"Now a BBC America TV series event"--Cover.

A Diary of Despair by Rosamund McCullain Published: 2006 Pages: 88 Description This book tells Rosamund's story as she journeys through experiences of mental distress and bad treatment at the hands of the mental health system. The book ends on a note of hope and survivor solidarity. A whole range of issues are covered, from conditions in in-patient facilities, drug treatment, stigma and discrimination, the impact of suicide and self-harm, the quality of community mental healthcare to the eventual partial recovery of the Rosamund's condition and how she has managed to achieve this. About the Author Rosamund McCullain was born and grew up in Bradford, West Yorkshire in July 1964. Upon leaving school she moved to the Mid-Wales area to study English at Aberystwyth University, and currently lives in Newtown, Powys. When she first became a mental health service user survivor, Ros was appalled at the state of the mental health system and the treatment she received, and felt the public should be told what was being done with their money and in their name. To achieve this, she started writing 'The Dispossessed' in 1993, and finally completed it in 2002. Ros has a keen interest in creative writing, for her it has been a lifelong survival mechanism. She is an animal lover, and has two dogs, two cats and a horse. She works as a self-employed mental health trainer and consultant, writer and creative writing tutor. She is also involved in voluntary work as a survivor activist. Book Extract They have released me from the bowels of the Machine into "Care in the Community." They said they could do nothing to help me, having virtually forced me into the bowels of the Machine in the first place. I did have some choice in the matter. I could enter the bowels of my own free will, or I could enter the bowels under a Section of the Mental Health Act, but either way it was the bowels for me. So I chose to go "voluntarily."

Sally West's timely study is the first book-length exploration of Coleridge's influence on Shelley's poetic development. Beginning with a discussion of Shelley's views on Coleridge as a man and as a poet, West argues that there is a direct correlation between Shelley's desire for political and social transformation and the way in which he appropriates the language, imagery, and forms of Coleridge, often transforming their original meaning through subtle readjustments of context and emphasis. While she situates her work in relation to recent concepts of literary influence, West is focused less on the psychology of the poets than on the poetry itself. She explores how elements such as the development of imagery and the choice of poetic form, often learnt from earlier poets, are intimately related to poetic purpose. Thus on one level, her book explores how the second-generation Romantic poets reacted to the beliefs and ideals of the first, while on another it addresses the larger question of how poets become poets, by returning the work of one writer to the literary context from which it developed. Her book is essential reading for specialists in the Romantic period and for scholars interested in theories of poetic influence.

SHORT STORY: A sister in the far future, when we no longer burn things for fuel, finds a forbidden thing that would make the perfect gift. The Day We Stopped Burning is one of six short solarpunk stories in the Halfway to Better collection. If you enjoyed the optimistic climate solutions in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Ministry for the Future or the cozy cooperative future in Becky Chambers’ Monk and Robot series, you will enjoy Halfway to Better.

It takes a great mind to study a great mind. The literary critic John Livingston Lowes puts his reputation on the line by chosing to analyse the sources, thoughts and imagination of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The result, 'The Road to Xanadu', is a remarkable and insightful examination of the creative processes and reading material that inspired 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' and 'Kubla Khan'. Lowes brilliantly uses his study of Coleridge as a springboard to a more wide-ranging analysis of the imagination. If you like Coleridge's work, you will be fascinated by this look into the mind of a literary giant. John Livingston Lowes (1867-1945) was an American scholar and critic of English literature. His best-known subjects were Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Geoffrey Chaucer, author of 'The Canterbury Tales'. His most famous work is 'The Road to Xanadu: A Study in the Ways of the Imagination', which examines the sources of Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' and 'Kubla Khan'.