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Mara Brock Akil spent 30 years building worlds on screen, and her debut novel asked her to go somewhere screenwriting never did. Mara joins Dr. Joy to talk about The Revelation of Dionne Daphne, the story she first tried to tell in the ’90s, and what it took to give a character her own experience with childhood sexual abuse. She also gets into the friendships that hold us until we can hold ourselves, the urgency that comes from facing your own mortality, and how compartmentalizing went from a survival skill to something she’s learning to put down.
Dr. Joy and Mara discuss:
- Moving from screenwriting to a novel, and why the book left her nowhere to hide
- How she supported herself while writing, from weekly therapy to her mother who always picks up the phone
- Fasting during her last major writing stretch and promising herself she’d give the advance back if she didn’t love the book
- Why she wanted readers to look at their shame and put it down
- The two-week wait for an HIV test in the ’90s and how it shaped Dionne’s story
- Why she calls girlfriends our surrogate parents, and what she understands now about Girlfriends that she didn’t 25 years ago
- What she thinks women her age gained from a generation that paused for their mental health
- The readers who wished the book had a trigger warning, and why she sees it differently
- Compartmentalizing as a survival skill and learning presence instead
- Her relationship with God and creating as co-creation
- What’s coming in season two of Forever
Content note: This episode includes discussion of childhood sexual abuse.
About the Podcast
The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.
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Our Production Team
Executive Producers: Dennison Bradford & Gabrielle Collins
Director of Podcast & Digital Content: Ellice Ellis
Producer: Ndeye Thioubou
Production Assistant: Bria Mosley
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