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Hi! I'm Kathleen Founds. This is my book, Bipolar Bear & the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Health Insurance: a Fable for Grown-Ups. It's a graphic novel about a bipolar bear who gets lost in the Labyrinth of Health Insurance Claims.

I'm also the author of When Mystical Creatures Attack!,

a novel-in-stories about an idealistic teacher who has a nervous breakdown and corresponds with her former students from an inpatient psychiatric facility.

Publishers Weekly called it "Zany with a zinger of a political message."

Due to the themes of my work, I figure that if you ended up on this website, there's a 35% chance that you are in a chasm of despair. If so, I made you this!

(Just click on the depression Whack-A-Mole sign.)

And here's a guide to the rest of the website!

This fall, from

press....

A graphic novel about a bipolar bear named Theodore who calls the number on his insurance card and drops into the cold, dank, labyrinth of health insurance claims. There, he confronts man-eating flowers . . .

. . . .customer service

snakes . . .

. . . and a rapacious feline insurance executive named Baroness Von Stinkleshanks.

Theodore soon lands in debtor’s prison, where he is tasked with shoveling subversive literature into the prison furnace.

Theodore meets his fellow debtors: a turtle with a foreclosed shell reduced to living in an old army helmet, a mother rabbit whose health insurance doesn't cover birth control, and an owl with a degree in Victorian literature and crushing student debt.

An existential awakening inspires Theodore to a lead a prison break, organize a Utopian commune, and fight for social reform.

When depression and mania continue to stalk him and the bureaucracy doesn't budge, Theodore must ask himself: What is the point of fighting for justice if justice never comes? What is the point of a healing journey if the sickness always comes back?

Bipolar Bear & the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Health Insurance will be is available wherever books are sold. And if you find yourself mired in the slough of despond, lost in the labyrinth of health insurance claims, or bound by the shackles of crushing debt, take heart! You are not alone.

For updates on the book (and occasional drawings of passive-aggressive forest creatures urging you to vote):

Instagram: @kathleenfounds

Twitter: @kathleenfounds