The Awakenings Project
Foreword by CHRIS PELLIZZARI, Associate Editor
This might sound strange, but as a writer, I’m grateful I have suffered from mental illness the last sixteen years of my life. Anxiety and depression have been a blessing to me in terms of bringing out the best in my writing. They have forced me to explore uncomfortable depths that I would never have imagined I could explore if my mind were calm and “healthy,” and isn’t that what every writer is really looking for, to be taken to a place within himself or herself, a dangerous yet rewarding place, and to come back alive and tell a story about it?
When I was a junior in college, I studied abroad in Granada, Spain. I met a girl there and I experienced the once in a lifetime excitement of falling in love with a person and a place. I always knew I would end up writing about that experience, but had I chosen to write about it before I experienced anxiety and depression, which came a little later in life, I’m afraid my story would have been drowned in rainbows. But the experiences of anxiety and depression allowed me to reexamine my time in Spain with new eyes, ones that were more seasoned, mature, and honest. There was an added sense of longing and sorrow, and a conquest to win over those emotions that would not have existed if I never tasted those illnesses. The novella about Spain I ended up publishing was superior to anything I could have written with a “healthy” mind.
That is the power of art and that is why The Awakenings Review is so important. In this issue we have writers whose mental illnesses have given them a truly insightful voice that cannot be found with other writers. These are the stories only they can tell. Every battle with mental illness is a unique one, no two people battle their illnesses exactly the same. That original voice is found in every poem and short story in this issue. We’ve published 33 poets and writers from across the U.S. and Canada.
Chinese-American poet Shan Wei writes poignantly about the horror of conforming to the one-child, one-family law in China. Anele Rubin reaches out to her now deceased sister, who suffered from schizophrenia, through illuminating poetry, perhaps reaching her in a way she wasn’t able to in life. New York resident Janet Garber tackles issues ranging from family members suffering with mental illness to overcoming anti-Semitism in her own life; and the anguish of losing a daughter at a young age to mental illness after a seemingly never-ending struggle, including suicide attempts, is brilliantly captured in the haunting work of Cornelia Blair.
These are just a handful of the writers who share both their talent and pain, equally beautiful, equally essential, in this issue of The Awakenings Review. We are grateful they have chosen to contribute not only their writing, but their special courage to this wonderful magazine.
Copyright (c) 2018, The Awakenings Project
To subscribe, get a sample copy, or purchase back issues, send your remittance and name and address to: Orders, The Awakenings Review |
Or use PayPal:
|