#diklSFF: A Conversation About Disability in Science Fiction and Fantasy
We recap the highlights of our #diklSFF Twitter chat, including a link to the full Storify.
We recap the highlights of our #diklSFF Twitter chat, including a link to the full Storify.
When it comes to writing, we have to be willing to examine, with suspicion, our own character creation and world-building.
Ever seen the Allstate commercial? “I’m a random windstorm. Shaky, shaky.” Well, sometimes that’s how life feels when you’re a kid with disabilities. Because I’m both very random and my life can be, well, pretty shaky.
Blind characters seem to always go too far in either one direction or the other—either completely ruled by their disability, or completely unfazed. The truth is, I hate both, because neither is honest.
We take a close look at the state of recognizable representation of visibly disabled characters on book covers.
I used to think there would be a magical cure for my blindness. I don’t remember this, but my mother assures me it’s true.
After second grade, I stopped reading most books unless they were assigned for class. Even then, I often didn’t read them. The reason being, when I read a sentence, I often didn’t understand it. Somewhere between my eyes seeing the words and my brain, the phrase disappeared into the ether.
The most common wheelchair-using character has acquired paraplegia, but why is this particular narrative so prevalent, and at the expense of all others?
We’ve been wanting to shake hands with the good folks of the Schneider Family Book Award–an ALA award which highlights depictions of disability in children’s literature–for a while, and July 2014 marked the perfect time: while we celebrated our first anniversary, the Schneider celebrated its tenth!
A one-armed astronaut superhero is the lead in Dangerous, the unusual new novel by NYT bestselling and Newbery Honor-winning author Shannon Hale, who sat down with us for a great interview.