How do you stay sane in a crazy society? In their youth, African American Tureeda Mikell and Japanese American Shizue Seigel experienced very different but traumatic encounters with the mental health system.Their healing journeys took them across cultures, continents and oceans to tap the wellsprings of spirituality and find their life’s work. They’re share their experiences through poetry before leading participants in creative writing exercises. We’ll end with an opportunity for the audience share work and ask questions.

Bios:
Tureeda Mikell, Invitational Summer Institute - BayArea Writing Project, 1996, Oakland native, story medicine woman, poet, educator and activist for holism, Black Panther Alum, loves exploring and listening to the use of words. Received the 2024 Berkeley Poetry Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award. She has traveled extensively from Egypt to China. Featured in Company of Prophets:  African American Psychics, Healers, and Visionaries (Llewellyn Publishing), author of Synchronicity: The Oracle of Sun Medicine (2020), co-curator of Patrice Lumumba Anthology, (2021), and her full-length magical-realism collection, The Body: Oracle of Memory (2024), all from Black Lawrence Press. 

Shizue Seigel, founder of Write Now! SF Bay, supports  writers and artists of color through workshops, readings, exhibitions, and publications. Her eight books include five Write Now! anthologies (https://www.writenowsf.com/books) supported by San Francisco Arts Commission, California Humanities, and others. Her prose and poetry have been published in Memoir Magazine, Away Journal; the anthologies Colossus:Body, We’ve Been Too Patient, All the Women in My Family Sing; and elsewhere, and her poetry collection, Courting A Man Who Doesn’t Talk, is forthcoming from Pacific Raven Press.