On a warm Friday evening this January, I attended a fun event at Loft 112. Twelve visual artists and nine writers (plus three in absentia) sipped drinks, munched snacks and introduced ourselves and our work.

I described my short story “When a Warm Wind Blows Off the Mountains.” Written over ten years ago, the story finally found a home last year at the Loft’s October Long Lunch Reading. While guests feasted on roasted red pepper soup, I talked about this 2900-word tale inspired by my many walks on Calgary’s Glenmore Reservoir pathway. Two characters at low points in their lives set out from different starting points–Rockyview Hospital and Glenmore Landing Shopping Centre. They walk toward each other, meet on a park bench and share a moment. The connection momentarily lifts them from the depths, like a Chinook in Calgary winter. I like to believe it helps give them strength to deal with their troubles ahead.

The Loft published the story in handmade chapbooks for each of the October guests. I thought this was it for “Warm Wind” until Lisa Murphy-Lamb, the Loft inspiration and owner, emailed us monthly contributors to say they would be publishing the twelve stories in an anthology called Long Lunch/Quick Reads. The book would be out by the end of the year.

Prior to this, Lisa had told us they were applying for a Canada Council grant to turn the stories into individual art books. She asked if we were interested. I said, “Sure,” and sent her the required details. In January, Lisa advised us the grant had succeeded.  She organized the Friday evening meeting for the artists and writers involved. At the end of our presentations, Lisa and her co-conspirators announced the artist/writer pairings.

My partner, Sylvia Arthur, is a life-long resident of Forest Lawn, Calgary. She is currently involved in an art project in the  Crowsnest Pass. Sylvia took home a chapbook of “Warm Wind.” When I emailed her the digital version the next day, she said she was already thinking of ideas for turning my story into visual art. I am certainly curious to see what she comes up with. Today, I had a look at Sylvia’s website, which features drawings she has done to poems. I love her work. Her most recent posts are tributes to Leonard Cohen and her late friend. I am confident “Warm Wind” is in terrific hands.

Inside the Mental: Silence, Stigma, Psychiatry, and LSD by Kay Parley continues my blog series on mental health.

At 179 pages and not much larger than my hand, Inside the Mental offers something different — an inside look at mental health treatment in Canada during the 1950s and 60s. In 1948, Kay Parley suffered a breakdown as a student at Lorne Greene’s Academy of Radio Arts in Toronto. She was admitted to the Weyburn Mental Hospital in her home province of Saskatchewan. The Weyburn was home to her in other ways, since her father and grandfather were long-term residents at the hospital. During her stay, Parley only saw them briefly due to the numbers of patients, various wards and her doctor’s concern meeting them could be disturbing.

Parley spent nine months in the Weyburn as a psychiatric patient. Today, she might not have been admitted at all. She wasn’t a threat to others or herself and, by her own account, was reasonably functional. She worked on the hospital newsletter and participated in drama activities. Upon release, she went on to a productive life with breakdowns every six years but no further hospitalizations. Parley was initially diagnosed as schizophrenic, although she might be bipolar or something else. In her view, the label doesn’t matter. She eschews treatment with medication, since her doctors at the Weyburn taught her to work through her problems.

The book’s big surprise for me was the enlightened treatment she received. Far from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, most of the hospital staff showed the patients’ respect and a measure of equality. The Weyburn came across to me as less a prison and more a community for people able to thrive in a protective environment. This was misleading, as in the last chapter Parley states that life there was terrible for the majority of residents, who were deemed untreatable. Yet, her grandfather had an occupation as a hat-maker and she admits long-term patients able to work in the garden or other areas didn’t have it so bad.

During the 1960s, the Weyburn got into experimenting with LSD as a treatment for mental illness. Parley, now a nurse, became a regular sitter for those given LSD in the controlled environment. She says the drugs they used were purer than the later street forms. As often as not, the experimenters were hospital staff who viewed LSD as away to understand their patients. Parley isn’t sure acid trips mimic schizophrenia, as LSD hallucinations tend to be more visual than auditory, but she feels LSD opened the staff’s minds to other consciousness. She believes these treatments worked especially well for alcoholics and might still be useful for treating addictions.

Inside the Mental challenges an assumption that medical treatment always represents progress. While reading this book, I found myself constantly wondering if today’s mental health treatment is better or worse than it was 60 years ago. It’s sad to realize I can’t answer that question. For sure Parley’s book challenges us to not assume we’re on an improved track and to look at other possibilities.

It shows how global our marketplace has become when the first person to buy the print version of my new novel, Ten Days in Summer, lives overseas in Great Britain. Two summers ago, Barb visited us with my sister-in-law. They toured the Rockies and fulfilled Barb’s long-time wish of attending the Calgary Stampede. When they left, I gave Barb a copy of my first novel, Deadly Fall. Since she enjoyed it, my sister-in-law bought Barb a copy of the sequel as soon as it was available on Amazon UK. 

The print version still isn’t released in Canada, although the order is in to the Canadian printer and distributor. My publisher has a deal with Amazon to print the copies sold in other countries.  I assume Amazon does this with print-on-demand, since they got the paperback up on their website the same time as the Kindle version and delivered the print book to Barb within days.

The Ten Days paperback is available in other countries served by Amazon. Here it is on Amazon Japan. I have no clue if the price listed there is reasonable or not.

Postscript: Chapters/Indigo now has the Ten Days in Summer paperback on its website, with 3-5 weeks delivery. You can also order it from their stores as well as independent book stores. You can get the book in two days on Amazon, but the retail price is higher.