Voices For CHANGE Newsletter

VFC is pleased to represent the diversity and strength of the Recovery Movement in Massachusetts. We are consumer-operated. We publish news, views, personal recovery stories, poetry, photographs and drawings. The newsletter comes out between four and six times per year.

Please send submissions for consideration to

Cathy A. Levin, editor

98 Magazine Street

Roxbury, MA 02119

Fax: 617-442-4005

cathy@m-power.org

Authors receive $30 payment for each article. There is no budget for poetry and artwork, but you’ll get credit. Deadlines are six weeks before publication. Contact editor, Cathy A. Levin to find out the deadline for the next issue at 617-442-4111 x 360 or newsletter@m-power.org.

Our mailing list contains about 1,200 names. About 200 copies of VFC are mailed to clubhouses. An additional 100 copies are given away on information tables at events. About another 150 copies are provided to partner organizations, such at the MDDA and the Metro Boston Resource Center. VFC is also available at the M-POWER/Transformation Center office.

Voices for CHANGE is free for those for whom it is a hardship to make a donation. For those with greater means, a donation is gratefully accepted. To have your address added to our mailing list, please contact Ann Stillman at 617-442-4111 x 301, ann@m-power.org or send your check to Ann Stillman, 98 Magazine Street, Roxbury, MA 02119. To remove your address from the mailing list, also contact Ann Stillman.

Click here to veiw the article titled "What Helped in my Recovery"

Click the following link to view the archives

Articles

It is best if your writing is typed in Microsoft Word, Works or WordPerfect, and also in Times New Roman, 12 pt type, single-spaced, with standard margins, and only one space after periods. Please send your articles as email attachments to newsletter@m-power.org. As some people don’t have email, we also accept articles by mail and fax. Mailing address Editor, Voices for CHANGE, 98 Magazine Street, Roxbury, MA 02119 or fax 617-442-4005.

Artwork

The M-POWER/Transformation Center office has a scanner to convert drawings and photographs into digital images for use in the newsletter, in case you cannot email them.

Authors

The best length of articles is one page. That is about 500 words, a length that fits neatly into Microsoft Publisher as a two-column article. That length means we can include a photo of the author or a graphic design. We must limit articles to 1,300 words, so that more writers have a chance to be published. Our editors are skilled in trimming work in order to reduce the length for publication. They can also smooth out rough work and correct puzzling grammar or structure. Let us work with you to produce writing of polish and excellence.

Consumer Operated

Approximately five editors are working on the editorial committee of VFC. They are responsible for editing two-to-three article per issue, and also proofreading. Editors are also contributors. They are often asked to produce news articles about events and programs of M-POWER/Transformation Center or to turn newspaper reports into short articles or to write articles from notes. Editors work hard. They receive a stipend of $100 per issue for editing, in addition to $30 per article they write.

Diversity and Strength (Mission Statement)

Martin Koehler & Cathy A. Levin

The mission of Voices for CHANGE, the newsletter of M-POWER is to inform, educate and inspire.

To inform our readers with a forum for memoirs, opinions and ideas.
To publish stories about people’s own struggle to recover from psychiatric disability.
To empower people to build meaningful lives on the ashes of trauma.
To provide information on policy decisions, programs and opportunities within M-POWER and the Transformation Center.
To educate our readers about the thinking of national and local leaders in the recovery movement.
To educate consumer/survivors about our rightful place in the social system, and about civil rights and entitlements.
To inspire people by an awareness of our potential power by featuring the work of author’s who have made something of themselves.
To inspire persistence in the face of stigma, bigotry, discrimination, pessimism, helplessness and political defeatism.
To inspire self-esteem through role models among our peers in the movement.
To advocate politically, both individually and as members of an oppressed class of people.
And, most of all, to cheer on and applaud for non-traditional paths to achievement and success.