Open Minds Quarterly

ABOUT & SCOPE

Open Minds Quarterly is a glossy 29-page consumer magazine with paid circulation, which features poetry, memoir, fiction, interviews, reviews and other writing and art by people whose experiences are often diagnosed as mental illnesses or addictions, and by our supporters and allies. OMQ aims to amplify the voices of people personally affected by mental illness and/or addiction, facilitating explorations of life with(in) illness and recovery. In so doing, we:

(1) grow the language, narrative structures and media forms available to us for making sense of our world, helping to shape contemporary Canadian and world literatures;

(2) offer our lived experiences to inform policy, legislation and community attitudes around mental illness;

(3) create space for people with lived experience of mental illness and/or addiction to consider our differences, the marginalization and oppression many of us face because of colonization, racism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, ableism and capitalism, and the ways these injustices make us unwell; and

(4) testify to the significance, impact and dignity of our lives, in spite of the stigma that marks us otherwise.

OMQ is published by Northern Initiative for Social Action, a peer-run mental health support organization built on the premise that people with mental illnesses and/or addictions are intelligent, creative and valuable. Only writers who are personally affected by mental health or addiction issues, whether as a survivor or as an ally or helping professional, are eligible for publication in OMQ.


WHAT WE PUBLISH

Our scope is purposefully broad. We want to review and disseminate explorations of life with(in) mental illness and/or addictions, as well as discussion of concepts such as recovery and wellness, in all the forms these works might take:

Attestations—Creative nonfiction, including personal essays & memoir (1000-3000 words)

Refractions—Fiction, drama & other forms of storytelling (1000-3000 words)

Inscriptions—Interviews, reviews, opinion & research articles (1000-3000 words)

Emanations—Poetry, flash prose & similar (up to 4 pieces, max. 8 pages/3000 words)

Manifestations—Visual, digital & mixed media (up to 4 pieces, max. 8 pages/3000 words)

Disorientations—Experimental writing (up to 4 pieces, max. 8 pages/3000 words)

Work should be typed and submitted online at https://openmindsquarterly.submittable.com/submit.


CONTACT

Editor—Ella Jane Myers

Publishing and Communications Coordinator—Audrey O’Brien

Publisher—NISA/Northern Initiative for Social Action (Dinah Laprairie, Executive Director)