Sandy Jeffs was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1976 when it was considered something from which you could not recover. In the 1980s, she was among the first wave of people who started speaking publicly about living with a mental illness. Much of her writing has been about her struggle with schizophrenia. Sandy has published eight volumes of poetry. Sandy co-authored with Margaret Leggatt, Out of the Madhouse: From Asylums to Caring Community?, published in 2020. In 2021, her musings on the pandemic were published in The Poetics of a Plague: A Haiku Diary. Sandy’s memoir Flying with Paper Wings: Reflections on Living with Madness was republished in March 2024 by Spinifex Press.

Her memoir, Flying With Paper Wings: Reflections on Living with Madness, is available here: https://www.spinifexpress.com.au/shop/p/9781925950946

Production and Interview: Tina Giannoukos