultaneously address and deconstruct stigma towards women with mental disorder?' Part I of this thesis comprises a creative artefact: an original novel entitled Laura Lives on Cloud Nine. Part II is an exegesis: For the Spectre of Shirley J. Laura Lives on Cloud Nine is an approximately 60,000-word novel. It is a bildungsroman told from the perspective of nineteen-year-old Alberta, who recalls an intense friendship with a girl named Laura who has since disappeared from her life. Alberta recounts the stigma she experienced with the burgeoning nature of her own mental disorder and a failure to identify a similar suffering in her friend. For the Spectre of Shirley J is an approximately 30,000-word exegetical dialogue between the original artefact, Laura Lives on Cloud Nine and my research into mental disorder in women. Multidisciplinary, research-led analyses are interspersed with letters to the late author Shirley Jackson. The latter function as epistolary literature reviews, exploring the prominent texts that informed the writing of Laura Lives on Cloud Nine. These letters to Jackson allow me to engage in an imaginary dialogue with the author, revealing a practice-led methodology that expounds the creative obstacles I face regarding my own mental health.
Details
- Title
- Laura Lives on Cloud Nine: a reassertion of the validity of women and mental disorder in fiction
- Authors
- Kate Fitzgerald
- Contributors
- Gary Crew (Supervisor)Paul A Williams (Supervisor)
- Awarding institution
- University of the Sunshine Coast
- Degree awarded
- Doctor of Creative Arts
- Publisher
- University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
- DOI
- 10.25907/00492
- Organisation Unit
- School of Business and Creative Industries; Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; School of Creative Industries - Legacy; Sustainability Research Cluster
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99451440602621
- Output Type
- Dissertation
Metrics
69 File views/ downloads
303 Record Views