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We recap the highlights of our #diklSFF Twitter chat, including a link to the full Storify.

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?

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?

Our reviewers interview author and Disability in Kidlit editor Corinne Duyvis about disability tropes, survival in the apocalypse, and writerly research.

An emotionally wrenching book, but a worthy one, and one that treats its autistic protagonist with every bit of the realism and respect that she deserves.

When we talk about disability and sci-fi/fantasy, the first thing many will think of is the magical disability trope. But what does this trope entail and imply? And how can you subvert it?

I related to Mahlia’s struggle with the harsh words hurled at her because of her limb deficiency — sometimes wanting to prove herself and sometimes wanting to keep her distance.

Heidi Heilig and S. Jae-Jones sit down to talk about the book’s portrayal of bipolar disorder, writing mental illness, and writing with a mental illness.

These magical or futuristic “fixes” seem rooted in a discomfort with disability: many writers cannot (or don’t want to) imagine a life without sight and therefore create excuses to give their character equivalent sighted experiences.

In science-fiction and fantasy, you invariably run into fictional disabilities and allegories. Do these “count” as disability? What makes them work successfully in a book?

An accurate, respectful, and deftly handled portrayal of Tourette’s Syndrome, from an author who has the condition himself.

While I don’t think disability metaphors are sufficient disability representation, I do think that they’ll come up naturally in many stories, and that they’re relevant to the discussion of disability in SFF.

Science fiction and fantasy tell us that anything can happen, and yet disabled people are often told that their narratives don’t fit into the genres.

The Islands at the End of the World excels on many levels — but from a purely disability perspective, it fall short of its mark.

Stranger represents a case where verisimilitude — the appearance of plausibility — succeeds where a more realistic representation of disability might have failed.

At its core, the Mystical Disabled Person trope is about a disabled character — frequently mentally ill, developmentally disabled, and/or blind — with some sort of unusual ability. This trope is varied, flexible, and depressingly common.

Shaunta Grimes’s Viral Nation is the rare YA dystopian novel with an autistic protagonist; we were keen to sit down with the author to discuss the book, its sequel Rebel Nation, and its protagonist Clover Donovan.

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.

The first time I’ve really seen someone in a book who is just like me, and she turns out to be a superhero.

The description for this book uses the phrase “brilliant but autistic” to describe its main character, and that’s where our conflicted feelings about Viral Nation start.

The story suggests that Kira’s talents as a threader make up for her disability, justifying her continued survival — with the disturbing implication that without it, she would be worthless.

Pete’s autism is portrayed over and over again as being non-stop pain and suffering. That got incredibly hard to read; do people really think this is what autism is like?