About the hosts

Jacks McNamara and Sascha Altman DuBrul are writers, activists, healers, and troublemakers. In 2002, they co-founded The Icarus Project, a participatory adventure in mutual aid and radical mental health. They have been best friends ever since. The project was born out of their own experiences being labeled bipolar and trying to find more creative and politically relevant ways to navigate the space between brilliance and madness. Icarus began as a community website and media project, and has helped inspire an international network of visionary activists, cultural workers, and survivors to make beautiful things and support each other.

Jacks McNamara is a genderqueer writer, artist, parent, healer, and facilitator based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Jacks is the author of the poetry collection Inbetweenland and co-author of Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness. They have facilitated radical mental health workshops and performed poetry across North America and Europe. Jacks is passionate about paint, plants, magic, social justice, and parenting a wondrous little daredevil. Their activism and art are the subject of the documentary film Crooked Beauty. Jacks offers somatic coaching and intuitive counseling locally and by video to amazing folks all over the world. Find out more at www.jacksmcnamara.net. You can also find Jacks on Facebook and Instagram.

Sascha Altman DuBrul is a writer and developer of Transformative Mutual Aid Practices living in Oakland, California. He is the author of Maps to the Other Side: The Adventures of a Bipolar Cartographer and currently the training director at the Institute for the Development of Human Arts. Sascha’s interests lie at the intersection of the public mental health system and the Mad Underground. Find him on Instagram and Facebook and on his public/private practice website: https://www.saschadubrul.com/