FREE | Thursday, May 8th | 6 pm - 7:30 pm
We will have a conversation with writers Michele Parker Randall, Gregory Amos, and Jumi Bellow about their experiences with mental health, their creative journeys in response to those experiences, and mental health as a spectrum which is experienced differently by all of us. This will be a vivid conversation that may trigger some participants, and we will provide resources for those who wish to learn more or seek help. This discussion will also be livestreamed, and registration is required for those who wish to join remotely.
LIVESTREAM REGISTRATION
Michele Parker Randall
Michele Parker Randall reads and writes poetry and prose and has authored The Museum of Everyday Life (Kelsay Books) and A Future Unmappable, chapbook (Finishing Line Press). Her work can also be found in Nimrod International Journal, Atlanta Review, Tampa Review, Bangalore Review, and elsewhere. Michele gets to teach Poetry, Personal Essay, Fairy Tales, Reading Lyric, and Literature of Mental Health/Neurodivergent Literature at Stetson University. She will happily talk for hours about all things Poetry, and she feels strongly that neurodivergent narratives and art can make a difference in reducing the stigma imposed on those living with mental illness.
Gregory Amos
Gregory Amos, or Greggo as he’s known by just about everybody, has been writing since grade school. Greggo began his professional career as a writer in 1987 with a reflective essay published in Essence magazine. In addition to magazine writing, Greggo co-wrote a story for the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was produced as the second season episode “A Matter of Honor.” Other freelance credits include co-writing the self-help book The Power in You with cookie mogul Wally “Famous” Amos (Greggo’s father). Greggo also wrote columns for Road Bike magazine and remains an avid motorcyclist. Other types of writing include copywriting for the Irvine, CA advertising agency Lansdale Carr & Baum; grant writing for the development agency CARE International, the New York-based workforce development nonprofit STRIVE, and the Lancaster-based community development financial institution Community First Fund. He worked as a copywriter and marketing and communications professional for Stevens & Lee, an Amlaw 200 law firm that also serves as the cornerstone corporation for a professional services organization that includes an investment bank, an insurance consultancy, and a medical services consultancy. Greggo blogged for a short period and then stopped writing because of worsening mental health brought on by bipolar illness. He recently began writing again and is currently working on a memoir titled I Changed My Mind, which will recount the full story of how bipolar first presented and then how Greggo became mentally healthy over the past two decades. Greggo is also a public speaker and openly shares the ups and downs of his journey from mentally ill to mentally healthy. Born in the Bronx, New York, Greggo resides in Medellín, Colombia. He is a graduate of Cornell University.
Jumi Bello
Jumi Bello is a disabled black woman writer from Washington DC who writes about madness and the future. After spending the majority of her twenties living overseas in Asia as a high school teacher, Jumi received her MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and is now an English + Creative Writing PhD candidate at the University of Nevada-Las Vega. Her doctoral research focuses on contemporary American literature, speculative fiction, disability studies, mad studies, and carceral studies. As a writer, Jumi is focused on producing work that radically reimagines how the world understands carceral ableism and care within the context of supporting people of color who live with psychiatric disability. For her doctoral dissertation, she is completing a draft of a literary speculative novel about radical mental healthcare, disability justice, and Black Panther Party activism in twentieth-century Chicago. Her work has been supported by various literary institutions including StoryStudio Chicago, the Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop, Corporeal Writing, Tin House, Roots Wounds Words, Writing x Writers, Hurston/Wright Foundation, the Black Mountain Institute, and Kenyon Review Writer’s Workshop. Jumi lives in the Midwest with her husband and stepson. It is her hope that her works of literature radically reimagine a future where people like Jordan Neely and Sonya Massey, people like herself can not only live but thrive. The dark and disabled have dreams, too. Our stories matter. This world is ours too.