I am an experienced conference and group speaker on the subject of altered states/psychosis from the perspective of a family member.
My talks include what it means to witness a loved one with psychosis, what might help, what might harm, how to maintain your own health and self-care whilst dealing with services and witnessing trauma. I can tailor my presentation to include a reading from my memoir ZIG ZAG BOY: MADNESS, MOTHERHOOD & LETTING GO – a story that charts the journey with my son through the archaic mental health systems of the UK and the USA after his diagnosis of psychosis. I can also speak to the audience in terms of their own specific interests in writing or reading mental health narrative.
I have had media and presenter training with BBC journalist Paul Connolly and James Scurry senior producer at SKY News.
You can book me for literary festivals, keynote speeches or conferences by contacting my publicist Laura Meyer at Laura.N.Meyer@harpercollins.co.uk
Please see my previous guest speaker appearances below.
LITERARY FESTIVALS:
Tanya Frank & Michael Pedersen, author of Boy Friends at the 2023 Aye Write Literary Festival in Glasgow, Scotland, reading and speaking on the shared subject of grief.
University of California, Riverside 47th Writers Week Festival on February 14, 2024. She will be joining literary giants: Dave Eggers, Quincy Troupe, and Rigoberto González through Los Angeles Review of Books/UCR Department of Creative Writing Lifetime Achievement Awards: https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2023/12/14/47th-writers-week-coming-uc-riverside-february
WORKSHOPS:
Writing workshop for peers and holders for those with psychosis. Delivered with author Nathan Filer at Bath Spa University 12 June 2023.
ISPS-US Life Writing workshops with authors Claire Bien and Mary Dahl. 12.20.23 – 3.27.24 https://isps-us.org/news-events/newsroom.html/article/2023/11/16/12-20-23-3-27-24-life-writing-with-isps-us-sold-out-
KEYNOTES:
Presentation at UCL DClinPsy End of Term Conference: Rehumanising Health and Social Care Systems September 2023.
Presentation at The Royal College of Psychiatry Faculty of General Adult Psychiatry Conference 2023. The state of modern psychiatry from the perspective of services users and their representatives.
READINGS:
ISPS-US webinar with Sarah Fay. Rewriting the Narrative: Healing and Advocacy Through Storytelling.
Time to Talk: The Nation’s Biggest Mental Health Conversation:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/time-to-talk-day-at-the-snug-tickets-794325869057aff=ebdssbdestsearch
Waltham Forest Library on February 21 2024:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/author-talk-by-tanya-frank-tickets-785853166977?aff=ebdssbcategorybrowse