Fractured Ink: Introducing myself and my novels.

In this episode, I will introduce you to my two novels: "The Overlife: A Tale of Schizophrenia"  (https://www.amazon.com/dp/191685219X), whose title I abbreviate to "The Overlife," and "Three Kidnapped, Three Siblings, Three Furies" (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DR9K6YMG), whose title I abbreviate to "Three Siblings." The first novel is about a mother and daughter both living with paranoid schizophrenia. The second novel is about sibling abuse. I will also talk about myself and the goals of this Podcast. This Podcast has a serious tone, but, don't worry, we will also have fun and humor in many of the episodes.

A video version of this episode is on my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@DianaDirkbyWrites)

My website: https://dianadirkbywrites.com/
My Instagram: @dianadirkby_writings (https://www.instagram.com/dianadirkby_writings/)
My Facebook Page: Diana Dirkby Writings (https://www.facebook.com/DianaDirkbyAuthor)
My X-account: @dianadirkby (https://x.com/DianaDirkby)
My YouTube channel @DianaDirkbyWrites (https://www.youtube.com/@DianaDirkbyWrites)

Transcript

Welcome!

Welcome to Episode 1 of my Podcast, Fractured Ink. My name is Diana Dirkby. I’m a writer and mathematician. This Podcast will focus on my fiction novels.

Let’s kick things off with excerpts from two of my books. The episode description includes links to these books on Amazon and to my website and social media.

The following three passages are from “The Overlife: A Tale of Schizophrenia” by Diana Dirkby.

Extract 1) “It had become too much. The nightmares of my pre-teen years were coming true now I was seventeen. My mother demanded and got my total allegiance. It took an enormous amount of effort and time to help her with her struggling mental health and try to protect her from my father. I was showing signs of cracking up, from loss of appetite to excruciating back pain.”

Extract 2) “One day, I was in the kitchen carving some cooked roast beef. My father entered the room with an ashen face and seething with anger. Even given all that had gone before, I barely recognized him. He was on the other side of the kitchen table from me. He told me,” This time, I mean it. I am going to kill you.” He started to move around the table with his arms outstretched. I presumed he wanted to strangle me. I blacked out for a second. When I could see him again, he was closer. Instinctively, I threw the carving knife I held in my right hand at his feet in a move to scare him but not hurt him.”

Extract 3) “I believed that I only needed to look at a person for them to know what I was thinking and that everywhere I went, people were inserting thoughts into my mind. I was engaged in a silent global debate where the verdict was my complete unworthiness. Everything I thought I had accomplished with my life was a cloud easily dispersed.

Those three passages were from my novel “The Overlife. A Tale Of Schizophrenia.”

I’ll now quote from another of my novels “Three Kidnapped, Three Siblings, Three Furies.”

Extract 1) “On the eighth day of the disappearance [of Mary Bell, Sebastian Ward, and Fred McCarthy], the three sets of parents shared disturbing proof that the three teenagers had been kidnapped. Overnight, someone had delivered a package containing the clothing their teen had been wearing when they went missing to each of their residences, as well as their broken mobile phones, along with a note and a photo of their child. The note said, ‘Your kid is with us.”

Extract 2) “Ten days into the disappearances, the horror began. Each of the three sets of parents received another package at their doorstep in

the middle of the night containing a DVD, a bag, a photo, and a note.

In each bag was a severed tongue. The photo showed Mary,

Sebastian, and Fred standing in a row close to one another. Each

teenager had their right hand extended with what looked to be a

tongue placed on their hand. Their mouths were open, and it seemed

they were missing their tongues. Blood was oozing out and around

their mouth, which had also painted their white tracksuits crimson.

The content on the DVD showed Sebastian, Mary, and Fred getting their tongues slit. The note that came with the DVDs said, “Without

their tongue, they cannot lie, nor can they hurt others with their

words.”

Extract 3) ”It had been seven weeks into the ordeal, a week after Father

Lewis had visited the three families, when the Wards, the Bells, and

the McCarthys received another ransom note. It was on their

doorsteps on a Friday morning. It said, “We are the Three Furies,

Alecto (Anger), Megaera (Jealousy), and Tisiphone (Vengeance) from

the Greek Myths. The siblings of Mary, Fred, and Sebastian need to

confess their family relationships fully. If they do, and we are satisfied

with their accuracy, we will let your kidnapped children go. We want

Father Lewis and Isabel Morse to run the confession interviews. We

want them transcribed accurately into a written text. Each family will

leave the written confessions of their children on their doorstep in

ten days. More precisely, the confessions must be on your doorsteps

by 1:00 am on the Monday after the next one. If you fail to

accomplish this task, we will take Mary’s vocal cords, Fred’s feet, and

Sebastians’s testicles. If you succeed in accomplishing what we ask,

we will return your kidnapped teens intact. They will remember the

amputations and their pain and fear, but they won’t have to live with

them. These are the only two alternatives we envisage, and there will

be no negotiation. You have this one chance to get it right. Think

about what we have amputated so far and what we threaten to do as

hints at what you need to get out of the sibling confessions. Think,

also, about who we are. Ask Isabel.”

These were three passages from my novel “Three Kidnapped, Three Siblings, Three Furies.”

My name is Diana Dirkby. In this Podcast, “Fractured Ink,” we’ll talk about novels, including mine, written through the prism of serious family challenges. For example, I live with schizophrenia, complex PTSD, and absence-epilepsy, and the two novels I quoted from reflect this. My books, though fiction, draw from my personal experiences and those of other people I have known well.

We’ll discuss serious family challenges from a subjective and objective point of view.

Let me tell you a little more about this Podcast and myself.

This Podcast is a sequel to my audio Podcast “Schizophrenia As I Live It,” where you will find a lot of information about how I experience schizophrenia. There is still a lot left unsaid, so living with schizophrenia will be part of this Podcast, too. This Podcast, “Fractured Ink,” will have audio and video versions. The audio version can be found on the many platforms where “Schizophrenia As I Live It” lives, and I will keep “Schizophrenia As I Live It” live so you can refer to it. The new podcast “Fractured Ink” video version will be posted on my YouTube channel @DianaDirkbyWrites.

I have written two published novels, “The Overlife: A Tale of Schizophrenia” (www.amazon.com/dp/191685219X), whose title I’ll abbreviate to “The Overlife” and “Three Kidnapped: Three Siblings, Three Furies” (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DR9K6YMG) whose title I’ll abbreviate to “Three Siblings.” Both are available as Kindle books and paperbacks. “The Overlife” is also an audiobook that can be found on Audible. The audiobook “Three Siblings” is nearly complete.

For an extensive presentation of these books and access to my Blog and my Podcast, you can refer to my website: https://dianadirkbywrites.com/, my Instagram account @dianadirkby_writings, my Facebook page Diana Dirkby Writings, my X-account @dianadirkby and my YouTube channel @DianaDirkbyWrites

You’ll find links to the novels, my website, and my social media in the Episode Description..

“The Overlife” is about a mother and daughter both living with paranoid schizophrenia. “Three Kidnapped, Three Siblings, Three Furies” is about sibling abuse. Though fiction, they closely follow my experiences and those of people I know well. They are also good stories, independent of focusing on the problematic issues they treat.

Diana Dirkby is a pen name. I worked for many years as a research mathematician in France, publishing under my real name Paula Tretkoff. I chose a pen name to avoid confusion between the publications of my two careers: mathematician and writer. With my spouse, I now divide my time between Texas and Alaska, the latter inspiring the virtual background in this video..

This podcast will focus on my mind, fractured by schizophrenia, complex PTSD, and absence-epilepsy, and how that fracturing affects the ink on the final version of the pages I write for publication. Hence the title of the Podcast series “Fractured Ink.”

Let me end this episode by saying, “Thank you for listening and/or watching.”