Thirty-three authors share their heartfelt, humorous, painful, insightful, poignant, and real life excerpts in this anthology. I think the writers are all gifted, not because of their illnesses or trials, but because of their response to trauma, their resolve, resilience, intellect, life experience, and their courage to share their voices in this collection. To stand up and say, we are here, we suffer but we are strong, we will survive. I appreciated the diversity, authenticity and quality of their work.
Off the Map, an anthology of writing by Vancouver writers with lived experience of mental health issues, aims to bring diverse and distinctive voices to the literary landscape. In works of creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, you'll discover writing on a wide range of subjects. These narratives showcase unique storytelling styles and forms, offer fresh and fascinating perspectives, and are told with compelling honesty, inventiveness, and compassion.
R. D. Laing showed me insights into the human psyche, the fallacies and illusions we carry and the outcomes of religion, hierarchy, industry, and the building of cities and capitalism. Alienation and the abundance of mental illness, and societal breakdown are discussed based on psychology, sociology, geography, politics, economics, and history.
Presenting case studies of schizophrenic patients, Laing aims to make madness and the process of going mad comprehensible. He also offers an existential analysis of personal alienation.
Some of the best poetry ever written by a man whose life was so interesting as well. To build a house out of granite and a tower for his love is amazing. His legacy, his poetry and his architecture are profound.
In 1938 Random House published The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, a volume that would remain in print for more than fifty years. For decades it drew enough poets, students, and general readers to keep Jeffers-in spite of the almost total academic neglect that followed his fame in the 1920s and 1930s-a force in American poetry.
Now scholars are at last beginning to recognize that he created a significant alternative to the High Modernism of Pound, Eliot, and Stevens. Similarly, contemporary poets who have returned to the narrative poem acknowledge Jeffers to be a major poet, while those exploring California…
Vancouver artist Sandra Yuen MacKay has an abnormality of the brain - a disease called schizophrenia. As she says, "my life is schizophrenic because I have schizophrenia. It will always be there". Much of her life has been a struggle to cope with the symptoms of her disease and the side effects of the medications required to keep those symptoms in check. Early in her life, Sandra started to exhibit the typical symptoms of this disease which came as a surprise to her unsuspecting family. Her book chronicles her struggles, hospitalizations, encounters with professionals, return to school, eventual marriage, and success as an artist, writer and advocate. "Remarkably compelling...the book takes on a life if its own...a gripping narrative" Library Journal "There are precious few people who have experienced psychosis and can convey it accurately, clearly, and concisely. Sandra MacKay's story is an important one for all of us in the mental health field --doctors, patients, and their families. It is imperative that we take in the lessons she is imparting to us all, on how to manage, and in many ways, triumph, over chronic mental illness." Julie Holland, MD author, Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych ER., New York city
