Writing disability respectfully can be difficult, especially in the midst of large, seemingly contradictory conversations about representation. How should frustrated or concerned authors approach this?
Although I was underwhelmed by the portrayal of albinism in Akata Witch, it’s a great novel that features the first strong, sympathetic lead with albinism I’ve seen in quite a few years.
Wonderstruck is wonderful. It is, to date, the most creative and ambitious novel about the d/Deaf experience in America I’ve ever come across.
The characterization and descriptions of Grace do disabled readers a disservice in more ways than one.
The only way I can describe Take a Good Look by Jacqueline Wilson is a book designed to educate young children about visual impairment gone horribly wrong.
Although I sometimes genuinely enjoyed myself while reading this book, those times were unfortunately outweighed by the serious inaccuracies.
A nuanced, natural depiction of disability, realistic in both its physical presentation and the character’s emotional reactions.
Although Laureth didn’t represent me as a blind person, Sedgwick didn’t feed off tropes and stereotypes; instead, he met with many young blind people and found out about their lives.
The “autism voice”—characterized by narrative devices and a detached character voice—tends to portray autistic characters as unworldly, hyper-rational blank slates defined purely by a series of unusual behaviors.
If our contributors could tell an author writing a character with their disability one thing–besides “do your research”–what would it be?