The Mad Writing Collective is a yet-to-be-collective of Mad-identifying marginalized writers and marginalized writers affected by the psychiatric system who want to come together to be part of and hold writing and other creative online and in-person writing meetings and gatherings as a way of supporting one another, writing together across genres and for varied purposes, and being in community together. Its first ever Zoom meeting date will be announced soon. Those who are in attendance at this first meeting and those who indicate that they want to be a founding member will be the Mad Writing Collective’s founding members.
At the first meeting, the founding members will create a Mad Writing Collective Statement (a mission statement), a public document that will outline our core shared values and goals, and describe what we want the collective to be, offer, and do. This collective is, in its foundational inception, inspired by the ideas and labor of Black feminist writers and thinkers, disability justice activists and thinkers, disability studies scholars, Mad activists and writers, the Mad liberation movement, and whatever other liberatory and writing-focused influences and backgrounds that members of the collective bring to the table. As a collective, we will hold one monthly meeting of the collective, as a space for us to be together, support one another, and plan writing projects and events. It is my hope that what the Mad Writing Collective will become will be based on the needs and desires of members of the collective, dreamed up at the founding meeting. Writers bring to the table all sorts of interests, backgrounds, skills, and talents; the collective will allow us each to contribute according to our desires and abilities and comforts, to lead individual one-off or weekly or monthly workshops on themes or genres of our choosing, and to network writing-focused projects, events, and meetings through the collective.
More to come, and hope to work with you soon. Send us an email if you’d like to be added to our listserv to receive information and invitations to meetings and events at madwomenofwny@gmail.com.
~ jessica lowell mason, MITA co-founder and a founding member of the Mad Writing Collective
Madwomen in the Attic 
Hello to All,This was so great to see, I know there is so much that must be said about “madness” and women and Madness. I am a 72 year old retired woman, back in 1970 I spent the night of my High School graduation in Colorado Psychiatric Hospital in Denver – life changing incarceration!. Came out as a Mental Patient within the beginnings of the Womens Movement. Worked with “Big Mama Rag” an international Womens Journal produced by a collective in Denver. Wrote and spoke locally on mental pt. issues, worked against Electric Shock “Treatment”. Then also worked in support of the journal “Madess Network News/All the Fits thats News to Print” based on the west coast. Also researched How psychiatry became a weapon against many populations, a weapon against poor and those incarcerated in our prisons. And also in the abuse of political prisoners.I just wanted to write back with great enthusiasn for you proposed project.Thanks for your workLori BradfordVashon, CAlorimarlene@att.net
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Thank you so much for all of your important work, Lori. I tried to send you a message via the email address you included, but it bounced back to me as undeliverable. Nevertheless, we appreciate your encouragement so much!
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