On the Road with Lizzie Simon

Interviews for insight.
Lizzie Simon

Send Silence Packing Tour

A little over two weeks ago, Pepsi-Refresh awarded Active Minds a $50,000 grant to take Send Silence Packing on a 10-city tour. Just one week ago, Brandon Doman and myself were invited to join the Active Minds team as road trip staff. We jumped on planes and we made our way to Washington, DC.
What Nick Leichter Means by "Fierce"

What Nick Leichter Means by "Fierce"

"I've always said that a great person, one who has a great soul, is a great dancer. OK, so there are tons of great people out there. Where do you draw the line.........1, it's about the individual and what they can add to the "mission," which our top priority has been about the diversity, not just about our culture, but these specific cultures and subcultures that we're exploring. 2, there's a certain level of fierceness that's required-and less in that "fashionable" way and more in a level of bravery and complexity."

What's Driving Pete Earley Crazy

Pete Earley has been described as one of a handful of journalists in America who "have the power to introduce new ideas and give them currency." A former reporter for The Washington Post, he is the author of nine nonfiction books and three novels. His book, CRAZY: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness, tells two stories. It describes his attempts to help is college age son, Mike, after he becomes ill with bipolar disorder and is arrested. It also describes a year that Earley spent at the Miami Dade County Jail where he followed persons with mental disorders, who had been in jail, out into the community to see what sort of services they received.

Lost in Translation: Japan Society's Peter Grilli on Americans in Japan

 "I often compare Japanese fascination with sakura or cherry blossoms with the special pleasure that Americans take in fall foliage (especially in New England). The cherry blossoms seem to unlock a deep poetic space in the Japanese soul, much as the changing colors of trees in autumn does for us. The thrilling blossoming of the cherries is more than simply a sudden release from the doldrums of winter. To the Japanese, their clear, brilliant innocence is as hypnotic as youth - and yet they disappear and die as quickly as they blossom. They are a metaphor for the fragility and evanescence of life itself. Like the spirit of ancient samurai, they live gloriously in the moment, and vanish while still young and beautiful."
Thelonious Monk---Bebop Pioneer, and Bipolar? My Interview with Professor Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk, The Life and Times of an American Original

Thelonious Monk---Bebop Pioneer, and Bipolar? My Interview with Professor Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk, The Life and Times of an American Original

Thelonious Monk---Bebop Pioneer, and Bipolar? My Interview with Professor Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk, The Life and Times of an American Original

On Earthquakes and "Expert Companions": Six Questions for Dr. Richard Tedeschi

The image of an earthquake can be used as a metaphor for Post Traumatic Growth, to communicate, in a sense, that it is not the quake itself that produces growth, but that the process in the aftermath can, as people distinguish between what is sturdy and what has been disabled, and as they rebuild a new set of stronger, more sustainable structures. We are in a global moment of attending to the aftermath of an earthquake in Haiti---is this also a teachable moment for Post Traumatic Growth?