Iresha Picot, M.Ed, BSL (Co-Editor, The Mama that Yelled: Black Mothering Through Depression)
Iresha Picot is a Licensed Behavior Specialist, and has a Master’s Degree in Urban Education Policy and Post-Graduate work in Women Studies from Temple University. In addition to a Master’s Degree, she has Post-Graduate certifications in Applied Behavior Analysis and Autism. Currently, Iresha works in the Behavior and Mental Health fields as a Licensed Behavior Specialist and Therapist and is currently a Lead Clinician in a School Therapeutic Treatment program. Iresha is also a Birth Doula and a Prison Abolitionist. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pocmentalhealthnarratives/
Web: http://www.52ndstreetdoula.com/
Vanessa Hazzard (Co-Editor, A Complicated Normal)
Vanessa Hazzard is an internationally trained massage and bodyworker, writer, and healing arts educator from Philadelphia, PA. She is the Director of Mellow Yoga Studio and Owner/Instructor of Nirvanaland Essentials, LLC Massage Therapy Continuing Education. Over the past eleven years, Vanessa has studied in a variety of areas in the wellness industry including Yoga for Trauma and Addiction with the Transformation Yoga Project, Traditional Thai Massage at International Training Massage School (ITM) and Chi Nei Tsang with Thanachai Chaimongkhon in Chiang Mai, Thailand. She has had her poetry and narratives featured in Elephant Journal, For Harriet, Soar, Recovering Yogi, and Apiary Magazine’s The Hive. Living with bipolar disorder, Vanessa aims to educate wellness professionals and the general public on mental illness by developing/facilitating trauma-informed yoga and massage classes. Her goal is to provide the space and tools necessary for participants to develop mindfulness, discipline and strength from the inside out.
Web: www.vanessahazzard.com
Instagram & Twitter: @NessaFromEarth Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pocmentalhealthnarratives/
Rasheedah Phillips, Esq. (Foreward) , Lawyer and Author
Web: www.afrofuturistaffair.com
Maurice Stevens (The Patient Prisoner)
Maurice is a Poet, Author, Playwright and Entrepreneur. He’s also a member of Living on Vital Emotion writers group, which believes that: “In striving for growth, evolution one must never claim to know what they think, nor claim to think what they know.” Words that he lives by. Maurice is a native of Philadelphia, PA and is currently incarcerate din the Pennsylvania State Correctional system, S.C.I. Fayette. His forthcoming work will include “Clipped Wings” and “Still Walking”, books of poetry as well as a play entitled: “Corner Boy”.
He can be contacted at:
Maurice Stevens
#KF-4856
P.O. Box 999
50 Overlook Drive
LaBelle, PA 15450
Yolanda Ayesha (Close to Happy)
Tajsha Lewis (Interview)
Misia Denea (Mind Chatter)
Misia Denéa has a B.F.A in Dance from Temple University’s Esther Boyer College of Music and Dance, and also graduated from The Institute for Integrative Nutrition and the Raw Food Institute. She is the owner/founder of Hatha Holistic Integrative Wellness. Her mission is to Coach, Heal, and Transform women who want to shift their relationship to themselves and cultivate holistic habits to feel sexy, vibrant, and liberated with yoga, meditation, and mindful eating. She has lead yoga trainings, dance workshops and retreats at yoga studios, Universities & Colleges, throughout the US and in the Caribbean/Latin America.
Ev Reheard (Black and White Rabbits)
Ev discusses what it is like to live with borderline personality disorder with This is My Brave.
Nichole Webb (Interview)
Nathaniel Butler (Mental Health, Pain: Where We Meet Face to Face)
Nathaniel Butler (KZ8135) is a writer, currently incarcerated in one of Pennsylvania’s State Prison.
Lydia Kirkland and her daughter, Brianna
Lydia Kirkland (Interview)
Lydia Kirkland currently lives in Pine Hill, NJ. She has a Bachelors in Psychology from Rutgers University and is currently working toward her Masters in Admin. of Human Services at Wilmington University. She has been working in the human service field for 19 years. She is the founder of Filling Buckets for Brianna; a NJ Nonprofit Corporation. She is also a single mother and believes that is her most important job.
Natasha C. Davis (Sleeping Beauty, Watch Me, What’s It Like?)
Natasha was diagnosed with learning disabilities when she was 3 years old. She has had difficulties with struggling with depression and narcolepsy. As a teenager, she was diagnosed with Aspergers (Autism).
Rosa Clemente
Rosa Clemente (Not Ready to Die But Wanting to Die: Depression, Hip Hop and the Death of Chris Lighty)
Rosa Clemente, a native of the South Bronx, is one of the most raw, honest, political, social, and cultural voices in the country. From Harvard to prisons, Rosa has spent her life dedicated to scholar activism. She is currently a doctoral student in the W.E.B. Dubois department of UMASS-Amherst. Throughout her scholarly career, Rosa has been a constant on the ground presence through the many political struggles facing Black and Latinx people in the 21st century.
Rosa is the president and founder of Know Thy Self Productions, which has produced four major community activism tours and consults on issues such as Hip-Hop activism, media justice, voter engagement among youth of color, third party politics, intercultural relations between Black and Latinx, immigrants’ rights as an extension of human rights, and universal healthcare. She is a frequent guest on television, radio and online media, as her opinion on critical current events is widely sought after.
Rosa is a leading scholar on the issues of Afro-Latinx identity. Her groundbreaking article, Who is Black?, published in 2001, was the catalyst for many discussions regarding Blackness in the Latinx culture. She continues to discuss cultural identity, political identity and racial identity in and out of the academy.
Rosa has received numerous awards, grants and fellowships. She has written forEbony, Clamor Magazine, The Black World Today, The Final Call, The Ave. Magazine, and numerous websites.
She has been the subject of articles in The New York Times, The Nation, The Progressive, The Village Voice, Urban Latino, Essence, Latina, Vibe, The Huffington Post, and many other publications.
Rosa ran for Green Party Vice President in the 2008 U.S. election. Along with Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, the pair became the first women of color ticket in American History.
Khalil Bennett (My Story)
While incarcerated, Khalil went through a world/self-analysis very similar to Malcolm X, Kody “Monster” Scott, and Stanley “Tooki” Williams though the process of reading, writing, observing, but most importantly from extremely influential mentors from strong movements that fought for freedom. Due to his transformation; He suffered numerous physical, mental and spiritual attacks by facility staff members if the Department of Corrections. Subsequently, he has been in several control units (segregated units) around the state spending over 12 years in isolation units altogether. Khalil is now a devoted and dedicated member/minister of the Nation of Islam. He organizes prisoners regularly, gives lectures, and holds legal seminars from time to time, authored a group pamphlets, and last but not least the founder of “Bulletin Response Squad” newsletter.
To contact Bro Khalil:
Khalil Bennett #DX-9353
P.O. Box 1000
Houtzdale, PA 16698
Pierre Pinson (Stripped)
Pierre Pierson is a native from Pittsburgh, PA. He is a writer and is currently working on several poetry books with the group Living On Vital Emotion Writers Group at SCI-Fayette.
He can be contact at:
Pierre Pinson #EK2844
P.O. Box 999
50 Overlook Drive
LaBelle, PA 15450
Anonymous (Us)
Shanda Mickens (Interview)
Shanda is a massage therapist born and raised in Philadelphia. She’s a graduate of Roxborough High School and the National Massage Therapy Institute. She’s a lover of love, life and the pursuit of the perfect order of buffalo wings. She’s an avid music and movie lover, and enjoys spending time with her 4-year-old daughter Kyra Rose. Shanda also lives with bipolar disorder.
Marie Kanu (Me)
Debra Powell-Wright, and her mother, Corrine Brown Powell
Debra Powell-Wright (Love Letter to Mom)
[from Love Letter to Mom] “1963: I was nine years old when my mother, Corrine Brown Powell, was hospitalized for nine months at Bellevue State Hospital in Pennsylvania, after having been diagnosed with schizophrenia. I couldn’t visit her in the place that performed lobotomies, couldn’t tell anyone because I didn’t know anyone who had a sometimes crazy mother who had to take Lithium, or Haldol, or Thorazine, or Mellaril. In August 2001, I was forty-four when mom was diagnosed with cancer of the duodenum. She died that October. Six years later, I wrote her this love letter.”
The Color of Hope 