People behind the pages

Meet some of the 2023 Unbound authors before joining them at the festival.

By Natalie-Elizabeth Tan and Ezra Bitterman

Jennifer Haigh

Originally drawn to playwriting and acting, Jennifer Haigh had a unique path to literature. Haigh began pursuing fiction writing at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her advice for people striving to become better writers?

“Get your hands on the best fiction or poetry or nonfiction you can find and read constantly.”

Haigh got her latest big idea while working at a women’s clinic in Boston. Well before Roe v. Wade was overturned, she would gather outside the clinic. She remembers the shame and secrecy she heard so often over the phone when helping arrange abortions. Her new novel Mercy Street channels these influences directly. It follows Claudia, a woman who works at a women’s health clinic that becomes overwhelmed with protesters.

Haigh appeared at the Unbound Book Festival in 2019 and was moved by her experience. “It’s a great festival because you can tell it was created by a writer,” she says. “There’s a real writerly sensibility.” In addition to meeting other authors at the festival, Haigh is looking forward to connecting more with her au dience. Jennifer Haigh will be featured on the After Dobbs panel to discuss a woman’s right to access health care and its connection to her work.

Calvin Kasulke

In 2019, Calvin Kasulke wrote a book no one wanted to publish: a workplace comedy about a man whose consciousness was uploaded into his work Slack channel. The book, Several People Are Typing, is entirely composed of Slack chats. One year later, a global pandemic upended the way work is conducted and the themes in Kasulke’s book became all too real.

“In 2020, there was a lot more interest because Slack had exploded in the early months of the pandemic,” Kasulke says. His debut novel was published in 2021. He was even approached by comedian Nick Kroll to adapt the novel into a comedy TV show. At the festival, Kasulke will dive into the challenges of digitalized workplaces and how technology and innovations invade our work lives. Kasulke says, “I am fascinated by the way that digital interfaces impact how people connect with each other and how quickly we do or don’t adapt.” Calvin Kasulke, along with Akil Kumarasamy and YZ Chin, will discuss technology and work on the Paper Jam panel.

Akil Kumarasamy

Akil Kumarasamy is an assistant professor with Rutgers University-Newark’s creative writing MFA program. She previously worked in computer programming and data management.

That, along with her upbringing in a predominantly Asian neighborhood in New Jersey, allows Kumarasamy to bring a unique perspective to her critically acclaimed books Half Gods and Meet Us by the Roaring Sea, which cover themes such as family dynamics, science fiction, queerness, artificial intelligence and war.

Meet Us by the Roaring Sea tells the tale of a woman whose life becomes entangled with an old manuscript about female medical students. Half Gods is a collection of interlinked short stories following a family and the people connected to them in the aftermath of the Sri Lankan Civil War, including a Muslim baby girl and an isolated Angolan butcher.

Kumarasamy wrote Meet Us by the Roaring Sea partially during the pandemic, which she says influenced the plot of the book. “COVID showed us how interconnected we all are, so I was trying to figure out how to write a book that makes you interact with the reader,” she says. “It’s in second person and first person plural, and it navigates ideas of compassion. The heart of the book was, ‘How do we care about each other in this digital age?’”

When finding inspiration to write, Kumarasamy looks at things from both a macro and micro perspective. “My work tries to connect places and things that seem far away and have them in dialogue,” she says. “To have them in discussion and entangle those different things. I definitely try to get inspiration from people around me, just by being part of the world and engaging with it in a meaningful way.” Akil Kumarasamy will join Alexander Weinstein and Andrew Yoon on the On a Cyborg Society panel about AI in literature.

Buki Papillon

Papillon grew up an avid reader and writer in Nigeria. When she came to the U.S. in 2002, she found herself at a crossroad. Her husband’s visa did not permit her to work, but she could go to school. She could attend law school, or get her MFA in creative writing. “The universe was like, ‘Oh, how about that writing thing? What is your excuse now?’ ” she says. She traces back her love of words to a teacher giving her a thesaurus at the age of 12. “I was blown away at how many words existed and in such vivid ways

Vanessa Riley

you could discuss a thing,” she says. Backed by a lifelong passion for writing, Papillon committed to Lesley University for her MFA in creative writing.

Papillon is bringing her debut novel An Ordinary Wonder to the 2023 Unbound Book Festival. The story is about intersex twin Oto who is forced to live as a boy despite identifying as a girl. It’s written through a lens of African mythology, art and folk tales.

This will be her first time in Missouri, but she has followed the festival for years. “This is really exciting and a dream come true,” she says. Buki Papillon is on a panel with V. V. Ganeshananthan, where they’ll discuss what it means to write from your roots.

Through her historical fiction books, Vanessa Riley has a sweeping goal: to share untold narratives about women of color to paint a more complete picture of history.

Riley’s book Island Queen is a historical novel set in the 18th and 19th centuries based on the remarkable true story of Dorothy Kirwan Thomas, a free Black woman who became one of the wealthiest women in the West Indies.

There’s a reason why Riley’s novels are set in historical time periods. “It’s during a timeframe where people assume that if you look like me, you were always in slavery, but there are people who overcame it or were never enslaved,” Riley says. “There were people who, like Dorothy, fought her way out, and we need to celebrate them as much as we know of the pain and suffering.”

Riley places the reader in their shoes and helps them understand the things the figures overcame and the way they found happiness in the midst of sorrow, which is important for underrepresented peoples. “If you’re a child reading these books, you could see everybody else being explorers, politicians or having businesses,” she says. “But your people are only enslaved, so I think it limits the possibilities,” Riley says. Vanessa Riley will be a part of the The Revolution Will Not Be Westernized panel, along with Phong Nguyen and Jocelyn Cullity.

Maryfrances Wagner

Growing up, Maryfrances Wagner was surrounded by poetry. For years, her mother wrote poems about nature, and put them in her and her siblings’ lunchboxes. Her father also wrote poems for her mother and knew many poems that he could recite from memory. Her grandfather did the same, reciting poems to Wagner

Off the page

Keep an eye out for these books and authors at Unbound:

The Women Could Fly Megan Giddings

Tapping Out

Nandi Comer

Edge Case

YZ Chin

We Should Not Be Friends: The Story of a Friendship

Will Schwalbe

Gentlewoman Megan Kaminski

Craft in the Real World

Matthew Salesses

Mill Town

Kerri Arsenault

The Devil Takes You Home

Gabino Iglesias

Signal Fires

Dani Shapiro

Deep Care

Angela Hume in both Italian and English.

When writing her poetry books, The Silence of Red Glass, The Immigrants’ New Camera and Solving for X, this background prompted the Missouri Poet Laureate to delve into her heritage and the Italian-American experience.

Currently, Wagner is on a mission — she wants to prove that poetry is for everyone. She’s doing this in a number of ways, one of which is the Missouri Haiku Project, which will be featured at the 2023 Unbound Book Festival.

Wagner encourages non-writers to try haiku, a form of poetry that originated from Japan and is one of the shortest poetic forms to exist. “Being the Poet Laureate, I’m supposed to serve Missourians, and a lot of people are afraid of poetry and don’t think they like it,” she says. “So I thought, everyone can start with a short poem, and the haiku is the shortest poem I know of.”

Wagner also created Tiny Books, a project where she represents other poets from the state and hands out tiny poetry books. Her goal is to get every Missourian to at least give poetry a try. Maryfrances Wagner will be hosting two haiku workshops.

STORY BY LAUREN BLUE

DESIGN BY SIREEN ABAYAZID

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SYDNEY LUKASEZCK

EDITING BY AMILEE NUZZO

hen filling out job applications, MU senior Mary Jane Tierney chooses not to report her attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Despite coming to terms with her ADHD diagnosis, she is still worried employers might see her differently due to the stigma surrounding mental health challenges.

ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that people are born with, says Dr. Robert Kline, a Columbia psychiatrist. There are three different types of ADHD: hyper-impulsive, inattentive and combined. People with ADHD have an imbalance of neurotransmitters that influence memory, emotion and movement. Dopamine deficiency, a common feature of ADHD, can limit the brain’s reward and pleasure symptoms, which causes difficulties with motivation, emotional regulation, short-term memory and impulsiveness. Many of these symptoms have to do with the brain’s inability to perform certain tasks while these neurotransmitters are dysregulated.

Since the bar for academic performance changes when transitioning into a college environment, symptoms of ADHD can present themselves in new ways that begin to inhibit daily life.

Tierney dealt with these issues in her transition from high school to college. Originally a health sciences major, she found it difficult to succeed despite attending classes and studying.

“Science was horrible; I couldn’t take the exams,” Tierney says. “I would study and be present, but I wasn’t gaining anything from that.” Eventually, she switched to architecture, which allowed her to see the material in front of her. She sees herself as a visual learner, so this change helped her studies.

ADHD and Gen Z

When thinking of someone who struggles with ADHD, we often picture a student who has trouble paying attention, makes careless mistakes in school work and avoids or is reluctant to complete homework — not a straight-A student with a high ACT score. However, Kline says this description of a high-achiever fits the typical college patient with undiagnosed ADHD that he sees at his practice. This student might come to college and all of a sudden start struggling. They can’t focus in class. They feel scattered and inattentive. And for the first time, their grades are slipping.

The college students that Kline often works with fit into the demographic of 18- to 29-year-olds. As of 2021, about 84% of people in this age group say they use social media sites, according to Pew Research Center. The majority say they use Instagram and Snapchat and about half use TikTok.

According to a survey by the American Psychological Association, Gen Z is more likely than any other generation to seek, receive or have received treatment for their mental health. Respondents of the survey mention public figures such as Simone Biles or Howie Mandel sharing their experiences with mental health and more conversations about mental health in general as part of the reason. More than half of Gen Z also say social media provides them with a feeling of support. The National Alliance on Mental Illness says social media is “opening dialogue and attacking stigma” when it comes to mental health.

While scrolling through TikTok dances, get-ready-with-me videos and selfies, you might come across one of social media’s newest trends: mental health content. The hashtag #ADHD has over 3 million posts on Instagram and over 17.9 billion views on TikTok. These hashtags have all sorts of content about ADHD, ranging from videos of personal experiences to resources for coping with ADHD.

Tierney says she has seen these trends on her own social media pages, specifically on TikTok and Instagram, which helps normalize mental health disorders. “Even anxiety, depression or any mental disorder — you’re not going to be treated any differently for having that,” Tierney says.

Although it can be helpful, there are also some downsides commonly associated with social media’s connection to

WHO TO FOLLOW:

People and pages to follow on Instagram who help destigmatize ADHD and provide support from their own experiences.

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��truly_tish_ ADHD mental health. In an article for Verywell Mind, psychiatrist Dr. Leela R. Magavi says social media can cause strong feelings of loneliness and insufficiency because people can feel connected to creators, but this short-lived connection cannot replace real relationships with friends and family. As social media raises mental health awareness, it also can raise the risk of incorrect self-diagnosis. According to Highland Springs Clinic, self-diagnosis can be dangerous and can lead to incorrect treatment. Any worrying symptoms should be discussed with a doctor.

Trending topics

The openness of social media has affected conversations surrounding ADHD. Kline says social media has educated more people on ADHD, and “ADHD is becoming a more acceptable word in our population.” He says this can lead to people recognizing their own symptoms or encouraging friends to get tested. Another Verywell Mind article echoes Kline’s observations saying social media “has made great strides for visibility, reducing stigma, and helping people gain the insight they may have no other way to access.”

Monique Luisi, an MU assistant professor in strategic communications who was diagnosed with ADHD two years ago, agrees that social media can have a large effect on both the experience of ADHD and someone struggling with ADHD. “Before my diagnosis (I found that) social media was a very wonderful space to connect with people about experiencing mental health issues,” Luisi says.

After her diagnosis at 32, and when trying to figure out a treatment plan, she was able to use Reddit to see if others experienced certain side effects from medication. She also was able to find many resources, including blogs, podcasts and other materials, that enhanced her understanding of ADHD. As a millennial, she says she feels her generation began the shift toward open discussion of mental health. Gen Z has taken this momentum and continued to be even more open about mental health issues on social media.

Dealing with diagnoses

Luisi has been a student for her whole life, going straight from high school to undergrad, then her master’s to her Ph.D. Before her diagnosis, she struggled to stay focused on topics that didn’t interest her.

As a Black woman, Luisi has also seen how implicit biases can have an impact on diagnosis. She says the socialization of what it means to “act like a girl” can lead to an oversight in how symptoms present in women. She also says Black children who show symptoms such as hyperactivity can be victims of biases and labeled as misbehaving. These can be huge barriers to diagnosis and lead to coping mechanisms that mask symptoms such as withdrawing from classes or needing to fidget.

Another challenging aspect of an ADHD diagnosis is the fear of being labeled. Tierney struggled with this at first, but she came to terms with the fact that she needed to be diagnosed and that it was going to help her.

Tierney was diagnosed with ADHD shortly before turning 16 and says social media has reduced the stigma surrounding ADHD and mental health challenges. In high school, she was able to get extra time during tests, but in a time when all you want to do is fit in, she says it was difficult when she started college. “You hate being that person who needs it,” she says.

When declaring her condition with MU Disability Services, Luisi was nervous because she would now be labeled as a person with a disability, and she wasn’t sure how that would affect her identity. “I realized that this label actually empowered me to get the help that I need to perform better,” she says.

Social media’s shortcomings

Although social media might serve as a resource to people struggling with ADHD, it is not without its flaws. Luisi says one of these downsides is negativity bias on social media. She says people might have to seek out specific posts that depict positive experiences with ADHD. She also says some users on social media diminish symptoms of ADHD, saying things like “everyone’s a little bit ADHD.”

“(They’re) trying to say that people lose focus sometimes,” Luisi says. “ But (they) are actually minimizing the struggles and the challenges and the frustrations that people with ADHD face.”

Luisi says another challenge of social media is the misinformation that can be found online. It can be difficult to discover what is a quality source and what isn’t. To combat this misinformation, Luisi recommends people pay close attention to where creators get their information and examine whether the source is reputable.

If someone speculates they may have ADHD based on symptoms they have experienced or what they’ve seen on social media, contact a professional. Kline recommends starting with a primary care physician or a licensed psychiatrist who specializes in ADHD testing and diagnosis. Screening from a professional can either diagnose or rule out ADHD, or can help identify any other mental health issues that someone may be dealing with. Beyond initial screening, a patient might be given specific instructions on how to care for the mental health challenges that they are dealing with.

“Talk with a doctor, a therapist, as many people as you have access to who specialize in ADHD management, care and treatment,” Luisi says.

I THINK I HAVE ADHD: WHAT NOW?

�� Reach out to your primary care doctor for a referral or find licensed psychiatrists who provide ADHD testing.

�� When you meet with medical professionals, you can discuss your symptoms and a psychiatrist can provide diagnostic screening.

�� If diagnosed with ADHD, management tactics will be discussed and you’ll learn how to move forward with treatment.

�� If you are not given an ADHD diagnosis, a psychiatrist might help identify other mental health issues.