(Not) Engaging with Disability: Convenient Approaches in SFF
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?
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?
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.
What was originally intended to be a one-month event has now reached its third birthday, and we could not be more ecstatic!
Portrayals of scoliosis in fiction often lack realism. Why is there so little reflection on the factors that affect a person’s journey?
“How did you manage to capture that voice?” beta readers would ask. “How did you know to describe those particular feelings?” I was starting to have a few self-revelations about that.
Romanticization is a common element of mental illness narratives, including many in the YA category; what kind of message does that send?
During April 2015, we’re holding an event dubbed Autism on the Page. Why is this event important? And what can you expect from us?
An estimated 1 in 7 women suffer from chronic pelvic pain; it’s bizarre and disappointing that despite these statistics, there are distinctly zero characters with this condition.
I can feel their eyes on me. They’re all staring, judging.
When we see institutions in YA, we usually see them in one of two contexts: a “sane” person wrongly incarcerated in one, or a spooky (often old, sometimes abandoned but haunted by ghosts) asylum filled with “crazy people.”