Polly and I have sat in the same Zoom room together a number of times as part of
Wild Women salons, and talked memoir, and so I am thrilled to have the chance of interviewing her for my forthcoming book INTO BEING: the radical craft of memoir and its power to transform (due to be published by MUP in 2025).I have long been drawn to memoirs written by poets for their more experimental approach, and also illness and trauma narratives for their more embodied form, and Polly’s memoir, Some of Us Just Fall manages to be both of these things. It’s a stunning and thought-provoking memoir about what it is to live with a chronic health condition - in her case Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and hemochromatosis. It is also about Polly’s relationship with nature where she lives in Grassmere.
I read it on my camping trip and the book has returned with many of its pages turned over and sections underlined. It is lyrical, heartfelt, and informative. A memoir that speaks for the many people living with chronic illness and those who need to understand it better. It left me both educated and in awe of the beauty and power of writing.
POLLY ATKIN (FRSL) is a poet and nonfiction writer. She has published three poetry pamphlets and two collections – Basic Nest Architecture (Seren: 2017) and Much With Body (Seren: 2021), a PBS Winter 2021 recommendation and Laurel Prize 2022 longlistee. Her nonfiction includes Recovering Dorothy: The Hidden Life of Dorothy Wordsworth (Saraband: 2021), a Barbellion-longlisted biography of Dorothy’s later life and illness, and a memoir exploring place, belonging and disability, Some Of Us Just Fall: On Nature and Not Getting Better (Sceptre: 2023), a longlistee of the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2024, and Hunter Davies Lakeland Book of the Year 2024. Her third nonfiction book is a love song to the owls of Lakeland, The Company of Owls (Elliott and Thompson: 2024). She works as a freelancer from her home in the English Lake District. In 2023 she and her partner took ownership of historic Grasmere bookshop Sam Read Bookseller.
I hope you enjoy it! You can buy Polly’s memoir here
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