In Conversation with Kathy Friedman about Inkwell

by Kim Davids Mandar

CMHA Mental Health Week, May 7-13, 2018.

The Canadian Mental Health Association states that mental health is more than mental illness and more than being happy all the time. It’s about feeling good about who you are, having balance in your life, and managing life’s highs and lows. Everyone deserves to feel well, whatever their mental health experience. And, we all need a support system to lean on.

In Toronto, there is a growing program in which creative writing for improved mental health is in full swing. Inkwell is an organization co-founded by Kathy Friedman and Eufemia Fantetti when they were MFA students at Guelph-Humber, to engage those with mental health issues in creative writing practice. Instructors are well established authors with lived experience of mental health issues. Inkwell published its first anthology, The Double World, last June, and is poised to launch its second anthology of collected art, The Unexpected Sky: New Writing from InkWell Workshops Vol. 2., on Thursday June 21, 2018, from 6-9 p.m. at Friends House.