#something something press

[wearepioneerspress]

SO STOKED TO BE CARRYING THIS BOOK!

Mindful Occupation: Rising Up Without Burning Out

There is an urgent need to talk publicly about the relationship between social injustice and our mental health. We need to redefine what it actually means to be mentally healthy, not just on an individual level, but on collective, communal, and global levels. Involvement in activism can make people especially prone to highs and lows. The booklet begins with a chapter that asks, “What is Radical Mental Health?” followed by chapters that explicitly connect the pharmaceutical industry and psychiatric establishment with the larger message of Occupy. It discusses the importance of self-care, mutual aid, and coping skills in times of stress and includes material about first aid for emotional trauma, navigating crisis, and healing from and preventing sexual assault. 

This material can be used to help facilitate teach-ins, skill-shares, and peer-support groups to help sustain movements over the long term.Mindful Occupation aims to address the need for attention to mental health, healing, and emotional first aid within Occupy and other movement groups. Some suggestions in this booklet are about making sustainable encampments, many of which have been temporarily destroyed by the police and government. Other suggestions are applicable for any and all activist groups working on making social change. Still other suggestions are general helpful ideas for taking care of ourselves and others as we live our lives.

Available here from Pioneers Press!

http://pioneerspress.com/catalog/books/4492/

[somethingsomethingpress]

Inspiration can come from everywhere

Dear Pioneers Press:

Thank you for the shout out for Something Something Press in your newsletter today. Thank you for everything you do. We are big fans.

We want to be upfront and transparent about a concern we have with the shoutout wording. The addition of "mental illness" in the description of what we're looking for is off-putting, for a number of reasons. We won't clog up your dashboard with all the myriad reasons why the label of "mental illness" is othering and given to folks by psychiatrists that don't even know them so as to play a part in the oppressive capitalism machine. However, we will let you know that hearing a radicals sum up what Something Something Press is all about by using a societal construct that is oppressive and dehumanizing has influenced us to write a zine about what the institution of psychiatry means to radicals. So thank you for the inspiration. Really, thank you.

Radicals are in need of a concise compilation of these reasonings as an educational tool to help guide understanding, intersectionality, and activism. There are full books out about it, but there aren't (as far as we know) short zines about it. That's where this zine idea comes in!

To new opportunities and inspiration!

- SSP

[wearepioneerspress]

Zine news

Excerpt from the Pioneers Press newsletter that went out this morning: Something Something Press is looking for books and zines on the topics of radical mental health, self care, community support, or personal experiences with mental illness. Get in touch with them here: [email protected]. (If you'd like us to include news about your project in our next newsletter, get in touch! [email protected])

[affairofthepoisons]

A friendly reminder that we exist and would love for you to check us out!

Something Something Press is a small local press and distro in Richmond, VA. We carry mostly zines, books, shirts, and posters related to radical mental health and activism.

Come check us out at somethingsomethingpress.com!

[affairofthepoisons]

Thanks to Gary <3

[affairofthepoisons]

Richmond Zine Fest plans

We've been juggling several different groups, all involved in radical mental health activism, in thinking about how to go about tabling at the Richmond Zine Fest this year. As Mindful Liberation Project has now split into three different groups, and we now have a distro and small press, it was hard to make a decision about who was going to table. So instead of having several tables and potential difficulty having people at every single one of them the whole day, we're having one table with the overarching theme of radical mental health in RVA in specific as well as some national stuff, under our distro/press (as all the items we're selling are already a part of our distro).

Questions that we have for you all: What would you like to see? We are thinking about maybe having mobile peer support at the zine fest. We are also thinking about having a workshop on peer support facilitation so that people can start their own gatherings for radical mental health mutual aid. Are these things that you would be interested in, as zine fest goers? Let us know at [email protected] or 8048881709.

For a breakdown, here are the groups and interests that will be involved at the table:

Something Something Press - housing items within the realm of radical mental health from a myriad of people, experiences, and emotions from across the country

Mindful Liberation Project - RVA radical mental health activism and direct action

RVA Peer Support - self care and community-based alternatives to institutionalized mental health in RVA

FOIA For Change - a project to end police brutality against people with "mental illness"

Mindful Occupation: Rising Up Without Burning Out - the most recent, encompassing book on current radical mental health in the United States and how it relates to the overarching economic crisis, social injustice, corporate/capitalist injustice, the current (un)Occupy Movement, and timeless street-level activism as a whole

The Icarus Project - international radical mental health

So if you're looking for anything involving self care or radical mental health, visit our table at the Richmond Zine Fest! This year we will especially have a lot of stuff addressing activist burnout and community/self care on individual, community, city, national, and global levels!

This year's Richmond Zine Fest will be held October 6, 11 AM until 6 PM, at the Gay Community Center of Richmond located at 1407 Sherwood Ave, Richmond, VA 23220.

Here's us at last year's zine fest. We've come a long way in a year! We'll also be celebrating our two year anniversary, so drop by to say hi :)