Speakers & Guests
Mental Wealth Festival 2025
This year’s Mental Wealth Festival runs from 9 – 11 October. Hosted by City Lit in partnership with Beyond Words, the National Gallery, Royal Ballet and Opera, the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Age UK amongst others, it will offer free or low-fee events, including in person and online workshops, talks, discussions, exhibitions, and other activities.
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Paul Dolan is Professor of Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He trained as an economist over three decades ago, moving into psychology after working with Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman.
He has published around 150 peer-reviewed papers in leading academic journals. He is author of best-selling books Happiness by Design and Happy Ever After, works that reshaped how we think about what a good life is.
His new podcast is called Breaking Beliefism. He doesn't hate anyone who disagrees with him - unless they're fans of Coldplay.
Features on: 'Beliefism: How to Stop Hating the People We Disagree With'
Dr Tara Swart is a PhD neuroscientist, Oxford University trained former medical doctor, Senior Advisor for Neuroscience and Leadership at MIT Sloan Executive Education, Chief Science Officer at Dirtea, Ambassador at Healf.com and author of best-seller The Source which has translations in 38 global territories.
Her new book The Signs has testimonials from Jay Shetty and Mel Robbins and is out in September 2025.
Tara is passionate about disseminating simple, pragmatic neuroscience-based messagesthat change the way people live and work. She personally advises a small number of individuals via personal recommendation only, and speaks at major conferences globallyabout science and spirituality.
Tara’s episode on the Diary of a CEO, one of the world’s top-rated podcasts, is their highest performing episode of all time with over 16 million downloads on YouTube. Tara is a Trustee at the Lady Garden Foundation, a charity for gynaecological cancers.
Features on: 'The Signs'
Ian Tucknott is a educator, creative coach, cultural theorist, poet, curator, and trainee art psychotherapist with 18 years of experience in teaching and leadership within contemporary arts education. A passionate advocate for the mental health benefits of creativity and cultural engagement, Ian champions the life-changing power of the arts. He is also the co-curator of the Mental Wealth Festival.
Features on: 'Neurodiversity in the Workplace' & 'On Being Creative'
City Lit Fellow Paul Farmer became CEO of charity Age UK in October 2022. He was previously Chief Executive of Mind, the leading mental health charity working in England and Wales. Paul is Chair of the NHS England Independent Oversight & Advisory Group which brings together health and care leaders and experts to oversee the current mental health long term plan for the NHS in England. Paul Farmer has been a supporter of City Lit and a regular speaker at the Mental Wealth Festival for many years.
Features on: 'When Life Changes So Do We'
Bidisha is a broadcaster, journalist and presenter specialising in current affairs, human interest stories and political and cultural analysis. She works for the main UK broadsheets and presents and contributes heavily for BBC Radio and TV, Channel 5, Sky News and CNN as well as making films, documentaries and series. Her most recent book is Asylum and Exile: Hidden Voices, based on her outreach work with asylum seekers, refugees and detainees.
Features on: 'Reimagining Wellbeing in the 21st Century' & 'When Life Changes So Do We'
Dr Sally Austen is a consultant clinical psychologist with over 30 years’ experience in deaf mental health care. She advocates for a broad understanding of Accessible Information Standards (AIS), stressing that it’s not just about BSL but also mental health, literacy, cognition, language deprivation, context, learning opportunities, isolation, and community. Sally believes the key to AIS is the intent of communicators, with shared responsibility from everyone involved.
Her career spans NHS roles in deaf mental health adult services in London and Birmingham, the Royal Throat, Nose & Ear Hospital, Deaf CAMHS in the West Midlands, and the Clinical Genetics Service. Through her private practice, Austen Psychology, she trains and supervises mental health professionals, teaches BSL interpreters about mental health, and serves as an Expert Witness in legal cases.
Sally is co-author of Working with Deaf and Hard of Hearing Clients (2021), Deafness and Challenging Behaviour (2007), and Deafness in Mind (2024). She is currently writing a book on how embracing fallibility improves service provision and is seeking a literary agent.
Features on: 'Equity in Practice'
Dr Alastair Santhouse is a consultant neuropsychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital in London. Before retraining to become a psychiatrist, he practised hospital medicine – he is a fellow of both the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Psychiatrists. His first book was Head First: A Psychiatrist’s Stories of Mind and Body.
Features on: 'Reimagining Wellbeing in the 21st Century'
Dr Mark Fabian is associate professor of public policy at the University of Warwick and affiliate fellow at Cambridge University's Bennett School of Public Policy. He hosts the ePODstemology podcast, which interviews junior researchers about their paradigm shifting research. Beyond Happy is his first book for a general readership; his academic book, A Theory of Subjective Wellbeing, was published in 2022 by Oxford University Press.
Features on: 'Reimagining Wellbeing in the 21st Century'
Anastasia Vinnikova is an award-winning speaker, writer and mental health advocate. Driven by her own lived experience of mental illness, she is currently the Suicide Prevention Officer for the City of London Corporation, and was recently Head of Workplace Wellbeing at MindForward Alliance, where she worked closely with members and strategic partners, delivering the UK programme.
Anastasia previously led the wellbeing agenda at the Bank of England, and spent 2 years on the Commission for Equality in Mental Health with the Centre for Mental Health. Currently, Anastasia sits on the Samaritans External Engagement and Research Committee, as well as acting as a Lived Experience Advisor on their Online Excellence Programme.
Features on: 'Compassionate Conversations'
Shaun Flores is a dynamic mental health advocate, public speaker, and influencer dedicated to challenging societal norms and fostering open conversations about mental health, masculinity, and social justice. As a four-time TEDx speaker, Shaun has captivated audiences with his powerful talks, particularly focusing on the misconceptions surrounding OCD and the pressures of masculinity.
Raised in a single-parent household, Shaun has overcome significant personal challenges, including a battle with disordered eating, porn addiction, which fuels his passion for advocacy.
Features on: 'Neurodiversity in the Workplace'
Garth MacAnally has spent the last 17 years working with Employee Assistance Programmes with a wide experience of the sector, EAP Call Handler, Account Management, Business Development, Staff & Management Training and Senior EAP Consultant.
His inroad into mental health was as a teacher, as an Industrial Therapist working for the NHS, within adult mental health services. Garth produces and delivers training aimed at driving positive change, he is passionate about reducing stigma surrounding all things mental health and helping organisations to support and train their staff in supporting themselves and others with their Mental Wellbeing.
Features on: 'Compassionate Conversations'
Herbert Klein is a highly respected Deaf mental health professional from London with over 30 years of experience in the NHS, where he worked across adult and children’s Deaf mental health services.
Though recently retired, he remains deeply involved in the field through advisory roles, teaching, and leadership positions, including President of the British Society for Mental Health and Deaf (BSMHD) and Ambassador for the European Society of Mental Health and Deaf (ESMHD). He is a Churchill Fellow, Chair of Remark! Community, and part of the World Federation of the Deaf's Mental Health Expert Group. Herbert also volunteers internationally, notably in Indonesia, helping to build Deaf mental health programs.
Features on: 'Equity in Practice'
Lucy joined SignHealth in September 2022 with over 25 years’ marketing, engagement and fundraising experience. She has worked for a wide range of causes including disability, animal welfare and international development. Lucy is a deaf BSL user, so brings lived experience as well as professional expertise.
Prior to becoming Chief Executive, Lucy was Director of Engagement where she had strategic responsibility for fundraising, business development, communications, campaigns, policy and public affairs at SignHealth. This involved engaging with key audiences to end barriers to health for deaf people and to generate income from various sources.
Features on: 'Equity in Practice'
Dr Guy Leschziner is a professor of neurology and sleep medicine at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals, and the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London.
In addition to many academic papers, he is author of three critically acclaimed books The Nocturnal Brain – Nightmares, Neuroscience and the Secret World of Sleep, The Man Who Tasted Words andSeven Deadly Sins. These have been translated into 14 languages, and The Nocturnal Brain was a best book across the world, including in the Sunday Times, New Zealand Herald and Forbes magazine. Guy has presented three series on neuroscience for BBC Radio 4 and World Service.
Features on: 'Seven Deadly Sins'
Tom Davies is the host of the award-winning mental health podcast, Proper Mental. He started the show after his own challenges with mental ill health and has gone on to interview some of the world leading experts in mental health and mental illness. He is an experienced public speaker and regular talks about his own mental health experiences and the learnings and insights he has gained from over 200 recorded conversations exploring all aspects of mental health.
Proper Mental is an award winning, chart bothering podcast that explores all aspects of mental health and mental illness.
Features on: 'On Being a Man'
Mita is an award-winning healthcare professional with over 20 years of experience in mental health and physical well-being. After a successful career in management consulting, she dedicated her career to better healthcare for all.
As a Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapist, Acupuncturist, author, and newspaper columnist, Mita empowers individuals to overcome challenges from trauma and anxiety to physical health issues. She is a sought-after speaker, consultant, and trainer, collaborating with individuals, schools, businesses, charities and the NHS.
Mita is the author of popular books: How to Understand and Deal with Social Anxiety, All You Need Is Rest, The Social Anxiety Workbook and she created The Power of Mindfulness, a not-for-profit program. She also hosts the Amazon-recommended podcast 'Healing Place.'
Features on: 'All You Need is Rest'
Brian is the Comms and Engagement Officer at CRAE, where he also works on the ESRC-funded Superior Perceptual Capacity in Autism Project. His research explores how environments can be better designed for autistic people. He developed the UK’s first framework for Specialist (Autism) Mentoring in higher education, which was co-produced with autistic mentees and mentors. He is committed to participatory research and the principle of “autism gain”; that improving things for autistic people benefits everyone. Brian has worked as a mentor, teacher, and early years practitioner. He plays the ukulele with enthusiasm.
Features on: 'Neurodiversity in the Workplace'
Dr Mel Romualdez is an assistant professor and autism researcher based at the Centre for Research in Autism and Education (CRAE) within the department of Psychology and Human Development at the UCL Institute of Education. She is the current Deputy Director of CRAE. Mel is a former teacher who worked primarily in specialist settings with autistic adolescents and young adults. Her research focuses on transitions to employment, employment experiences, and education for autistic people.
Features on: 'Neurodiversity in the Workplace'
Elena Sirett (they/them) is a folk-punk musician, poet, events planner and Attention Seekers founder. Elena is always unapologetically honest, mentally ill, neurodivergent and queer in everything they do. As a solo-musician Elena has supported folk-punk legends (Apes of the State and Cheap Dirty Horse amongst others) and has recently released an EP titled Doubt That Feeds. Their one person show Maenad (a musical-myth-mono-drama about BPD diagnosis) was performed at Camden Fringe (2023) and A Pinch of Vaults Festival (2024).
Features on: 'Hyperfixations'
Mark Hopkinson has dedicated over 25 years of his career to teaching and working at City Lit. He is the first Deaf person to hold the position of Head of the Centre for Deaf Education at City Lit. With 35 years of experience as a British Sign Language (BSL) teacher, Mark has taught and assessed all levels of BSL—from Introductory to Level 6—and is a qualified Internal Verifier. He also provides consultancy and guidance to BSL tutors at other colleges.
Mark has lectured on the City Lit/London Metropolitan University ‘Deaf Studies’ degree programme and has coordinated numerous training initiatives for external organisations across London. He currently serves as Chair of Deafinitely Theatre and is a board member of Signature, the UK’s leading awarding body for Deaf communication qualifications.
Features on: 'Equity in Practice'
Jon is an award-winning social impact innovator, and the co-founder of both creative agency Byte Entertainment and lived-experience not-for-profit, Speakers Collective. A leading mental health campaigner and public speaker, Jon talks openly about being sectioned and losing his father to suicide as a teenager.
He has worked on mental health campaigns with The Royal Foundation and currently developing innovative suicide prevention resources for NHS England. Jon is also a trustee for Let’s Talk About Loss, a charity supporting young people who have been bereaved.
Features on: 'Compassionate Conversations'
Dom Stichbury is a singer, choral director, composer & group singing advocate. He is passionate about creating singing communities and curating repertoire that encourages emotional expression and community building. He is founder of lower voice troupes Chaps Choir & Bellow Fellows, groups that encourage more men to get singing.
Features on: 'Your Mind on Music' & 'An Evening with Chaps Choir and Guests'
Vivien Ellis is a Grammy-nominated early music singer and community musician leading high-quality social and inclusive singing events for wellbeing. Vivien developed a new model of training in arts and health for General Practitioners, and is currently undertaking an MA in Music at the University of York focused on her embodied practice with people, music and heritage. Vivien works with Mental Fight Club, a charity based in Southwark, leading the Dragon Café Singers. This weekly singing group supports wellbeing through singing and songwriting, and recently released 'In This Circle is My Heart', an album of collaboratively-written original songs, on Spotify.
Vivien is leading a number of participatory events in the Bloomsbury Festival this year, including 'Ballad Walks of Dickens and Seven Dials', and 'Songs and Ballads - a singing showcase' with local choirs.
Features on: 'Your Mind on Music'
Chaps Choir is a large male singing gang from London; say goodbye to the male voice choir most would recognise. The group has been sharing its joy-inducing, heart-string pulling repertoire to audiences since 2013. Their voices have filled the Royal Festival Hall, The Union Chapel & other major London venues. The group has slowly built a name through its urbane entertaining presentation and unexpected repertoire choices. They've performed live on Saturday night prime time TV, recorded at Abbey Road, been the subject of articles, news pieces & podcasts exploring men’s singing & male community, and raised money for mental healthy charities.
Features on: 'An Evening with Chaps Choir and Guests'
Rachel Morris is Co-Founder of Motion Learning, a professional coaching organisation supporting leaders, managers, and individuals to grow in confidence, impact, and effectiveness at work. Her coaching is values-driven, tailored, and grounded in deep experience and insight.
She is also Co-Founder of Coach Community, a not-for-profit organisation making coaching more accessible to those who may not otherwise have access, while also supporting the development and confidence of emerging coaches. A Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coaching Federation,
Rachel is the author of Working Mother: Simple coaching strategies for success at work and at home, and a member of both the British Psychological Society and the National Council of Integrative Psychotherapists. She regularly speaks on topics including equity, mental health, and leadership at events and has appeared on platforms such as the Leading Women in Tech, Limitless Lives, and World of Work podcasts.
Features on: 'Gaining Control in the Face of Overwhelm'
Sam is a writer and broadcaster from London. His latest book, Stop Sh*tting Yourself, is out now. He co-hosts the Top Flight Time Machine podcast and writes about mental health and addiction through The Reset. He’s the author of four previous books, including Sort Your Head Out (2023) and Night of the Living Dad (2009), and has written for The Guardian, Observer, Sunday Times, NME, and others. Sam has hosted shows on BBC 5Live, talkSPORT, and Talk Radio, and presented documentaries for BBC Three and Channel 4. He’s a mental health ambassador for CALM and holds a Level 2 counselling qualification.
Features on: ‘On Being a Man’
Dr Zoe Schaedel is an NHS GP and specialist in menopause, sleep medicine, and sexual health. She is known for her evidence-based yet highly practical approach, delivering engaging talks that help organisations improve employee wellbeing, resilience, and performance. A registered British Menopause Society Menopause Specialist and member of the BMS Medical Advisory Council, Zoe has extensive experience lecturing on topics including menopause, sleep, and preventative health.
Her expertise has been featured widely in the media, including Channel 5’s Women’s Health: Breaking the Taboos, BBC Radio 4, The Guardian, The Independent, Grazia, Daily Expressand Good Housekeeping.
Features on: 'Optimising Future Health'
Dr. Olivia Hum is an NHS GP and GP Partner with two decades of clinical experience. She specialises in menopause, hormonal health, and contraception, and is recognised as a British Menopause Society (BMS) Menopause Specialist and member of the BMS Medical Advisory Council.
As an engaging and relatable speaker, Olivia is skilled at translating complex health topics into clear, engaging insights that empower audiences to make informed decisions. Her focus is on improving understanding of hormonal health and supporting organisations to foster healthier, more productive workplaces.
Goldie is a three-time Olympian, Olympic bronze medallist and British Record holder in the javelin. Having retired from professional sport in 2016, Goldie completed a Sporting Directorship Masters and wrote a thesis on the ’Significant factors affecting athlete transition to alternative careers.’ Her own career transition has led her to founding property investment and development companies. She is an executive coach whilst also having Board roles with UK Athletics and is a Trustee of a youth athletics charity. Learning new skills, personal development and golf are big interests as well as trying to inspire others to follow their passions.
Features on: 'When Life Changes So Do We'
Julia’s background is in business psychology, coaching and psychotherapy. Focused on her career, she was director of a psychology consultancy by 30 and subsequently a partner in an international management consultancy, training as a psychotherapist alongside the day job. Then illness struck. Twice.
After treatment, determined not to work so hard, she attended art college. There followed two parallel careers – her psychology-related work and her creative life as a 3d artist and fiction author. She is now a commissioned artist for Mortal and Strong, a charity using art and narrative to interpret the stories of those with life-changing conditions. Her third psychological suspense novel was published this year.
Lenka Novakova is a deaf advisor specialising in deaf mental health services. She advocates for culturally and linguistically competent care, working to ensure that deaf service users and professionals are meaningfully included across all areas of healthcare. Her work centres on improving access, raising standards through the Accessible Information Standards, and empowering the Deaf community through informed, equitable practices.
Features on: 'Equity in Practice'
Tesse Akpeki FCG is a UK Governance Consultant, Coach, and Strategist whose work advances organisational wellbeing, inclusion, and resilience. Born in England and raised in Northern Ireland children’s homes, she endured profound loss—the deaths of her mother, two brothers, and her son—alongside years of serious illness.
Despite this, Tesse became a Fellow of the Chartered Governance Institute, founded the Wellbeing & Resilience Leadership Initiative, and advises organisations across charity, public, and corporate sectors. Recognised by the Association for Coaching, TEDx (Texas 2024), and the HBR Advisory Council, she was named a top ten Compassionate Leadership podcaster (2025).
Her values-led philosophy champions psychological safety, diversity, and empathetic leadership. As she reflects: “Every day is precious—nobody is promised tomorrow.”
Features on: 'Compassionate Conversations'
Dr Hugh SelsickstudiedPhysiology andMedicine at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, before specialisingin Adultand AddictionsPsychiatry at the Maudsley and the North London training schemes. He established the Insomnia andBehavioural Sleep Medicine Clinic at the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine/University College London Hospitals,the first of its kind in the UK, and is the lead clinician there. He also worked as a consultant in the Sleep Disorders Centre at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital. He founded the Sleep Special Interest Group in the Royal College of Psychiatrists and is past president of the Sleep Medicine Section at the Royal Society of Medicine.
He is co-author of Oxford Case Histories in Sleep Medicine (2015) and editor of Sleep Disorders in Psychiatric Patients: A Practical Guide (2018). He has also contributed to numerous textbooks on sleep and psychiatry.
Features on: 'Tired of Being Tired?'
Edward teaches music history and theory at City lit. His specialism is early music (medieval, renaissance and baroque) and he completed a PhD in historical musicology at King's College London (2013) on the performance of medieval music.
Outside of teaching, Edward is a regular contributor to Gramophone magazine and has lectured for Dartington International Summer School, London's Southbank Centre and The British Library. He has also worked as a researcher for BBC Proms and written for the journal Early Music (OUP).
His essays are published in: The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Historical Performance in Music, (Cambridge University Press); The Montpellier Codex: Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music 16 (Boydell Press); Recomposing the Past: Representations of Early Music on Stage and Screen (Ashgate 2018); and 30-Second Classical Music (Ivy Press)
Features on: 'Your Mind on Music'
Nadia Perez is an Integrative Psychotherapist, Musician and Counselling Tutor at City Lit. Her main interest is working with Jungian concepts to understand the unconscious and how music impacts the psyche. She works with clients to help understand their blocks to creativity and how reconnecting with aspects of themselves can facilitate a more integrated and authentic expression of self. In her role as a tutor she encourages students to listen actively to others as though they were music to help understand the emotional content of narratives and their own responses to the 'music' they hear.
Features on: 'Your Mind on Music'
Maisie (she/her) is a PhD researcher at the University of Edinburgh specialising in men's mental health, currently undertaking a sociological study on men and self-harm. She passionately advocates for incorporating lived experience expertise into research to ensure the priorities meet the needs of those affected by mental health problems.
In her role as Senior Research Manager for Lived Experience in Mental Health at the Wellcome Trust, Maisie leads a team to ensure lived experience perspectives are embedded in all areas of mental health research, policy and communications. She also volunteers at the Listening Place, supporting individuals to discuss thoughts and feelings around suicide.
Drawing from a wealth of contemporary literature and hands-on experience, Maisie is committed to transforming how we understand and support men's mental health.
Features on: 'On Being a Man'
Dr Madeline Castrey is an award-winning musician, academic, and musicologist whose career spans performance, education, and research. With a background in West End theatre, opera, and TV, she starred in Les Misérables, The Lion King, and Evita. She earned a Master’s by 19 and a PhD soon after. A former Diana Award winner, she became one of the UK’s youngest lecturers at 22. As founder of Choon, she promotes wellness through music, delivering corporate workshops and publishing widely. She is also Head of Postgraduate Education at ACM and author of Your Self, Health Voice, promoting music for wellbeing.
Features on: 'Your Mind on Music'
Hannah works as an Assistant Psychologist in an NHS community mental health team. She has been immersed in the field of mental health (beginning as a Samaritans listening volunteer) since 2017. She has recruited, trained and mentored new Samaritans, worked in community engagement, delivered individual psychotherapy, and co-facilitated groups for people bereaved by suicide and people who have symptoms of psychosis. She enjoys speaking about all the complexities of neurodivergence and its intersections with mental health, having been diagnosed with ADHD in her mid-30s. Recently she has been involved in setting up a new Neurodivergent Staff Network in her NHS Trust.
Features on: 'Neurodiversity in the Workplace'
Deidre Kashdan is a contemporary artist based in Kent.Adopting a multi-disciplinary approach which includes photography, collage, printmaking and performance, Deirdre has undertaken numerous artistic projects which place an emphasis upon conversation, storytelling and participation.Emerging from her own life experience - touched by suicide and severe mental illness - The Missing Project is Deidre’s current and most important work to date.
The Missing Project brings together the voices and images of more than 200 women whose lives have been indelibly marked by the mental illness or addiction of someone they love. These women, and the stories they carry, are often missing from public discourse, erased by stigma, shame, or the silence imposed by institutions that fail to care. This is a space for truth, and for healing from pain, guilt, and endurance.
Features on: 'The Missing Project: Caregiver's Stories'
Cristina Jacob’s art practice extends from photography and photocollage, to printmaking, drawing, writing, embroidery, installation and participatory socially engaged practice. She is interested in the active role artists can play in societies, workplaces, organisations and communities, as well as art’s capacity to bond, connect and unite us across huge diversities. In her ongoing project Table Talks she seeks to explore the experience of dialogue and conversation, to visually map invisible traces of exchange, and to give form to the ways we hold on to moments of connection. These experiences of human encounter are not represented as clear memories, but rather as textures, fragments, and sensations that linger in ways we may not always recognise
Features on: 'Participatory Artwork'
Hélène has been working as an occupational therapist on the Anxiety Disorders Residential Unit (ADRU) at the Bethlem Royal Hospital for 4 years. Prior to this she worked as a massage therapist for 12 years, following 11 years in nursing and 2 years as a care worker. Hélène is currently working with people affected with OCD, BDD and PTSD. She has a particular interest in trauma and the relationship between the body and the mind, memory (mind and body), and our self-healing potential.Hélène works with ADRU residents on a weekly basis in their process of building self-compassion and organises a Death Café every 6 weeks.
Features on: 'When Life Changes So Do We'
Jemilea Wisdom-Baako is an award-winning poet, creative health practitioner and systems disruptor working at the intersection of arts, health and social justice. She is Creative Health Officer for Wandsworth Council and a Director of the Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance. With a background in social anthropology and restorative justice, Jemilea’s practice is rooted in co-production, cultural safety and decolonial pedagogy. She is passionate about consciously disrupting oppressive systems to centre the voices, leadership and wellbeing of racialised communities. As founder of Writerz and Scribez CIC, she leads nationally recognised programmes that shift power and embed anti-racist, participatory approaches in health and culture.
Features on: 'On Being Creative'
JP Seabright (she/they) is a queer disabled writer living in London. They have seven solo pamphlets published and four collaborations, encompassing poetry, prose and experimental work. JP explores themes of gender, sexuality, trauma, technology and the climate crisis in her work, and has been nominated for Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Forward Prize, and shortlisted (twice) for a Saboteur Award for Best Collaborative Work. They are co-editor and organiser of the Arts Council England funded project eff-able.
More information at https://jpseabright.com and on social media @jpseabright.
Features on: 'An Evening with Chaps Choir and Guests'
Chaachi Deane and Izzy Ajani are a creative duo making original theatre that blends song, storytelling, and movement. Their work is guided by a desire to speak honestly about issues that are often avoided, particularly around identity, race, and gender. Combining humour and playfulness with frankness and emotional honesty, they explore how these themes show up in lived experience. Together, they co-created and performed the music for Ain’t I a Woman, which toured London and Norfolk and won a Black British Theatre Award. They have also shared their songs at The Other Palace and The Phoenix Arts Club.
Wayward is a cabaret-style musical in which women share their stories directly with the audience through a dynamic mix of monologue, movement, and song. The show explores the stereotypes and expectations placed on women – from The Slut to The Childless Cat Lady to The Angry Black Woman – and navigates the fine line between obedience, transgression, and freedom. With sharp humour and unflinching honesty, it shines a light on how women’s bodies are objectified, desired, blamed, and policed from a young age, while also opening up wider conversations around identity, judgement, and liberation. The Mental Wealth Festival is delighted to welcome Chaachi & Izzy for a preview of songs from Wayward.
Features on: 'An Evening with Chaps Choir and Guests'
Lalah-Simone Springer is a working-class poet and creative facilitator (she/they). Lalah is part of the 2025 London Arts and Health Artist Represent Recovery Network, and has run workshops with Nike Well Festival, We Out Here Festival, Newham Poetry Group, Croydon Public Health and more. In 2023 Lalah’s debut poetry collection, An Aviary of Common Birds (Broken Sleep Books), was released alongside their debut album Cyclical Music. Collaborations as a performance artist have been staged at The Barbican, Whitechapel Gallery, and the Southbank Centre.
Features on: 'Love Letters with Lalah-Simone'
Lisa Michelle Farrell is a London-based artist currently completing an MA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts, supported by the Sir Frank Bowling Scholarship. Her practice spans sculptural assemblage, collage, photography and installation, often working with found and second-hand objects to interrogate and reframe personal and social histories of disability, class and mental health.
Features on: 'On Being Creative'
Julieanne Gilbert is a HR professional with over 25 years of experience within both private and public sectors, known for her values-driven and human-centric approach to leadership and development. As a qualified coach, she’s passionate about empowering individuals and organisations to thrive through authentic connection, empathy, and purpose-led growth.
Features on: 'When Life Changes So Do We'