MY MENTAL HEALTH

Writers and poets around the world talk about their own personal journeys with mental health.

NOW OPEN FOR CONTRIBUTIONS!

Working cover only

We are doing something slightly different for our next title by focusing purely on personal stories about mental health, so if you would like to share your mental health journey with others, please read the submission guidelines below.


DEADLINE MIDNIGHT (GMT) 30th JUNE, 2026.

PUBLICATION MID JULY, 2026


Note: this is NOT a call for poetry.

PERSONAL STORIES

Please write a piece of prose (written text) specifically about your own personal journey with mental health. From between 500 and around 1500 - 2000 words (flexible). Please also send a writers' biography with details of anything you have had previously published, as well as any contact/social media details you would like alongside your contribution (Note: we do not publish email addresses). We do not need a photo of you, however, as the book's title is: 'MY MENTAL HEALTH - Writers and poets around the world talk about their own personal journeys with mental health' we do need your real name - so for this title you cannot write anonymously.

General Guidelines

  1. ONLY write about the things you are comfortable sharing with others, and that you are mentally strong enough to write about.
  2. For this title, we CAN re-publish personal journeys already published in any of our other books and/or on this website. However, please let us know if you would like to change/amend anything already published.
  3. We can also publish extracts from any books/autobiography etc., as long as we have your written permission to re-publish.
  4. NO swearing or profanities of any kind. Find alternative words to describe your emotions!
  5. By submitting you agree for us to publish your work in MY MENTAL HEALTH, on this website, and on our Facebook page. You do retain copyright however, and are free to re-publish your work anywhere else, and at any time after publication with us - we believe words and stories about mental health should be read as widely as possible! We can also accept previously published work in other titles, as long as it credits where and when it was previously published, and that we have permission to re-publish.
  6. Although we do like to keep the author's voice as much as possible, we do reserve the right to edit grammar mistakes and typos, and to rearrange wording/sentences etc., slightly to aid the flow for the reader ... if needed!


SENDING YOUR SUBMISSION

Please send your submission as a word.doc attachment or within the body of the email to: Robin@PoetryForMentalHealth.org. VERY IMPORTANT: Please put MY MENTAL HEALTH in the subject line so we don't get muddled up with other emails - we get lots sent to us every week and we might miss your submission to the book if it is not properly labelled.


We will normally acknowledge your submission within a few days, but please be patient - Poetry for Mental Health is run voluntarily and it can sometimes take a while to get to everyone!


IMPORTANT: If you have received an acceptance email regarding your submissions, you cannot then change or withdraw your submission as, to save time post-deadline, we immediately place all accepted submissions directly into the paperback and Kindle formats ready for publishing (hence we are able to publish very soon after deadline date). So please make sure your submission is publication ready.


ALSO VERY IMPORTANT: We DO NOT send out complimentary author copies of the paperback - with so many authors from so many countries, firstly it would be logistically impossible, and secondly extremely expensive! Poetry for Mental Health receives no grants or funding of any kind, and any profits we make from the book will go straight back into promoting and publishing poetry for mental health and running the website. However, we will of course, send a complimentary PDF e-book to everyone contributing.

Sample Questions

If you have problems starting your story, below is a list of questions which might help. You can either use them to form your own prose style personal story, or answer as an 'interview' which we will then adapt into continuous prose. However, they are just very general questions to help you get started, so please feel free to adapt and/or add other questions and answers pertaining specifically to you, your experiences, and the way you cope.

Please be as detailed as you can so that other people can read, understand and relate to your journey, but remember to only share what you feel comfortable with sharing! Also, remember ... these are very general, open-ended questions just to get you started, so please add anything specific to yourself and your own personal journey. Word count is flexible!


Tell me about your mental health problems and their history.

Can you identify how and when they first started?

If they are the result of a specific life event/s, what happened? When?

Have they been from specific triggers or experiences?

How did/do you feel?

Are your mental health issues hereditary?

What do you do, or have done to cope?

What processes do you use to help and support you through the difficult times?

Is there anything or anyone in your life that has helped you?

Was there a catalyst in your recovery?

How does writing feature in your ability to cope?

What help and advice can you give others going through the same challenges?


Any questions? Contact us.


Get writing!