Writing Well and Writing to Get Well: A series of events on Creative Writing and Mental Health

Along with my colleagues at Birkbeck College, Richard Hamblyn and Lily Dunn, I have been organising a big series of events to deal with this question –

What can writers and teachers of Creative Writing learn from psychiatry, neuroscience, and other medical disciplines about the links between creativity and mental illness?

We are delighted to announce that Professor Kay Redfield Jamison, pioneer in this field, and author of the amazing Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, will be giving the keynote address at a major conference on Saturday 27th May 2017.

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In the run-up to this, five public events under the banner Writing Well and Writing to Get Well will take place at Birkbeck each Friday evening from 28th April onwards, establishing a dialogue between medical professionals (often with literary backgrounds) and writers (often with medical experience).

There are eventbrite listings for each evening:

Dr Sarah Jackson and Robert Power, Friday 28 April 2017, 6-7:30pm
Dr Lisa Conlan and John O’Donoghue, Friday 5 May 2017, 6-7:30pm
Suzanne O’Sullivan and Prof Roberto A Bressan, Friday 12 May 2017, 6-7:30pm
Nathan Filer and Agata Vitale, Friday 19 May 2017, 6-7.30pm
Professor Kay Redfield Jamison, Friday 26 May 2017, 6-7:30pm
Creative Writing and Mental Health Conference, Saturday 27 May 2017, 10am-5pm

They will all take place in the Keynes Library, 43 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PD.

We are hoping to bring together not only really great participants but a really great audience, to engage in a discussion of this important and timely subject.

These events are funded by the Birkbeck/Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund (ISSF)

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