The Disability Information and Resource Centre

As part of Mental Health Week a Poetry Competition is jointly run by the SA Writers’ Centre and the Mental Health Coalition of SA.

This competition is open to everyone (not just those who have lived with or experienced a mental illness) and has seven categories.

In 2010 the competition had 146 entries from across SA. It is one of the most successful Poetry Competitions run annually by the SA Writers Centre.

Poets are requested to write poems of 4-12 lines about an aspect of Mental Health and enter under one of the following categories.

• Masters: Individuals who are 65+.
• Youth: 12 to 18 years old.
• Open Rural: Applicants of all ages.
• Indigenous: Individuals with Aboriginal/Torres Straight Islanders.
• Multicultural: Individuals with multicultural descent.
• Carers: A person caring for someone with a mental health issue or illness.
• Open Metro: Individuals who live in the metropolitan area. (18-65 years).

The winners will be announced at the Mental Health Words Evening on Thursday the 13th of October, 2011 at the SA Writers’ Centre.

The Words evening will be hosted by celebrity Mark Aiston and feature comedians from the Cracking Up Comedy Project.

The winners will receive an art piece with the words of their poems interpreted on the piece by artist and ticket writer Sue Morrizi.

A special feature of this evening will be the launch of the Mental Health Week Poetry Anthology called ‘Mindfields’. The book will feature winning poems from 2008 to 2010 plus a selection of entrants from 2010.

To Download the application form and information sheet please visit http://mhcsa.net/?catID=54.

Media Enquiries to Tracey Davis at the MHCSA on 8212 8873 / 0406 980 962 or by E: tracey.davis@mhcsa.org.au.

Previous Poets, and the SA Writers Centre are available for interview.

This program aims to provide support to writers with disabilities by providing one-on-one consultations with the writer-in-residence, Sharon Kernot. Sharon will provide feedback, editing. and discuss writing and publishing aims. The program is free for writers of all genres, all ages and all levels.

Please contact the SA Writers’ Centre if you are interested in finding out more about the project.

The program has been generously supported by the Richard Llewellyn Arts and Disability Trust.

Experience this dynamic, humourous and insightful new work that looks at madness and creativity through the eyes of a psychiatrist, his patient and his frustrated artist wife.
Following the performance the writer, Nina Pearce,  invites you to share and discuss your thoughts on the work and the issues relating to mental illness within the piece.

Where: SA Writer’s Centre 2nd Floor, 187 Rundle Street, Adelaide SA 5000

When:   Sunday 4th Oct at 3pm & 6:30pm  & Friday 9th Oct at 7:30pm

Cost:     $10 general admission;  $5 unemployed

In my final year of drama school in 2005 I experienced a manic episode that resulted in a month of paranoia, psychosis and delusions. I was told I was bipolar, a diagnosis that was soon retracted after subsequent assessment.

My first play ‘This Place’ is my way of looking at what goes on in the mind of someone who is experiencing a manic episode and comparing it to the experience of a tempestuous artist who is trying to make sense of the world around her. Eliza, the patient, believes she is creating headlines telepathically in the newspaper. She feels overwhelming responsibility for the plight of the world. Olivia, the artist, is fed up with hearing about the world’s repetitive problems. The growing sense of impending doom is sapping her creativity. Gareth, Olivia’s husband and Eliza’s psychiatrist, doesn’t let such things phase him. His happy theory is to ignore the front page and do the crossword instead. Like many of us, it’s important to find distractions in a world that seems to be going more and more insane as time goes on.

Since then I have been taking mood stabilising medication and have been fortunate enough not to have had another episode since. My sister had a similar ‘one off’ episode in her early twenties, and we both remember much of what being inside psychosis was like. I remember why I thought certain things, why I did the bizarre things that I did and I remember that while much of it was frightening and tragic, much of it was also quite fun and enlightening for me and even for those around me. After the experience I became hyper-aware of just how prevalent mental illness is in the community and how little is understood about it by those not affected by it.

As part of Mental Health Week this year, five.point.one present the latest draft of  ‘This Place’ at the SA Writer’s Centre, directed by Corey Mcmahon, and performed by Craig Behenna, Tamara Lee and myself. I really urge anyone interested in these ideas, in new writing and in our collective experience with mental illness to come to the performance and participate in a Q and A session afterwards. I’m eager to have feedback from the community. Your input would be invaluable to the development of the play. Hope to see you there.

Nina Pearce.

www.arts.sa.gov.au

www.mhcsa.org.au/

www.sawriters.on.net

Media Release

Thanks to the Richard Llewellyn Arts and Disability Trust the SA Writers’ Centre has recently appointed Malcolm Walker, author of The Stone Crown (Walker Books 2008), as Writer-in-Residence to work with people with a disability.

Whether writing in a professional or recreational capacity, or simply wanting to tell their own story, writers are invited to come to the Centre to discuss their work on a one-to-one basis, or, if unable to access the city, via telephone or email.

Although this service is available to members of the SA Writers’ Centre we would like to invite anyone with a disability who has an interest in writing to make an appointment with Malcolm.

The Centre’s contact details are: