My name is JB Redmond.<\/p>\n
Look for me in my man-cave, way out in the countryside of Kentucky.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m 29 years old. I was born about 60 days before I was due, and the fourth day I was alive, I suffered a massive stroke. No one knew if I would walk or talk, or be able to do anything for myself at all. I was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy, and then with autistic features, and when I was four years old, I could only say seven words. I was scheduled to start school in a self-contained special education classroom designed for children who would likely be fully dependent for the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n
Then, a lot of things changed. I learned to talk. I learned to talk so much that my mom threatened to sue the hospital that told her I would be non-verbal, so they would have to take out my vocal cords before her ears fell off. I didn\u2019t talk very plainly, and still don\u2019t, due to dysarthria \u2014 but I would hold my own in an Olympic chattering event.<\/p>\n
I have never able to walk, my muscles are weak, I have rods in my back, I have wounds on my feet that won\u2019t heal, I have seizures, and I\u2019m legally blind. I\u2019m telling you this because if you meet me, these are the first things you\u2019ll see. You won\u2019t be able to help it, and I won\u2019t get mad at you for that. I\u2019ll roll up to you in an electric chair, extend a hand that won\u2019t hold itself quite straight, and say hello with slightly slurred speech. I might be looking a little to your left, too, because my eyes don\u2019t always cooperate. We\u2019ll be polite to each other. If you can\u2019t speak a few phrases in Klingon, have never tried to cast one of the spells in the Harry Potter books, and haven\u2019t wondered at least once what it would be like to be a vampire or a dragon, then we might not have much in common. If, however, you can point to the desert world of Arrakis on a map of the universe, confidently sketch a photon torpedo (dorsal view), or prove fluency in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of Men, we might be headed to lunch. If you spell Neil Gaiman\u2019s name correctly, and you can do a dramatic reenactment of any chapter in Bram Stoker\u2019s\u00a0Dracula<\/em>, I\u2019ll even buy. \u201cI\u2019m a hard nut to crack, and I take it standing up,\u201d or at least sitting straight and rolling fast.<\/p>\n What you won\u2019t be able to see when you first meet me is this: I\u2019m a published author. I read all the time \u00ad \u2014though in my case, the proper term would be \u201clisten\u201d since I read by audiobook \u2014 and I write all the time, too. I dictate, using an old-fashioned cassette recorder, and my mother types up my finished drafts.<\/p>\n Obviously, I most enjoy science fiction and fantasy, but I\u2019ve never found too many disabled characters in the books I enjoy, unless they\u2019re villains or buffoons. In fantasy, disability tends to equate with evil or sainthood, and that gets seriously old, very quickly. In science fiction, disability usually gets cured by technology, genetic manipulation, robotic implants or exoskeletons, or advanced surgical techniques and medicines. Disability never seems to be okay, or allowed to exist in futuristic worlds, unless they\u2019re dystopian. Recently, I was thrilled to see the movie\u00a0Battleship<\/em>, in which the character Lieutenant Colonel Mick Canales (an Army veteran and double amputee), played by Gregory Gadson, has a realistic disability. The solution is equally real-life, his prosthetic legs, and his struggles felt both very real and very personal to me. Best of all, he wasn\u2019t a character to be pitied, and he didn\u2019t see himself as weak or ineffectual. Neither do I. And I hope to see more characters like this in both books and film, played by people who face the challenges in real life. (Don\u2019t get me started on using able-bodied actors to play people with disabilities.)<\/p>\n As for me and my writing, I began telling stories just as soon as I learned to talk. (Please reference the bit about my mother\u2019s ears falling off.) My body couldn\u2019t play, so I focused on creating worlds and universes and characters and stories, and that was how I coped with not being able to do things like other people my age could do. I remember telling stories to my family and friends on long trips, and I particularly loved entertaining much older relatives like my great uncle. They seemed to listen better, and to enjoy the stories even more. When I got older, I began using a cassette recorder to dictate, and that\u2019s how I wrote my portions of\u00a0Oathbreaker: Assassin\u2019s Apprentice<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Oathbreaker: Prince Among Killers<\/em>\u00a0(Bloomsbury, 2009).<\/p>\n Co-authoring these books with my mother Susan Vaught was one of the greatest achievements of my life. Having novels published built my confidence, and I\u2019m working on several more fantasy tales \u2014 this time solo! I still use cassette dictation, because voice recognition software can\u2019t yet handle my dysarthria. Also, I can\u2019t edit the text myself, due to my visual and motor problems. Dictating works better, but it\u2019s getting harder and harder to find traditional cassette recorders and microphones. I may have to learn digital dictation soon. (Boo! Hiss!) We could do a whole topic on BETTER ADAPTIVE TECHNOLOGY PLEASE<\/span>,\u00a0and while I\u2019m at it, why can\u2019t all stories automatically get audio versions? Because I\u2019m totally sick of getting into a series, then having the last few books be print only.<\/p>\n The most wonderful thing about words and writing and stories is, there are no limits. I don\u2019t plan to limit myself in any way with what I write, or how high I reach in my goals.<\/p>\n My name is JB Redmond.<\/p>\n Look for me in the hinterlands of Kentucky \u2014 or on the shelves of your local bookstores, all over this country, and all over this world, and out of it, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What you won\u2019t be able to see when you first meet me is this: I\u2019m a published author. I read all the time. I write all the time, too. I dictate, using an old-fashioned cassette recorder, and my mother types up my finished drafts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_generate-full-width-content":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[74],"genre":[],"age_category":[],"disability":[68,104,105],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=414"},{"taxonomy":"age_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age_category?post=414"},{"taxonomy":"disability","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disability?post=414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}