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The final individual in this podcast miniseries about great literary figures who had a form of epilepsy deals with Truman Capote, and while he is listed among famous writers who had epilepsy, there's no indication that he depicted characters with epilepsy or seizures in his fictional works. 

As I hope you know by now, writers such as Fyodor Dostoevsky, for example, are known to have integrated their experience with epilepsy into their characters and narratives. However, for Capote, the information primarily points to his personal health struggles, not literary creations.

Regarding the role of seizures/epilepsy in his later life, it's a significant and unfortunately tragic part of his story. Truman Capote suffered from seizures, and this health issue was compounded by his severe struggles with alcohol and drug abuse.

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Welcome to Celebrate Creativity - Episode 448 - Queen of Crime

We have talked in this podcast about such great writers as Dostoyevsky and Flaubert, but so far I've left out the most popular writer of them all and that is Agatha Christie.

Only the Bible and Shakespeare have sold more copies that Agatha Christie - she is often mentioned alongside great writers who have had epileptic seizures, but her case is a bit more ambiguous than Dostoevsky or Flaubert.  In this episode, I'd like to lay out what scholars and biographers have pieced together about her health, and how possible seizures might have shaped her writing and life.

Now I know that some of you younger listeners might know mysteries or even Knives Out, but not realize how much all of that traces back to Agatha Christie. Let me give you a short - very short - introduction to Agatha Christie as a writer. 

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer — and she’s often called the “Queen of Crime.” Over the course of her life she wrote 66 detective novels, 14 short story collections, and the world’s longest-running play, The Mousetrap.

Her works introduced some of the most famous detectives in literature, like Hercule Poirot — the meticulous Belgian sleuth with the “little grey cells” — and Miss Marple, the seemingly gentle village spinster who sees into the darkest corners of human nature.

Christie’s stories have sold over two billion - yes that's billion with a B - copies worldwide — more than any other author except Shakespeare and the Bible. Her works have been translated into over 100 languages, making her one of the most widely read writers in history.

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Welcome to Celebrate Creativity -  Episode 447 - What the Dickens!

Today I want to look at Charles Dickens - and no I could not find any reliable information that said Charles Dickens suffered from epilepsy, but his connection to epilepsy and neurology is extremely notable because of his descriptions of some of his characters having epileptic episodes.

Again, there is no record of Charles Dickens have any form of epilepsy - at least none that I could find - and I really looked - but he was an excellent writer, and described characters of his works who suffered from seizure disorders objectively and in great detail - in fact many medical schools today use his descriptions in neurology classes.

Dickens an extremely keen eye for human behavior. While though there’s no evidence he personally experienced epilepsy, he was fascinated by the extremes of human emotion and physical reaction. He grew up in a time when epilepsy was stigmatized and often poorly understood, which may have made his detailed depictions both sensational and socially informative.

Dickens was part of the Victorian realist tradition, which emphasized detailed, psychologically rich portrayals of characters. When writing someone experiencing a seizure—like the character of Squeers’ son or other minor characters—he wasn’t just showing a medical condition; he was conveying inner terror, vulnerability, or moral weakness. His meticulous depictions helped readers visualize and emotionally connect with characters.

Dickens read widely, including medical journals of his time such as  John Russell Reynolds’ Aids to the Diagnosis of Diseases of the Nervous System or other Victorian neurology texts that    described seizures clinically. Dickens likely drew on these descriptions to give his fiction both realism and credibility.

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Welcome to Celebrate Creativity - Episode 447 - The Perfect Word

Welcome to this podcast episode. Today, get ready to hear more meet a writer who took being a perfectionist to a whole new level - possibly hear about him for the very first time. His name is Gustave Flaubert, and he's not just another author from history—he's a rebel who changed how stories are told forever.

So, why should you care about him?

Imagine a writer who spent years on a single book. Gustave Flaubert was obsessed with finding the one perfect word for every sentence, often screaming his writing out loud to make sure it sounded just right. This crazy-intense effort is why his main accomplishment, a novel called Madame Bovary, is so famous. When it came out, it caused a massive scandal! People were so shocked by his story of a bored woman trying to find excitement in her life that he was actually put on trial.

But there’s another reason he's so interesting. Flaubert suffered from epilepsy. This illness made his life incredibly difficult and private, but it also gave him a unique view of the world. It’s a powerful and inspiring story of a person who took his own personal struggles and turned them into some of the most beautiful and honest writing the world has ever seen.
So, stick around as we continue our look into the life of Gustave Flaubert.

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Welcome to Episode 445 of Celebrate Creativity - Ultimate Freedom - This is the third and final episode devoted to characters with epilepsy from   the writings of Fydor Dostoyevsky.

In addition to Prince Myskin and Smerdyakov, there was another major character who has a relationship with epilepsy called Kirillov from dostoyevsky’s novel by the name of Demons.  You see, Dostoevsky never explicitly says Kirillov is epileptic, but there are strong echoes of the condition, and scholars often connect him to Dostoevsky’s own experiences of seizures. 

In Demons, Kirillov is obsessed with ultimate freedom and the idea of overcoming the fear of death by committing suicide. At several points, he describes moments of sudden, radiant joy that come to him — a kind of ecstatic clarity just before unbearable suffering. Dostoevsky himself experienced something very similar with his own epilepsy. He wrote that just before some of his seizures, he would feel a sudden, luminous happiness, as though eternity were revealed to him in a single instant.

In Demons (Part II, Chapter 1), Kirillov says:

“There are moments, and it is only for a few seconds, when you feel the presence of eternal harmony … You feel it in all your being, and it is clear, it is undeniable. At such moments you would not exchange it for all the joys of earth.”

This is almost identical to Dostoevsky’s personal description of his epileptic aura. Many readers — and critics — have taken this as evidence that Kirillov is written as an epileptic character, even if Dostoevsky never uses the word.

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Welcome to Celebrate Creativity – Episode 444 – A Multitude of Ways

In this podcast series, I am delving into authors who had epilepsy. And there is probably no better example than Dostoyevsky. Now it is said that Fydor Dostoevsky's portrayal of epilepsy, especially in his character Prince Myshkin, is one of the most accurate and empathetic in literature largely because it goes beyond just describing the physical symptoms. He delves into the psychological, social, and spiritual dimensions of the condition. Having experienced epilepsy himself, Dostoevsky was able to portray the condition with an authenticity that was rare for his time.

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Welcome to Celebrate Creativity – Episode 444 - Fate, illness, or Deception?

This is the first podcast episode in a three part series dealing with a fascinating individual - the Russian writer Fydor Dostoevsky and his literary treatment of seizure disorders.  His works are rich with recurring themes such as morality, free will, nihilism, faith, and the nature of good and evil.

Dostoevsky himself suffered from epilepsy - so it could be argued that his reaction to the condition it's quite different from most Siri set an alarm for five minutes writers - largely because he suffered so many seizures.  He he even went out of his way to portray some of his characters - note that I said some of his characters - having seizure disorders and being exemplary people.  Today they might be called role models.  This is perhaps most true of one of the leading characters of his novel, The Idiot - a character known as Prince Myshkin.

Dostoevsky's Life and Historical Context

Dostoevsky's life was marked by extreme highs and lows, which directly influenced his writing. 

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Welcome to Celebrate Creativity - Episode 442  Was He Drunk? 

I should hope that after you have listened to the preceding episode, the name of Dr. John Robertson should be familiar to you.  In case it is not, Dr. John Robertson was a neurologist and an avid collector of Poe's works who, in his 1921 study "Edgar A. Poe: A Study," argued that Poe suffered from a form of epilepsy, specifically complex partial seizures. He contended that these seizures, rather than just substance abuse, were the underlying cause of Poe's erratic behavior and many of the "spells" or "fits" documented by his contemporaries.

Robertson's Main Points
Poe's "Spells" as Complex Partial Seizures: Robertson, writing from a 20th-century neurological perspective, reinterpreted the anecdotal descriptions of Poe's "spells" or "brain fever" as symptoms of complex partial seizures. These seizures, often originating in the temporal lobe, were not well understood in the 19th century and could be mistaken for insanity or drunkenness. Robertson argued that symptoms like staring, personality changes, mutism, and amnesia, which were described by Poe's acquaintances, were highly consistent with this diagnosis.

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Welcome to Celebrate Creativity Episode 441 - Did Poe Have Epilepsy?

As many of you know, I used to work at the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond Virginia - my favorite room in the entire museum, and one of my favorite places in the entire world, is the Virginia Poe room name for the mother of Edgar Allan Poe.  Now this building contains  an excellent collection of the writers works - original editions of everything from Hans Pfall - for obvious reasons, the museum takes stringent security measures - security concerns and actions which I don't even begin to understand - nor would I want to.  The reason that I am talking about this collection is that it was given to the museum by a Dr.  John Robertson - he not only had deep pockets, but was a neurologist - a brain doctor - and a genuine expert on the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe. He wrote a huge book about Poe’s life - especially from from a neurological standpoint - and in the following episodes I would like to address some of his findings regarding America’s Shakespeare - especially where Dr. John Robertson connected his medical expertise to his passion for Poe's works.  And a look at Dr. Robertson's findings are especially relevant when looking at any possible connection of Edgar Allan Poe and seizure disorders.

As mentioned before, Dr. John W. Robertson's (1856-1934) was a neurologist and author who was a prominent Poe collector. His collection of Poe's works and memorabilia was substantial and is noted to have included original manuscripts and rare editions. He was a benefactor of the Poe Museum in Richmond and is also listed as having placed a plaque at a cemetery with the museum's founder, James H. Whitty. This deep interest in Poe's life and his writings went beyond simple collection; it fueled his professional endeavors.

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-Welcome to is Celebrate Creativity for episode 440 Crossing the Symbol -the second part of a look into Lord Byron.

Making swimming even more difficult historically and even today it's a vital strategic waterway which means it was and still is a busy maritime passageway  
Now if you will excuse me, I wanna take a little aside and delve into the Hellespont - and hopefully in a few minutes you will understand it's importance to Lord Byron, his thinking, and where I'm trying to go with this.
So I asked Gemini for a little background about the Hellespont.

It answered - The Hellespont, now known as the Dardanelles, is a narrow, historically significant strait in northwestern Turkey that connects the Aegean Sea (part of the Mediterranean) to the Sea of Marmara, and ultimately, via the Bosphorus, to the Black Sea.

To Lord Byron, the Hellespont was what's like a bridge Between Continents and Civilizations - metaphorically. It famously marks a natural boundary between Europe (on the Gallipoli Peninsula side) and Asia (on the Troad, or mainland Turkey, side). Byron's swim was, in essence, a literal crossing between continents.

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