8/29 #CripLit chat: Disabled Writers, Ableism & the Publishing Industry

#CripLit Twitter Chat

Disabled Writers, Ableism & the Publishing Industry

Co-hosts: Nicola Griffith @nicolaz

& Alice Wong @DisVisibility

Guest host: Denarii Monroe @writersdelite

Monday, August 29, 2016

4 pm Pacific/ 7 pm Eastern

The Disability Visibility Project is proud to partner with novelist Nicola Griffith in our second #CripLit Twitter chat for disabled writers. Nicola Griffith is the creator of the #CripLit series and the DVP is the co-host/supporting partner. For our second chat, we are both excited to have guest host Denarii Monroe, freelance writer, aspiring screenwriter, and activist.

All disabled writers are welcome to participate in the chat including reporters, essayists, poets, cartoonists, bloggers, freelancers, unpublished or published. We want to hear from all of you! Check the #CripLit hashtag on Twitter for announcements of future chats that will focus on different genres or topics.

How to Participate

Follow @nicolaz @DisVisibility @writersdelite on Twitter

Use the hashtag #CripLit when you tweet. If you only want to respond to the questions, check @DisVisibility’s timeline during the chat. The questions will be tweeted several minutes apart.  

Check out this explanation of how to participate in a chat by Ruti Regan: https://storify.com/RutiRegan/examplechat

If you don’t use Twitter and want to follow along in real-time, check out the live-stream: http://twubs.com/CripLit  

#CripLit Tweets for 8/29 chat

Welcome to #CripLit! Created by @nicolaz, we will discuss ableism & the publishing industry. Our guest host for this chat is @writersdelite

When we mention the publishing industry we include agents, editors, booksellers, publishers, media (print and online publications) #CripLit

…production and distribution companies (for screenwriters), etc. #CripLit

If you respond to a question such as Q1, your tweet should follow this format: “A1 [your message] #CripLit”

Q1 Please introduce yourself, describe your background in writing, and any links about you & your work #CripLit

Q2 What made you want to become a writer? How did you start & what are some of the major issues you face now in your writing? #CripLit

Q3 How is the publishing industry ableist/racist/sexist/cis-normative (among  others)? Share your thoughts and experiences. #CripLit

Q4 What barriers (physical, cultural, emotional) do you face as a disabled writer? #CripLit

Q5 Were you expecting the barriers you’ve encountered? What did you do? How did you feel? How did organisers respond? #CripLit

Q6 If you are a freelancer or are published, what is your advice to disabled writers who want to get their work out? #CripLit

Q7 In your interactions w/ the industry, how does ableism inform their ideas of what it takes to be a ‘professional’ writer? #CripLit

Q8 What’s your advice to other disabled writers on navigating and making connections w/ the publishing industry? #CripLit

Q9 In your opinion, how has ableism shaped the kinds of #CripLit published & authors that are promoted?

Q10 What messages do you want to send to those in the publishing industry (agents, book buyers, editors) about #CripLit & ableism?

This concludes our 2nd #CripLit chat! Please keep the convo going. Thank you very much to our guest host @writersdelite!!

Be sure to tweet co-hosts @nicolaz @DisVisibility questions, comments, and ideas for the next #CripLit chat

Additional Links

Disability Art, Scholarship and Activism

Nicola Griffith (5/18/16)

Writing Culture Has An Ableism Problem

Denarii Monroe (6/14/16)

Dear Able Friends: I Am Not Your Inspiration Porn

Karrie Higgins (10/5/15)

4 Ways the Publishing Industry Promotes Ableism

Katherine Lampe (10/9/15)

Fat Writers: On Privilege, Ableism, and Humanity

Kristian Wilson (5/19/16)

Writing program association continues to debate access for members with disabilities

Josh Logue (3/28/16)

About

Denarii Monroe

 

Denarii (rhymes with “canary”) is an aspiring screenwriter, freelance writer, and a weirdo born, raised, and based in New York. She’s a Rutgers University alum and a two-year Pace University dropout; she studied English and Adolescent Education, respectively. She’s written for BlogHer, Black Girl Dangerous, Everyday Feminism, Wear Your Voice Mag, Extra Crispy (a subsidiary of Time, Inc.), and is a regular contributor at Ravishly. You can follow her on Facebook and find her on Twitter and Instagram ([at]writersdelite). Selfies, pictures of her dog named Dog, the new addition to her family – a kitten named Cat, raving about Matthew Gray Gubler, and ranting (or retweeting) about the writing process and racist, ableist, classist, fat-antagonistic heteropatriachary. She loves Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as soul food, red wine, cooking and baking, and the blues. Hanson is her favorite band ever (yes, that Hanson).

Source: http://www.ravishly.com/contributors/9223

 

Nicola Griffith is a native of Yorkshire, England, where she earned her beer money teaching women’s self-defence, fronting a band, and arm-wrestling in bars, before discovering writing and moving to the US. Her immigration case was a fight and ended up making new law: the State Department declared it to be “in the National Interest” for her to live and work in this country. This didn’t thrill the more conservative powerbrokers, and she ended up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, where her case was used as an example of the country’s declining moral standards.

In 1993 a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis slowed her down a bit, and she concentrated on writing. Her novels are Ammonite (1993), Slow River (1995), The Blue Place (1998), Stay (2002), Always (2007) and Hild (2013). She is the co-editor of the BENDING THE LANDSCAPE series of original short fiction. Her multi-media memoir, And Now We Are Going to Have a Party: Liner Notes to a Writer’s Early Life, is a limited collector’s edition. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in an assortment of academic texts and a variety of journals, including Nature, New Scientist, Los Angeles Review of Books and Out. She’s won, among others, the Washington State Book Award, the Tiptree, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards, the Premio Italia, and six Lambda Literary Awards.

Source: https://nicolagriffith.com/2014/02/24/about/

Alice Wong is a San Francisco-based disability advocate, freelance journalist, television watcher, cat lover, and coffee drinker. Alice is the Founder and Project Coordinator for the Disability Visibility Project (DVP), a community partnership with StoryCorps and an online community dedicated to recording, amplifying, and sharing disability stories and culture. Currently she is a co-partner with Andrew Pulrang and Gregg Beratan for #CripTheVote, a non-partisan online campaign encouraging the political participation of people with disabilities. She is also a Staff Research Associate at the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, UCSF.