The Animal Within the Animal
A memoir-in-progress about postpartum psychosis, survival, and becoming
How do you piece together an identity that feels both broken and becoming? The Animal Within the Animal explores the long, quiet work of recovery, not just from postpartum psychosis, but from any experience that fractures how you see yourself and the world.
This memoir-in-progress is a first-person narrative told through fragmented, vignette-style scenes, exploring themes of identity, memory, and recovery.
Rather than a medical chronicle or a cautionary tale, it's a literary exploration of memory, motherhood, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive. Through fragmented scenes that mirror the disorientation of trauma itself, the book examines how we rebuild not just our mental health, but our sense of who we are when everything familiar falls away.
It’s about survival and becoming, through family, creativity, and the long arc of healing. It's honest and lyrical, unflinching but always hopeful.
The Animal Within the Animal has been supported by the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the McCoy Grant for Bookseller-Writers, and the Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. These opportunities provided time, community, and affirmation during key phases of the writing process.
An excerpt from the book is forthcoming in Roxane Gay's The Audacity.
Why this book?
Because sharing the story I needed, from the other side, matters.
I felt called to write this book because, during my recovery from postpartum psychosis, I couldn’t find stories that truly reflected what I had been through. Most of what I found was either clinical, sensationalized, or missing entirely.
The Animal Within the Animal is my way of adding something emotionally honest to the conversation. I wanted to write about not just the crisis, but the slow, quiet work of putting yourself back together. It's for anyone who's had to reconstruct themselves after something unthinkable, and for readers who are drawn to honest, lyrical writing about the messier parts of being human.
My hope is that readers feel less alone and more connected to their own strength and healing.
Available for representation
Learn more about the book!
I’m on the lookout for a publishing pro to partner with on bringing The Animal Within the Animal into the world.
I’d love to find someone who shares my vision for literary nonfiction that's both deeply personal and broadly resonant—someone who sees the potential for this story to reach readers beyond its immediate subject matter.
If you’d like to learn more or read sample chapters, please reach out!
