Yeovil Literary Festival 2023 - Joanna Cannon

YEOVIL LITERARY FESTIVAL 2023 EVENT

JOANNA CANNON: WILL YOU READ THIS PLEASE?

Westlands Wheeldon Suite 2&3

Some people who deal with mental illness have the opportunity and ability to write about it, but many do not – and it was those people, those unread stories, I wanted to find’- Joanna Cannon

Edited by bestselling author and ex-psychiatrist Joanna Cannon, Will You Read This, Please? brings together 12 real life stories of NHS mental health service users, co-written by 12 bestselling and award-winning authors. Deeply moving and searingly honest, the collection tells stories of mental illness and the NHS from the truest and most honest source: the patients themselves.

In this exclusive panel, Joanna asks two of the contributing authors- Shelley Harris and Rhik Sammader- about how they came to be involved in the collection, and they discuss the challenges and privileges of helping someone else to share a story that was previously unheard. Lewis, the storyteller who worked closely with Rhik, will also speak about his experience of working on the collection, and why he was compelled to share his experience of gambling addiction.