Review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
This book portrays its autistic protagonist in ways that will give readers negative, incorrect, and in some cases abusive ideas about autistic people.
This book portrays its autistic protagonist in ways that will give readers negative, incorrect, and in some cases abusive ideas about autistic people.
Julian Birch has a “withered” leg from a childhood bout of polio, and Mitchell’s depiction of him is one of the most believable, relatable portrayals of disability I’ve come across.
For disabled characters, being cured is a common trope. What’s more, in most of these narratives, the characters are cured because they’re better than they were at the start of the book: kinder, gentler, braver. And finally, finally, they’re normal and whole.
Skim does a good job of showing misguided attempts to help those with depression, and lets the reader see the absurdity for themselves.
The most common wheelchair-using character has acquired paraplegia, but why is this particular narrative so prevalent, and at the expense of all others?
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Speculative fiction is work that focuses on difference, work that immerses us in it. But the choices we make when building a fictional world can reflect on the world that we live in now. So how do we worldbuild with disability in mind?
I can’t tell you how many times people have been dismissive or incredulous about my mental illness, simply because I don’t fulfill their preconceived notions about bipolar individuals.
To help authors make informed decisions about what language to use, we talk about disability terminology–from outdated words and cringe-worthy phrases to straight-up ableist slurs, and everything in between.
Magic and technology often minimize disability in SF/F. How can authors meaningfully engage with disability and the ways that speculative elements can affect disabled characters?