About
The Disability Visibility Project is an online community dedicated to creating, sharing, and amplifying disability media and culture.
What does the DVP do?
- Believes that disabled narratives matter and that they belong to us
- Encourages people with disabilities to go to StoryCorps or use the StoryCorps app and record their oral histories with the option of having them archived at the Library of Congress
- Publishes original essays, reports, and blog posts about ableism, intersectionality, culture, media, and politics from the perspective of disabled people
- Builds online spaces for people to share, organize, and connect
- Champions disability culture and history
- Organizes and facilitates events, gives presentations, participates on panels
- Supports and amplifies the work of other disabled people and organizations in the community using social media
- Partners and collaborates with other activists and organizations in various campaigns such as #CripTheVote, #CripLit, Access Is Love, and DisabledWriters.com
- Consults and provides professional services through Disability Visibility LLC
NOTE: The Disability Visibility Project does not represent or speak for StoryCorps in any way. The DVP did not create the #CripTheVote campaign but is a co-partner in that movement.
Also: the usage of the word ‘visibility’ in the project name is metaphorical. It is not meant to privilege one sensory experience over others.
Disability Visibility Project® is a trademark of Alice Wong. All rights reserved. (c) Alice Wong 2016.
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ABOUT
Alice Wong (she/her) is a disabled activist, writer, editor, and community organizer. Alice is the founder and director of the Disability Visibility Project, an online community dedicated to creating, sharing, and amplifying disability media and culture.
Alice is a co-partner in four projects: DisabledWriters.com, a resource to help editors connect with disabled writers and journalists, #CripLit (no longer active), a series of Twitter chats for disabled writers with novelist Nicola Griffith, #CripTheVote, a nonpartisan online movement encouraging the political participation of disabled people with co-partners Andrew Pulrang and Gregg Beratan, and Access Is Love with co-partners Mia Mingus and Sandy Ho, a campaign that aims to help build a world where accessibility is understood as an act of love instead of a burden or an afterthought.
Alice’s areas of interest are popular culture, media, politics, disability representation, Medicaid policies and programs, storytelling, social media, and activism.
She has been published in the New York Times, KQED, High Country News, Orion Magazine, Vox, Radiolab, PEN America, Catalyst, Syndicate Network, Uncanny Magazine, Curbed SF, Eater, Bitch Media, Teen Vogue, Transom, Making Contact Radio, and Rooted in Rights.
Her activism and work has been featured in the CNN original series United Shades of America (Season 3, Episode 4), Huffington Post, WNYC’s Death, Sex, and Money podcast, KQED’s Truth Be Told podcast, Wired, The Hill, Autostraddle, WNYC’s Werk It: The Podcast, The Guardian, Roll Call, WBUR radio, Al Jazeera, Teen Vogue, Bitch Media, Rewire, Vice, Esquire, CNET, and Buzzfeed.
In 1997 she graduated with degrees in English and sociology from Indiana University at Indianapolis. She has a MS in medical sociology and worked at the University of California, San Francisco as a Staff Research Associate for over 10 years. During that time she worked on various qualitative research projects and co-authored online curricula for the Community Living Policy Center, a Rehabilitation Research and Training Center funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research.
Recognized for her service to the community and activism at the local and national level, Alice received the Beacon Award by the San Francisco Mayor’s Disability Council in 2010 and the Disability Service Award by the University of California, San Francisco in 2011. From 2013 to 2015 Alice served as a member of the National Council on Disability, an independent federal agency charged with advising the President, Congress, and other federal agencies regarding policies, programs, practices, and procedures that affect people with disabilities, appointed by President Barack Obama. Alice was the recipient of the 2016 AAPD Paul G. Hearne Leadership Award, an award for emerging leaders with disabilities who exemplify leadership, advocacy, and dedication to the broader cross-disability community.
Alice launched the Disability Visibility podcast in September 2017 as host, co-audio producer, and writer. She edited and self-published Resistance and Hope: Essays by Disabled People in October 2018.
In 2018 Alice was featured in the Bitch 50, a list recognizing the most impactful creators, artists, and activists in pop culture by Bitch Media and Colorline’s 20 X 20, a group of transformative leaders reimagining what it means to advance racial justice.
In 2020 Alice was named by Time magazine as one of 16 people fighting for equality in America. Alice self-published and edited #ADA30InColor, a series of essays by disabled people of color in July. Alice was featured with activists such as Angela Davis and Dr. Bernice A. King on the cover of British Vogue’s September issue. For the Pop Culture Collaborative, she guest edited Break The Story Volume IV: Disability Visibility, a snapshot of disability. Along with 19 other disabled artists, Alice was named a Disability Futures fellow, a grant by the Ford Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation administered by United States Artists. Alice also received the Indiana University Bicentennial Medal for her contributions to disability justice and broadening the reach of IU around the world.
In 2021, Alice was named a changemaker by Marie Claire magazine. She co-edited a digital issue that year, The Access Series with Bitch Media that expands the meaning of access in everyday life. Alice’s first role as a voice actor was in Someone Dies In This Elevator podcast, season 1, episode 11, “Hot Wheels,” as Waverly.
In 2022, Alice was included in Gold House’s A100 List, a list honoring 100 Asians and Pacific Islanders who had the most impact on culture and society over the past year. She created the Society of Disabled Oracles with co-partners Aimi Hamraie and Jen White-Johnson.
Alice is the editor of Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century (Vintage Books, 2020), an anthology of essays by disabled people and Disability Visibility: 17 First-Person Stories for Today, an adapted version for young adults (Delacorte Press 2021).
Her debut memoir, Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life is available now from Vintage Books. Disability Intimacy, her next anthology, will be out in 2024.
In 2023, Alice became a columnist for Teen Vogue and recipient of the Community Award from the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies. She also was a voice actor portraying Alice, a character loosely based on her, in season two of Human Resources, an animated series on Netflix. In partnership with Eater, Alice co-edited Low and Slow, a series of food writing by disabled people. Year of the Tiger received a Northern California Book Award for creative nonfiction. For the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Alice became the podcaster-in-residence for Raw Material podcast.
In 2024, Year of the Tiger was selected as the Adult Nonfiction Winner by the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association.
Alice also works as an independent research consultant as part of her side hustle with clients such as Netflix, Twitter, and other disability rights organizations. Alice is a public speaker and represented by The Steven Barclay Agency.
For more about her work, you can go to her website or check out the latest on Twitter @SFdirewolf and Instagram @Disability_Visibility.
For headshots and shorter bios of Alice, check out her Media Kit.
Twitter: @SFdirewolf @DisVisibility
Instagram: @disability_visibility
Bluesky: @SFdirewolf.bsky.social
Newsletter: https://disability-visibility-newsletter.ghost.io
Email: DisabilityVisibilityProject@gmail.com
Newsletter: https://disabilityvisibility.substack.com/
Speaking requests: please contact Steven Barclay at Steven Barclay Agency, 707-773-0654; steven@barclayagency.com and Alyssa Jones, 707-773-0654; alyssa@barclayagency.com
Access rider for speaking events (updated September 2023)
Team DVP
Freelance Audio Producers for the Disability Visibility podcast (September 2017- April 2021)
Learn more and support these amazing audio producers!
Geraldine Ah-Sue, Cheryl Green, and Sarika D. Mehta
Enjoyed reading your NY Times Op-ed piece. I hope more voices like yours are heard in the din that is the health care debate.
Thank you very much, Tri!!