Call for submissions
Hi everybody, I’m a peer who is just starting to write for qmh.org. I’ve contributed to several other websites and anthologies as well, and several years ago, I had circulated a call for submissions for a proposed anthology of my own entitled Headcase: LGBTQ Writers and Artists on Mental Health. I got some wonderful responses from writers and artists as well as from a publisher or two, but had to drop the project when a personal tragedy occurred–the sudden loss of my partner to suicide. It took me quite some time to heal enough to resume work on this, as the anthology addresses what is of course an intense and deeply personal topic. But in recent months I began to feel ready, and started meeting with my friend and fellow writer Stephanie Schroeder (http://www.beautifulwreck.com/), whose work I have long admired. Stephanie agreed to come on board as my co-editor, and we are very excited to announce that a revised call for submissions is now available at:
https://headcaseanthology.wordpress.com/
We are particularly invested in making sure that we have a genuinely diverse array of writers and artists contributing; we want to include the voices of people of color, of youth and elders alike, of trans, gender non-conforming, and two-spirit people; people living with dis/abilities, low-income people, people whose intersectional identities are underrepresented in media. It’s not easy to “come out” as having a mental illness, receiving a diagnosis that does not resonate with you, being seen as “ill” when you don’t consider yourself ill, or having experience with the mental health care system, especially in light of LGBTQ people’s long history of being pathologized just for being LGBTQ.
We have already started getting a terrific response to our call for submissions, and I consider it an honor to hear from yet more writers and artists ready to share their stories, experiences, and points of view in any of the formats we mention in the call for submission, which I hope you’ll take a moment to review. Thanks, and be well.
