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Issue 15
Mental Health, Wellness & the Arts
Let’s gather around the healing fire of creativity.
For Issue 15, The Polyglot seeks to explore the vital role of creativity in navigating the complexities of mental health and wellbeing. We invite you to share how art, in its myriad forms—poetry, prose, music, sound, image, dance, and hybrid expressions—has supported your journey toward healing, care, or connection.
We invite creators from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds to contribute their work to this special issue.
Submit by: June 30, 2025
Honorarium: $100 CAD
If you’re seeking inspiration, consider reflecting on questions such as:
How has creativity held you through loss, grief, change, or becoming?
How has your creative or artistic practice helped you stay rooted in uncertain times?
How does your language, or languages, support your well-being?
When the ground beneath you felt unsteady, how did art become a place to land?
How do you find solace, strength and understanding through creative expression?
These prompts are just suggestions to spark your creativity, feel free to follow them or to chart your own path.
Submission Guidelines
Submissions close at 11:59 pm on June 30, 2025
Number of Submissions: You may submit up to 3 pieces total. This can include a combination of literary, visual, and hybrid works.
Literary Submissions: Submissions can be in any language(s) that explore the deeply personal relationship between your inner world and the creative arts. All linguistic levels are encouraged to submit—whether you’re fluent, reconnecting with a heritage language, or exploring a language for the first time.
Art Submissions: We welcome 1-3 artworks across various media, including photography, drawing, painting, digital art, sculpture, video, music, dance, weaving, and traditional art forms. For visual art, please submit high-resolution JPEG or PNG files. For video or music submissions, please submit MP3 or MP4 files.
Cover Submissions: If you wish to submit cover art, please indicate that in your submission. No artist statement is required for cover art submissions.
Artist Statement: To accompany your submissions, we request a short artist statement (200-300 words) reflecting on your creative process, language use, or themes of wellbeing that relate to your work. Examples of artist statements can be found in past issues of The Polyglot.
Biography: Please provide a brief biography (100-200 words). We welcome you to include any social media profiles or websites where readers can follow your work.
Guest Editors
Aaima Azhar
Aaima Azhar is a Pakistani-Canadian Muslim who lives and breathes art in all its forms, resonating deeply with words and the magic they call forth. She is a bestselling author, spoken word poet, artist, and award-winning filmmaker. Her debut poetry collection, A Thing With Teeth, is available on multiple platforms, and she would be honoured for you to share in its journey alongside her. Aaima is currently working as a Mental Health Capacity Building Wellness Coach with Edmonton Public Schools, and is pursuing her Masters of Counselling; she believes in the ever-present importance of attending to one’s heart and hopes to build a career that reflects that. She is a community organizer and the founder of Daaira House — a space for creative wellness. Her work has touched hearts across the globe, and she hopes to grow flowers with her art in all the places it may reach.
Zainab Azhar
Zainab Azhar is a beholder of beauty and beautiful things, often found with charcoal dusting her hands more than the canvas. Her interests lie in making anything with the hands, from fabric and film, to writing and art, and she is a lover of gathering in spaces abound in blood memory. She finds herself riveted by the relationship between humankind and medium, by archetype and ritual, by the veils that unveil. Zainab does some other things too. Other things being: creative direction, consulting and facilitation design for organizations, nonprofits and prisons. Zainab is also an experience designer having recently shared her first exhibition in New York, The New Frame curated by OdysseyWorks, where she explored the essence of one's inner maker through an inwardly spiritual and immersive storytelling experience.
Daaira House is a space intended for a spiritually grounded exploration of art, poetry, and wellness. This is a corner to gather and to learn from each other, to reflect deeply and rest fully, and to grow inwards and upwards, towards light in all its forms. Inspired by the Urdu and Arabic words — دائرہ and دائِرة — meaning ‘circle,' it is an ode to the cyclical patterns of our states of being, the simple act of sitting together on a carpet, and the infinite nature of our Creator.
Enhance Your Submission with Editorial Feedback
Your work deserves to be read, so we do not charge a submission or reading fee. We offer the option of receiving feedback on your work from a member of The Polyglot’s editorial team for $10 CAD. You can access this opportunity using the button below.
