Admissions

An unprecedented look at the lived experience of mental health in creative work, as told by writers, comedians and public figures

We are full of worlds that can't be contained by a pill.

This groundbreaking collection documents the state of mental health in Australia, foregrounding a wide range of voices with lived experience defining themselves beyond a diagnosis.

Admissions showcases more than one hundred works- poems, essays, lyrics, fiction and illustrations from some of our leading writers, comedians and public figures challenging prescribed notions of illness, recovery, treatment and trauma while reclaiming language as an act of mad pride.

Exploding with optimism and pain, encounters and descriptions, this is an unprecedented exploration of what is carried through life and writing.

Contributors include-
Sara M. Saleh, Grace Tame, Felicity Ward, Shastra Deo, Nat's What I Reckon, Helena Fox, Krissy Kneen, Christine Anu, Elizabeth Tan, Justin Heazlewood, Kristen Dunphy, Jennifer Wong, Fiona Wright, Amani Haydar, Omar Sakr, Sam Twyford-Moore, Ellen van Neerven, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Anna Spargo-Ryan, Eunice Andrada, Steven Oliver and many more.

About the Authors

Mohammad Awad is a Queer/Arab/Muslim and Writer/Director/Poet/Playwright who spends most of his time as a spoken word artist, he also writes and directs short films and visual poems such as The Flower, The Messenger and Beauty Marks. He has featured in the Sydney Writers Festival, Sydney Mardi Gras, Sydney Living Museums - After Dark, Sydney Festival, Red Room Poetry, Giant Dwarf Theatre, and on ABC and SBS television, ABC Radio, SBS Radio, Eastside Radio, 2SER and FBI Radio.

Radhiah Chowdhury is an author, audio producer and editor living on unceded Bidjigal Land in Sydney's south-west. She is one of the co-founders of the Australian First Nations and People of Colour in Publishing Network, and was the 2019-2020 Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellow.' As an editor, Radhiah has worked with Scholastic Australia, Giramondo, Allen & Unwin and Penguin Random House. Her most recent picture book, The Katha Chest (Allen & Unwin, 2021) is a 2022 CBCA Notable for Picture Book of the Year. David Stavanger is a poet, cultural producer, editor and former psychologist living on unceded Dharawal land. His first full-length poetry collection The Special (UQP, 2014) was awarded the Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize and the Wesley Michel Wright Poetry Prize. David is the co-editor of SOLID AIR- Collected Australian & New Zealand Spoken Word (UQP, 2019) and his latest collection Case Notes (UWAP, 2020) won the 2021 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Poetry.