Admissions into art, language and mental health

A collection documenting mental health in Australia by a wide range of voices with lived experience.

A new anthology, Admissions: Voices within Mental Health, was recently released as part of Mental Health Week 2022 (2-8 October) in a partnership with Red Room Poetry. Edited by David Stavanger, Radhiah Chowdury and Mohammad Awad, it promises to broaden the parameters around mental health discourse by focusing on contributors with lived experience, in all their diversity and complexity. (The editors reiterate that ‘Everything within these pages is someone’s truth’.)
 
There’s also an emphasis on inclusivity in terms of both contributors and style. To this end, of the 103 entries, there are both well-recognised names (including pieces by Christine Anu, Grace Tame, Evelyn Araluen, Ali Cobby Eckermann, and Anna Spargo-Ryan and Omar Sakr) as well as 30 emerging writers.

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Thuy On is Reviews Editor of ArtsHub and an arts journalist, critic and poet who’s written for a range of publications including The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, Sydney Review of Books, The Australian, The Age/SMH and Australian Book Review. She was the books editor of The Big issue for 8 years. Her debut, a collection of poetry called Turbulence, came out in 2020 and was released by University of Western Australia Publishing (UWAP). Her second collection, Decadence, was published in July 2022, also by UWAP. Her third book, Essence, will be published in 2025. Twitter: @thuy_on Instagram: poemsbythuy