Disabled WritersTag

"How easy to let go, to simply slip away" Excerpt from Susan Mockler's Powerful Memoir, Fractured

An instant can change a life. Psychotherapist Susan Mockler was heading to a mountain vacation when the car she was in struck a moose – a moment of impact that would alter her body, her relationships, ...

On Giving Myself Permission Not to Write

I know I have to write it. The essay I’ve been trying to write for a year and a half.I will be in the grocery store or out in the muck of a hike dripping with sweat and a sentence of it will come to ...

I Wrote 100,000 Words in a Month: Or When Productivity is Really Crip Grief

(This is not a ‘How To’ article. This is also not an inspiring story about a disabled person doing an extraordinary thing. There is nothing extraordinary here. There is only a dispatch from a place ...

What Do You Do When Your Disability Keeps You from Writing? What I Learned When I Launched a Brute Force Hack on my Brain

What Do You Do When Your Disability Keeps You from Writing? What I Learned When I Launched a Brute Force Hack on my Brain [1]A few years ago, I started hiking alone. I enjoyed escaping the city to one ...

On Reclaiming Brokenness and Refusing the Violence of ‘Recovery Narratives’

I’m working on this essay when a friend texts me. His therapist suggested he write a list of things that he likes about himself but the picture that shows up on my phone is just a blank page.“Having ...

A Crip Writer’s Advice for Surviving a Pandemic

 “Write a book!”“Finish your memoir!”“Turn all this fear and grief into brilliant poetry!”As we have all now found out, the cultural imperative to be as productive as possible doesn’t disappear ...

Interdependence as Disabled Poetics and Praxis: Or Why My Novel is Dedicated to My Disabled Friend Maddy

People often say that they couldn’t have written their books without the help and support of friends and family. This is particularly true for disabled writers. Finishing my novel required many hours ...