Stories of Living with Mental Illness
In honour of Mental Health Awareness Week, Joanna Cannon celebrates a collection of essays which aim to give a voice to those who so often remain unheard.
Will You Read This, Please? is a frank and impactful collection which Cannon and Borough Press worked on in collaboration with the Royal College of Psychiatrists. The book pairs award-winning authors with mental health service users in the UK who wanted to tell their story.
For this event, Joanna Cannon chairs a conversation between contributing authors Rhik Samadder, Kathryn Mannix and Jenn Ashworth, as well as storyteller Nicola Knight. Our panel shares their experiences of working on this book, and shinea a light on a range of illnesses that aren’t often discussed or written about.
As Cannon says, ‘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.’
Need to know
For your visit
This event is held at the Purcell Room Southbank Centre
The Purcell Room is located in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, which is open from 90 minutes before events start until they finish. It’s closed at all other times.
Plan your visit
The Purcell Room is an auditorium located within our Queen Elizabeth Hall.
Getting here
Our address is Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX.
The nearest tube stations to us are Waterloo and Embankment; Waterloo is also the nearest train station. And more than 20 different London bus routes pass within 500 metres of our venues. More information on getting here by rail, road or river is available on our Getting here page.
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Access
We’re working hard to remove barriers, so that our facilities and events can be accessible to as many people as possible.
All help points, toilets, performance and exhibition spaces at the Southbank Centre are accessible to all, as are the cafes, bars and restaurants. We also have excellent public transport links with step-free access.
All information about booking wheelchair spaces, step-free access, blue badge parking, access maps and guides and other help available whilst you’re here, including details about our Access Scheme, can be found on our Access page.
Food & drink
From coffee to cocktails, filling favourites to fine dining, plus some of London’s best street food – it’s all here at the Southbank Centre.