Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite read. Today I’m talking to Kelly Rose Pflug-Back, editor of Up:Rising.

Rachel: Tell our readers a little bit about the book!

Kelly: It’s got some tender parts, and some  brutal ones. I wasn’t sure what we would pull in when we cast our editorial net, but we received some very beautiful and unflinching work. The theme of the anthology is Rebellion, and people interpreted that in so many different ways. It’s really a full spectrum of human emotion. 

Rachel: Rebellion is inherently collective, and this book came about as a partnership between two incredible artist-run organizations. Can you tell us a bit about the process and what working with them was like?

Kelly: I’ve worked with Workman Arts in the past, facilitating workshops on grant writing. Part of their mandate is professional development for artists with experience of mental health and addictions. Because I have that lived experience, I’ve seen a lot of social programming that’s very patronizing, very infantalizing. So it was important to myself and the other two editors that this book exist outside of that framework. We really wanted it to show the excellence of the contributors, especially those who don’t have previous publishing experience. We also really wanted to keep the work free from censorship. Some of the pieces are pretty raw, and we didn’t want to deal with external pressure to make the book more “respectable.” I reached out to Strangers because they value radical ideas and I had a feeling they would see eye-to-eye with us. They’re on the US side of the border so it also turned out to be an opportunity for them to expand their distribution into Canada. That’s exciting to me!

Rachel: It is exciting! As are many of the authors in the anthology! Can you entice our readers with some of the standout poems and stories?

Kelly: We have really stunning short stories by Andrea Wilmot (author of Withered) and Cid V. Brunet (author of This is My Real Name). Also some really provocative and lovely poems by Daniel Oudshoorn, Shan Powell, and many others. And of course our opening story, by K. Zimmer, is a favourite of mine. I think when we talk about mental health, there’s this idea that everyone experiences some kind of mental health struggles…but one thing I love about this book is that we have pieces by people who live with some of the more stigmatized mental health labels, people who experience schizophrenic symptoms and have been institutionalized or left to live on the street. It means a lot to me to be able to publish those pieces. 

Rachel: Speaking of stigmatized mental health labels, can you tell our readers a little bit about Mad Liberation?

Kelly: Mad Liberation is about creating mental health frameworks outside of stigma, punishment, and institutionalization. The efforts for justice and self determination coming from the Psychiatric Survivors movement has its roots in the Civil Rights era, and there’s really so many facets and manifestations of people fighting for self determination and fighting to reclaim the word and concept of “madness.”

Rachel: It’s a civil rights movement that we don’t hear much about. What’s the relationship between madness/Mad Pride and radical politics?

Kelly: The dominant idea of mental illness, the structures we have for diagnosing and labelling people as mentally ill, it all has roots in colonialism and patriarchy. So I think we cannot have any kind of liberation movement without Mad Pride being part of it. 

Rachel: Having been lucky enough to read an ARC of the book, I can’t wait for our readers to get ahold of their copy. Where can people find you and the book?

Kelly: You can find my writing updates at textandtextiles.ca, and on Instagram at @kellyrosecreates. In the interest of keeping my jock/nerd ratio at an even 50:50 I recently became a weight lifting instructor, so you can also find me at lesspainmoregains.com or on Instagram at @lesspain_moregains. I embarked on that path in the interest of helping other people with trauma and addictions history through weight lifting. It has amazing potential for neuroplasticity. 

If everything runs according to schedule, the book will be released in November and will be available for order from Strangers, at Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. Our Canadian distributor is this awesome distro called Ratti Incantatti, who you can find at https://rattiincantati.com. I will be posting the launch information on my website and social media, so stay tuned if you happen to be local!