Some of Us Just Fall: On Nature and Not Getting Better

"It raises the standard of nature writing. This is both radical manifesto and activism in book form." -Sally Huband, author of Sea Bean "Defiant and dazzling" -Freya Bromley, author of The Tidal Year "Essential reading" -Jessica J. Lee, author of Turning "Long before I knew I was sick, I knew I was breakable..." After years of unexplained health problems, Polly Atkin's perception of her body was rendered fluid and disjointed. When she was finally diagnosed with two chronic conditions in her thirties, she began to piece together what had been happening to her- all the misdiagnoses, the fractures, the dislocations, the bone-crushing exhaustion, and on top of it all, not being believed by the very people who were meant to listen. Some of Us Just Fall combines memoir, pathography and nature writing to trace a journey through illness- a journey which led Atkins to her cottage in England's Lake District, where every day she turns to the lakes and land that inspire poets old and new to help manage, and purportedly cure, her chronic illness. Join her as she delves into shimmering waters, selkie dreams, and the history of her two genetic conditions to uncover and learn from how they were managed (or not) in times gone by. Beautiful and deeply personal, Some of Us Just Fall is essential reading on the cost of medical misogyny and gaslighting, the illusion of 'the nature cure', and the dangers of ableism both systematic and internalized. This is not a book about getting better. This is a book about living better with illness.

About the Author :
Polly Atkin is a multi-award-winning poet, essayist, nature writer and academic in the UK. She has taught both English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of London, Strathclyde University, Lancaster University and University of Cumbria. Her doctoral research focused on Romantic legacies and literary geographies of the Lake District, northwest England, in collaboration with the Wordsworth Trust. In 2022 she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She works as a freelancer from her home in Grasmere, in the English Lake District. Her first poetry collection Basic Nest Architecture (Seren: 2017) is followed by Much With Body (Seren, 2021), a PBS Winter 2021 recommendation and Laurel Prize 2022 longlistee. She has also published three poetry chapbooks: bone song (Aussteiger, 2008), Shadow Dispatches (Seren, 2013) and With Invisible Rain (New Walk: 2018). Her biography Recovering Dorothy: The Hidden Life of Dorothy Wordsworth (Saraband, 2021), is the first to focus on Dorothy's later life and illness. Her work is included in anthologies of nature writing, ecopoetry and walking literature, including the UK's first anthology of nature writing by disabled and chronically ill writers, Moving Mountains (Footnote, 2023).