Dx: Diagnosis and Writing
Dx: Diagnosis and Writing is taking a break
Thank you to all contributors and readers for supporting the project. We are taking a break to work on other things, but will be back in 2025.
Dx
diagnosis: from the Greek dia ‘apart’ and gignōskein ‘to know’
A diagnosis is always differential; it is an act of recognition of otherness. To seek, to receive, to identify with a diagnosis is deeply personal and inevitably political, affecting our relationship with ourselves, others, our surroundings and our place in society.
How does it affect our relationship with writing?
© Leonora Carrington / Artist's Estate.
poetry
Anna Johnson
dispatches
Jacqueline Taylor
Open Call for Contributors
The Dx: Diagnosis and Writing website seeks to publish a range of responses to the broad question: what has the experience of seeking, receiving or living with a diagnosis, medical or self-identified, meant for your writing practice, whether that be creative, academic, journalistic or other? Practice is meant here in all senses of the word, from daily rhythms and practical challenges, to finding a voice and a language, as well as negotiating and articulating the politics of writing, privately and publicly, in light of the diagnostic process.
The Dx: Diagnosis and Writing website will showcase contributions on a continual basis, and act as the starting point for further exploration and creative output, as Diagnosis and Writing is seeking to be an ongoing inclusive interdisciplinary project, multi-modal in its output. Our aim is to not to be peer reviewed, but we welcome reviews and suggestions.
Abstracts: send us a paragraph outlining your ideas and the format in which you would like to present them. Please include a suggested timeline for completion, and any accessibility needs. You might also wish to include a bibliography.
All responses are welcome, but some areas you might wish to explore are:
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Diagnoses as a catalyst or motivation for writing, perhaps as part of ‘recovery’, of understanding, or of controlling responses to the condition;
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The legitimisation or confirmation of diagnoses;
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Self-diagnosis, social diagnosis, self-care and personal research in relation to medical of ‘formal’ diagnoses;
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Rethinking of the body; confronting the possibilities or limitations of bodily experience; liberation from the body;
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Diagnosis as ‘constraint’ or as liberation from physical and formal constraints, particularly as this might relate to ‘traditional’ versus experimental writing practices;
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Scientific and social models of diagnosis and care; DSM versus cultural or social definitions;
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Pacing of life, writing and other social functions before and after diagnoses;
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Figurative representations: analogies, allegories, metaphor, myth, folklore and other cultural practices of understanding diagnoses;
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The impact on ‘voice’ and ‘style’, before and after diagnoses;
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Physical impacts on being able to write, to speak, to communicate. Finding other ways of ‘writing’;
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Combative writing: exploring the notions of ‘battling’ an illness;
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Diagnoses as offering new patterns, as a ‘quiz’ or a ‘puzzle’ to be solved or understood;
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Writing from the ‘perspective’ of organs, neurons or disease;
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Diagnosis and medication.
About the Editors
Eva Aldea
Eva Aldea is a writer, editor and lecturer in creative writing at De Montfort University. She also teaches literature and theory for University of London. Meeting fellow writers while doing an MFA in Creative Writing fuelled her interest in the impact of diagnoses on the writing process. Her first novel Singapore (Holland House Books) is out now.
Gareth Farmer
Gareth Farmer is a poet and lecturer in English literature at the University of Bedfordshire. His academic work focuses on poetry, poetics and experimental literature. His latest collection of poetry, Kerf (87 Press, 2022) explores woodworking, writing and impact of being diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) at the age of 40.