Federation Magazine Volume 6

This issue of FEDeration, the "Survivor Issue" opens with a guest editorial by Michael Hampton that discusses the marginalization and othering of people who suffer from mental illness as "unspeakable cruelty." "Way Out! An Oral History of Mental Health Service Users" discusses project undertaken jointly by the Ethnic Communities Oral History Project and Brendan Wilson where they commissioned a training video for health service workers from the perspectives of users. "The Web of Words" gives an overview of a series of residential workshops combining creative language and practical work in a series of seminars and lectures. Andrew Voice in "Homeless, Mentally Ill, and Magically Protected: an Experience of Community Care" provides his perspective on the prevalent intersection of homelessness and mental illness, including the need for preventative care and early intervention. Poetry in this issue includes the following poems from *Survivor Poems: Poems of Survival*: "My Very Own Schizophrenia," "Prayer" by Rosemary Dillon, Homeless Voices" by Bruce Barnes, "Relax" by Carol Batton,"Care in the Community" by Deborah Beecher, "Feelings" by Shelia Jones, "Under the Asylum Tree" by Peter H. Donnelly. "At the School of the World" profiles several students attending Earl Marhsall, the first school to apply the FWWCP. In "The Myth of Women's Silence," Sandra Courtman establishes her goal to disprove "the speculation that women from a particular class or race did not write in a given period" and asks for working-class women and women of color who wrote during the 1960s and 1970s to be in direct contact with her. In "Blueprint for a Reader's Panel" Nick Osmond proposes some draft guidelines which could help guide readers' responses. "Reasons to be Published, Part 3" continues to provide reasons how and why readers should consider publication. "This was the festival, now book for 1996" overviews the 1995 Festival of Writing. Reviews of the following are provided: "Under the Asylum Tree, Survivors' Poetry," "Thoroughly Psychiatric" by Carol Batton, "Bleeding Sketches, The Whiskey Priests," ANZAC Memories; living with the legend by Alister Thomson, *Poetry, An Anthology of Poets from the Brighton Area,* *For A Living, The Poetry of Work,* edited by Nick Coles and Peter Oresick, The Electric Tomato, *My Red Face* by Freda Gregory, *New Home, Hard Work* by Nazin Monaf, Sudeep Sen's *South African Woodcut* and *Mount Vesuvius in Eight Frames, with etchings by Peter Standen,* *Island of Abraham* by Bernadine Evaristo, *Artist's Book Yearbook 1994-95,* Eds Peixoto, Bently Brown, Szczelkun, *The Likes of Us, Sunderland People Talking*, eds Julie Ward and David Napthine, *Oxen of the Sun* by NE Swift, *Kindling Memories for the Future: Poems and Tributes* by Kay Ekevall, *Voices from the Trimdons,* Julie Ward (ed.), *The New Optometrist and Other Verses,* A G Stewart.