Notes Made While Falling

“What kind of book does a sick woman who cannot write actually write?’ This is the question at the centre of the book, a book that is, among other things, a meditation on aesthetic imperatives and the quandaries of working in fictive or non-fictive modes, especially when the subject is one borne of the body of the writer and of trauma. This is a book that writers and readers will love to think with at the same time that they experience the rhythms and textures of the writing itself.” – Mary Cappello, author of Life Breaks In: A Mood Almanack

“This exceptional book cracks open the complexity of human experience, exploring how to live and inhabit a body in the aftermath of trauma and loss. Ashworth expertly weaves the broader world into her story, threading art, writing, philosophy and history, from Dickens to Mantel, Freud to Anne Boyer. Notes Made While Falling is an evocative and profound meditation on living, art and survival.” – Sinéad Gleeson, author of Constellations

“This is a really important unique visceral book about birth, trauma and new motherhood. I found the opening pages to be the most moving description of the kind of trauma many women face in childbirth in 2019 in the United Kingdom. It’s raw and authentic, and it moved me to tears and to rage. We need to make our system of maternity care better.” – Dr Rebecca Moore, consultant perinatal psychiatrist and co-founder of Make Birth Better