Join writer Tanya Frank and anthropologist Tam Hart in a creative writing workshop for queer carers. Whether you’re supporting a friend, partner, or family member, this workshop will offer a creative space for you to craft narratives and share resources.
In this session, we’ll explore what it’s like to support—or hold—a loved one through mental and emotional distress. In chosen families, just as in biological families, we learn to craft fabrics of support. Yet, especially as queer people, we’re not always recognised as carers, or given social support for these roles. In this workshop, we focus on our journeys as holders, finding meaning and perspective in our stories. This is a space to express ourselves poetically, to lament and laugh, and to find solidarity in our holders’ journeys.
This workshop is in collaboration with Safely Held Spaces, a UK-based organisation that provides peer-led support and research for those experiencing extreme mental and emotional distress and altered states, and for the people supporting them.
Tanya Frank (she/her) is a writer and educator based in London, who holds an MFA in Creative Non-Fiction from University of California, Riverside. Upon graduating, she worked at Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services in Los Angeles, using memoir as a tool to aid self-expression and recovery.
Her recent book ZIG ZAG BOY: A MEMOIR OF MADNESS & MOTHERHOOD (2023) charts her journey through the archaic mental health system with her son after his diagnosis of psychosis. She is the recipient of a Marcia McQueen award for nonfiction and a grant from the Arts Council England. Her work has appeared in The Guardian UK, The Telegraph, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and a range of literary journals.
Tam Hart (she/they) is a visual anthropologist based in London. Their research explores visual and material narratives within mental health structures, focusing on practices of peer support. In their workshops, they use creative methods to examine visual caretaking – the crafting of self-published material to document and care for community members. Their research centres on psychiatric archives and queer zine-making.
They recently edited the ESRC-funded zine Transformation in Mental Healthcare: An Anthropological Study of Peer Supported Open Dialogue. They are also a contributing editor the LGBTQI+ artist network and curatorial platform Queerdirect.