Ever wonder where your mind goes during a three-hour surgery sedation? I’m here to tell you I have an exquisite recall of the event. My surgeon begs to differ, but I briefed myself before the propofol ran wild, causing my left arm to freeze before blowing apart.

My manual communication went unnoticed as masked humans sliced new incisions and wrestled out the old implants. I could hear muffled voices discussing the scar tissue of eleven years of wear, just when my cancer was at a crossroads.

I wanted to clean up the room, jigsaw my arm remnants back into the shape of a limb, and drink coffee. I wanted to go swimming at Kepuhi Beach on Molokai, topless, skip my implants atop the water, and let the mermaids play dress up, ready to claim their identity.

That’s when the sea maidens gathered around my bed and took turns reconstructing my arm. Their luminescent eyebrowed tentacles chimed as they swayed around me, never hesitating to moan in a melody so comforting, so soothing, so indicative of their whale gods.

Before the tide subsides, I am welcomed into their nautical world. Do I leave this all behind? The scar-tissued implants, the diminishment of femininity, and the need for caffeine? They’ve transformed my arm into a fin, a sign of acceptance, a vice for survival, how can I not?

—

Want to read more from Suzanne Nielsen? Get your copy of Face Up: A Collection of Outlaw Poems today! Buy now on Amazon

You are also encouraged to listen to Suzanne Nielsen read from her recently published essay from Oleb Books’ latest title, Accessing Parenthood: Stories by and About Parents With Disabilities, during our virtual book launch party, posted on our YouTube channel.

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The children’s book Reese Has a Halloween Secret, written by Jo Meserve Mach and Vera Lynne Stroup-Rentier, with photographs by Mary Birdsell, is short and sweet — clocking in at just forty pages. The book tells the true story of Reese, a young boy with a disability who, with the help of his loving dad, creates a Halloween costume that includes his wheelchair.

Reese lives with a spinal cord injury caused by a cancerous tumor. He needs to use a wheelchair or a walker in order to get around.

Reese loves Halloween and he loves to build. As the story begins, Reese is excited about Halloween approaching. He decides that his costume should incorporate his wheelchair so he can participate in his school’s Halloween parade. His friends ask him what he’s going to be for the holiday, but Reese keeps it a secret. All will be revealed when the costume is ready.

Throughout most of the book, Reese and his dad work on the costume. Reese himself narrates the story, and there are photos on almost every page. The text is simple and to the point, making it easy for children ages 7-10 to read and follow along. The photos, which are in color, beautifully illustrate Reese and his father’s quiet determination to complete the costume. Their love for each other shines through.

Mach, the book’s publisher as well as co-author, spent 36 years as an occupational therapist. She is very passionate about sharing stories of children with disabilities.

Co-author Stroup-Rentier was a teacher who worked in the fields of early childhood and special education for 25 years. She has a Ph.D. in special education from the University of Kansas and currently works at the Kansas State Department of Education.

Birdsell is a freelance photographer and a former speech and Ttheater teacher.

Reese Has A Halloween Secret is published by Finding My Way Books, a company that shares the stories of children with disabilities. Mach spoke to us about what inspired the book.

“We were inspired by the realization that the Halloween holiday was becoming more and more popular so we wanted to make sure children with disabilities felt included,” she said.

According to Mach, it was photographer Birdsell who saw Reese and his father at a Comic Con she was attending. Reese was dressed as Captain America, and the wheels on his wheelchair were Captain America shields. Birdsell hoped to talk to them, but didn’t have a chance to. The following year, she attended Comic Con again and saw them.

“She told them about our books and they said they’d love to share their story,” Mach said. “They were very involved in the writing process, helping us to be as accurate as possible. They were happy with Reese’s book and bought many copies to share with family and friends.”

Mach reports that readers have enjoyed the book.

“I’ve had fun reading it to classrooms of kids who enjoyed following the clues with each chapter to guess what his costume will be,” she said.

Mach’s work as an occupational therapist has made her feel passionate about including people with disabilities and making Finding My Way titles accessible to everyone.

“We have been very intentional in the design of our books to welcome readers with disabilities,” she said. “The font is easy to read and large. The photographs help tell the story visually to help readers understand it. We have all our books in ebook format.”

Reese Has a Halloween Secret is a lovely book. It illustrates that any child, regardless of disability, can be part of the holiday fun.

The book is available in hardcover and paperback editions on Amazon (link to Amazon). The ebook edition is available in both English and Spanish on Kobo. (Link to English version and link to Spanish version)

For more information on Finding My Way Books, please visit their website at www.findingmywaybooks.com.

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Poet Flower Conroy has been creative since her childhood. While growing up in New Jersey, she was always making arts and crafts, such as Christmas ornaments and jewelry. She would also draw, making up stories to go along with her pictures, which she stapled into little books. Eventually, she realized that her stories were more like poems, and so she began writing poetry. She is now a published and respected poet, with five well-received books available for purchase at Amazon. Conroy’s work has also brought her acclaim. A former resident of Key West, Florida, she was once the Key West Poet Laureate. She is also a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow.

“What drew me to poetry is its infinite ability to gather, to juxtapose,” Conroy, who lives with her wife, said in an interview. “Though I didn’t quite have that language/overt sense of aesthetic when I was younger. It was an escape to where there were dragons and enchanted fields. I could be someone else on the page, someone far more interesting than I was.”

Conroy’s latest collection, A Sentimental Hairpin, was recently published by Tolsun Books. In this work Conroy writes about a very personal part of her life with candor: her mother’s stroke and her experiences as a caregiver during the time that her mother was physically disabled. This wasn’t her first time dealing with a gravely ill parent. In her early 20s, Conroy lost her father, who was only 45 when he passed. As she tells it, her father’s heart had stopped. Paramedics arrived and revived him, lost him a second time and revived him again. But the second revival was in-body only. Her father lay in a coma for a year until the family pulled the plug.

“I’ve not wholly recovered from that, losing him so young and in such a graphic way,” Conroy said. “So when my mother went into the hospital for a stroke, I was flipping out. I’m hesitant to say re-triggered, but my mind went there. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. This was during Covid and my mother lives in New Jersey and I was living in Key West.”

Conroy calls the poems that deal with her mother’s illness the “Love in the Form of” poems, because their titles all begin with those words, such as Love in the Form of Bleach, in which she recalls her mother’s visit with a doctor. The poem reads, in part:

“On the video chat the doctor instructs she lift

her arms. Then: Hold them out, like carrying

a pizza box. Now close your eyes.

When she shuts her eyes she lets fall

her arms. Because she’s hard

of hearing, the nurse & I encourage her

to again hold the make-believe box,

Now close your eyes. She cups her hands

to her face as if covering her nose

& cheeks with invisible cheese.

When we finally get her to extend

her arms while shutting her eyes: See

how the right arm hovers lower? She wants

to come home; take a shower; sit in a chair.

I need another day or two.

My laboring’s only just beginning.”

Conroy spoke of how it affected her emotionally to write about the experiences with her mother.

“Writing is what I do, so I would have been more lost not writing,” she said. “I wasn’t overthinking when I was writing them, I was swept up in the moment, I was overwhelming the page with what was going on inside of me.”

Some of the poems, Conroy recalls, were quite angry, such as one where she touched upon the time when her mother’s best friend came to visit after her mother was released from the hospital. The friend brought her mother a pack of cigarettes.

“But that wasn’t ultimately a poem, it was me venting,” Conroy said. “And I allowed myself to write those poems. The uglier moments, the frustrations and griefs and grievances. And what was distilled into poetry stayed and what was emotional vomit went. Reading the poems now there’s a small sense of relief that that has passed, that my mother is healing.”

Conroy points out that there’s a difference between caregiving for someone during an extended stay and caregiving full time. Both her mother-in-law and sister-in-law are disabled, and both have lived with Conroy and her wife for more than a decade. In her mother’s case, there were additional challenges as her mother lives with diminished hearing.

“When I was there, she wouldn’t hear the tea pot screaming in the kitchen, so I’d shut it off,” Conroy recalls. “She had difficulty hearing the doctors. So of course I worried if I wasn’t there, what might happen.”

In addition to the stroke, her mother was diagnosed with diabetes. Now, on top of all the pills she had to take, Conroy’s mother had to prick her finger and measure her blood sugar. But because she was still recovering from the stroke, she sometimes had to prick herself repeatedly until she could get a reading.

“After the open-heart surgery, she couldn’t sleep in her bed,” Conroy said. “She couldn’t bathe herself or get the medical sports bra on without help. Even combing her own hair was difficult.”

All kinds of challenges would present themselves while Conroy was caregiving for her mother. When she was at her mother’s house, she found herself deep cleaning simply because it needed to be done. She found it cathartic to make the house as pleasant and as safe as possible. To that end, Conroy had her uncle install grab bars by the toilet at her mother’s house and did some rearranging so that her mother could get around with her walker.

“I wish I could say I kept myself grounded and emotionally healthy during this experience,” Conroy says. “I mean I did, but not without also self-medicating and the poems address this.”

And yet she found ways to help keep herself in as good a place as possible during this experience. She would call home and talk to her wife, she would concentrate on helping her mother, which she found also helped her. She would write, and writing, she says, saved her.

“I’d go for walks around her yard,” she adds. “I’d gather fallen branches and found myself building what I call a fairy hut in the corner of the yard where I’d leave seeds for the birds and squirrels. My cousin, who’s more like my brother, and his husband would spend the weekend at my mother’s and we’d play Scopa or Shut the Box. Spending time with them was a balm to the soul.”

Conroy’s advice to anyone who might be caregiving for someone with a disability is simple: develop a “do unto others” approach.

“If I had to rely on someone else helping me bathe or dress, how would I want to be treated?” she asks. “To go slow and have patience. To listen and anticipate. Ask for help when you need it.”

A Sentimental Hairpin, as well as Conroy’s earlier books of poetry, are now available through online bookstores.

The post Poet Flower Conroy on the Poetry of Caregiving appeared first on Oleb Books.

Eight books have been chosen to be honored in the 2022 Schneider Family Book Awards — a prize that acknowledges the artistic expression of disability by authors or illustrators who created their work for child or adolescent readers. The awards are administered by the American Librarian Association, and were announced on January 24, 2022, during the association’s LibLearnX, which was held virtually from January 21-24.

Each winner received a prize of $5,000 and a framed plaque. Winners were selected in three categories: young children from birth through grade school, ages 0-8, middle grades ages 9-13, and teens, ages 14-18. The prize winners represent a diverse array of disabilities and cultures.

1. A Walk in the Woods

A Walk in the Words, written and illustrated by Hudson Talbott and published by Nancy Paulsen Books, is the Schneider Family Book Awards winner in the young children’s honor title. In A Walk in the Words, Talbott shares his own story about facing the challenge of being a slow reader. His love of language and his curiosity got him reading and eventually he became a storyteller, writing more than 27 books for young readers. In the words of his prize-winning book’s description, Talbott discovered he could “paint with words.”

2. A Sky-Blue Bench

A Sky-Blue Bench, written by Bahram Rahman and illustrated by Peggy Collins, was published by Pajama Press Inc. and is also a winner in the young children’s honor title. A Sky-Blue Bench tells the story of Aria, a young Afghani girl who’s excited about her first day back at school since her accident. But Aria is worried about sitting on a hard floor all day with her prosthetic “helper leg.” Aria knows that she will be more comfortable on a bench, and so she sets out to gather materials to build a bench for herself.

3. My City Speaks

My City Speaks won the award for young children. The book was written by Darren Lebeuf, with illustrations by Ashley Barron. Published by Kids Can Press Ltd., My City Speaks is about a visually impaired young girl who explores her city with her father. As they visit various diverse destinations, such as a playground, a community garden, a market and an outdoor concert, the girl describes the things she senses in poetic detail.

4. Stuntboy, in the Meantime

Stuntboy in the Meantime takes the prize for best middle grades honor title. Written by Jason Reynolds and illustrated by Raul the Third, this novel is the fanciful tale of Portico, a Black fourth grader who is secretly a superhero. As Portico tries to dodge neighborhood bully Herbert and deal with his parents arguing, he becomes Stuntboy, determined to save his neighborhood and his parents’ marriage. This book was published by Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

5. A Kind of Spark

Also acknowledged for best middle grade honor title is A Kind of Spark, by Elle McNicoll, a neurodivergent author. Published by Crown Books for Young Readers, McNicoll introduces readers to neurodivergent girl Addie, who tries to get her Scottish town to erect a memorial when she learns that the town used to burn witches simply because they were different.

6. A Bird Will Soar

A Bird Will Soar, by Alison Green Myers, won for best middle grades title. The book follows the story of Axel, a bird-loving autistic child whose family nest is in danger of falling apart. Myers integrates poetry and science as she creates a character whose disability molds his identity. The book was published by Dutton Books For Young Readers.

7. A Face for Picasso: Coming of Age With Crouzon Syndrome

Taking home the Schneider Family Book Awards for teens honor title is A Face for Picasso: Coming of Age With Crouzon Syndrome, by Ariel Henley and published by Farrar Straus Giroux Books For Young Readers. Crouzon Syndrome is a condition in which the seams of the skull fuse abnormally, which affects the shape of the face and skull. Henley’s book is based upon her own experiences of coming of age with this syndrome.

8. The Words in My Hands

And finally, the teens award winner is The Words in My Hands, which was written and illustrated by Asphyxia and published by Annick Press. Set in a futuristic Australia, Asphyxia introduces readers to Piper, a deaf teen, as she searches for her identity.

Learn More About the Schneider Family Book Awards

The 2022 Schneider Family Book Awards committee is headed by co-chairs Suan Hess, a retired New York City school librarian, and Mary-Kate Sableski, an associate professor at the University of Dayton in Ohio. Other members of the committee includ Cathy Andronik, Betsy Fraser, Ashley Mensah, Rachel G. Payne, Sharon Powers, Scot Smith, and Alyson Beecher.

All prize-inning books are readily available for purchase at Amazon.com.

The American Library Association has been the voice of libraries for more than 140 years. They support library professionals and the library’s role in ensuring access to information and in increasing learning. For more information on the Schneider Family Book Awards and other programs and activities of the association, please visit https://www.ala.org/.

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I’m an artist living with schizophrenia. I’ve been open about my illness since it began. I’ve painted my hallucinations, spoken on panels and with the press. Since I gravitate to drawing my experiences, the progression to creating a graphic novel felt natural to me. Still, for many writers with disabilities, the process of adding illustrations to prose could feel like a daunting task. While putting a graphic novel together takes time and dedication, with a little planning, it can be done. Here are a few tips to consider if you are contemplating this form of storytelling.

Tip 1: Get feedback

I talked about my illness for years before I wrote any of it down — like beta testing, one could say. I’m also queer, and sharing about life with schizophrenia was a lot like coming out of the closet. Once out, I was out. Then I started putting it to page. 

I shared my graphic novel idea with friends. They loved it. Friends always do, it seems. Positive feedback is important. It keeps me going. While I know that my friends are biased, I pay careful attention to what they understood, and learn from their reactions.

Tip 2: Set boundaries

You must ask yourself, what am I comfortable revealing? A lot of disabilities are more visible than mental illness, but not everything is easy to write about. Like any memoir writer, you need to decide what you want to put out for the world to see.

Tip 3: Fine tune your sketches

While I’ve told my stories many times, writing them out wasn’t easy. I’m a visual person, so I tried to first draw the whole thing. It didn’t work. I had to adjust the form I wanted my story to live in. I developed the style of pictures and how they reflect my words. If you’re not comfortable with drawing, this is the point when you would look for an illustrator. You would look for someone whose style of drawing fits the personality of your story.

Tip 4: Finance your graphic memoir project

I wrote a grant proposal. This forced me to clarify my story idea. It also pushed me to create an outline and to build a process, and my process was bullet points and lists. I made a list of what happens in the chapters. Sounds easy, huh? I’m tricking you. It’s not. But it was the easiest way for me to move forward with my project. This is where I tried to figure out the story’s arc, the beginning, conflict, climax and resolution.

I know this process seems obvious. Yet it was the grant application that got me to focus. I needed to know what I was going to draw before drawing it, and the questions got me to follow a path. As I got organized, I found that it’s easier to backspace on a computer than ink on paper. Even drawing digitally, I suggest writing first. Initially, my writing looked more like a sloppy script than a polished manuscript, but it was for my eyes only. My first draft had ten chapters. My sixth draft had seventeen.

Tip 5: Find a mentor

The grant allowed me to work with a mentor. Our first meeting, he asked me to explain my story. I did, yet he had no idea what I was talking about. I had to develop a pitch that summarized my graphic novel in no more than three sentences.

Here’s what I came up with for my graphic novel: Crazy Like a Fox: Adventures in Schizophrenia is about a fox trying to survive their first year with the diagnosis. I pull from my experience of symptoms, visiting hospitals, being betrayed, and becoming homeless. I use humor to approach a difficult subject.

While finding a mentor isn’t easy, another option is to have a more seasoned graphic novelist available to run questions by. In some cases, this may have to be a consultant you hire.

Tip 6: Create a drawing schedule

This is tedious, but my favorite part. Having a regular time to work on my drawings helped me to dive deep into the project. It made it possible to build relationships with my characters.  For instance, my protagonist is named Fox. The doctors are drawn as sock puppets. Fox’s nemesis is a dodo bird. I chose to draw creatures and not people because it added a comedic element, it’s fun and it fit the story. This process also helped me realize that words should not describe what happens in the pictures. They need to add something that’s otherwise missing.

Tip 7: Edit your work

I had written the screenplay, had hired the actors, now it was time to direct! Look at your panels and think of different camera angles. See? I told you it’s not easy. Every page and every panel within the page is a composition. When I edit my drawings, I take into account how things are arranged on the page. People read pictures left to right, top to bottom. People pay attention to the words more than the pictures. So be sure your word bubbles are placed so it’s easy to tell in which order to read them. I learned to have consistent handwriting. I wrote every letter in uppercase except the letter “g” because I don’t like the way capital “G” looked. Some computer programs allow you to type the text, I didn’t go high-tech.

Tip 8: Put together a review team

I got a second, third and fourth opinion. I had friends read my thumbnails. I joked that I was writing a book by committee. That’s not accurate. I love show and tell. I love hearing the LOLs. I know I’m doing something right.

This part of the process helped a lot with my first draft. It made me realize that my drawing and storytelling style had changed since I started the project.  For example, there were characters that deserved some background information, like why is Fox’s nemesis so mean? I had to rewrite and redraw to make the book more cohesive. So, yes, I sat down and drew the whole thing over with changes — one page at a time.

The bottom line

Putting together a graphic novel or memoir takes a lot of time and dedication. And in closing, I encourage anyone attempting this storytelling form to not look at the first draft as the final one. I learned that from all the writers I’ve known over all the years. It’s like painting in layers. It takes patience but in the end, you’ll have something beautiful to share with the world.

Christi Furnas is a queer cartoonist, illustrator, oil painter, and disability advocate living with schizophrenia. She has exhibited in galleries across Minnesota and in New York. Her mini-comic Crazy Like a Fox: Adventures in Schizophreniahas sold locally, nationally and internationally. She currently lives and creates in Minneapolis with her wife, two cats and dog. You can learn more about Christi’s work at www.christifurnas.com.

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As a little girl, I knew I wanted to be a writer “when I grew up.” The problem was, I couldn’t read or write. I realized at a young age that I didn’t learn like everyone else. I felt stupid, different, and disconnected from others. I struggled to read, write, and spell for the entirety of my childhood.

I was in seventh grade when my mother had my brother and I tested for a learning disability. At age 12, we discovered we both had dyslexia. I could barely read on a third-grade level, and I couldn’t even spell on a first-grade level. Along with the news that my brother and I had dyslexia, they also told her it was highly likely that neither of us would graduate high school. Looking back, it was a blessing that my mother never told us.

Not only did I have to learn how to navigate the world with a learning disability, but I also survived physical, sexual and emotional abuse. My father was fervently abusive and full of rage for as long as I can remember. At age 8, my older cousin sexually abused me until I was almost 13. At 16, I dated a handsome, charismatic boy from high school who was emotionally abusive and eventually married him. All of these challenges further diminished my self-worth and self-confidence.

As an adult, years after I had overcome many obstacles, I started focusing on how I had overcome all of my trauma, especially the abuse. My desire was to help others overcome and heal from their challenging experiences. That is when I started writing Finding Your Voice: A Path to Recovery for Survivors of Abuse. As I formulated the book, it was a journey of self-discovery as well, as I began to realize the tools I had used to overcome adversity as a young woman.

The desire to overcome my disability and abuse was directly correlated to my mother’s patience, support, and unconditional acceptance. She was a vital part of my survival (and eventual thriving) as an individual. She always said, “Mannette, you are just different. You’re not stupid. Everyone in this world has something to offer; you will just have to discover what it is you have to offer.”

Her support and encouragement were the biggest reasons I graduated high school and never gave up. Every child (and adult) who has faced adversity needs someone in their corner, whether it is a parent, grandparent, teacher, or mentor who accepts and supports them. We all need hope for the future and a feeling of purpose to move past our challenges and grow.

Another key to overcoming adversity is changing our perspective. Self-worth is not only the first self-belief we lose, but it is also the hardest to regain. Knowing your worth is vital for every individual and is what I believe to be the foundation of our self-confidence, self-acceptance, and self-respect. These were the self-beliefs I lost as a victim and growing up with a disability. In order to move forward, I had to let go of a belief that I was stupid, as well as one of being a victim. Instead, I changed my perspective and became a person that believed I was capable of learning. I learned to leave behind the label of victim and believe I was so much more: I was a survivor. I learned to believe in myself and my abilities, and, over time, I regained my self-worth and discovered my value as an individual. The shift in my perspective lead me in a more hopeful and positive direction as I regained my self-worth.

As I matured, I found happiness and contentment in my roles as mom, daughter, sister, wife, small business owner, and, most of all, an individual. I accepted that my life would always be full of ups and downs — along with the occasional abrupt stop. But I had acquired confidence along with a strong self-worth, which allowed me to keep pushing through any challenges life threw my way.

My advice to others with disabilities and those who have survived abuse is to take back your self-worth and continually take action to work through your challenges. Don’t just wait around for your life to change — you have to take the steps! Let go of limiting self-beliefs and replace them with truth. If you’re a parent of a child with a disability or survivor of abuse, learn to be patient, supportive, and accepting as you lead your child toward self-reliance and independence. Empower them to be all that they can be, and never limit them or their dreams. They just might write a book one day!

Learn more about the book Finding Your Voice: A Path to Recovery for Survivors of Abuse on Amazon

Mannette Morgan is an inspirational speaker, author, and abuse survivor who is on a mission to stop the cycle of abuse in our society. After 30 years of intense self-work, she overcame her past trauma of emotional, sexual and physical abuse along with powering through the limitations of her learning disability, dyslexia. A life coach certified through the Academy of Solution Focus Training and the American University of NLP, she has emerged as a leading voice among abuse survivors and today inspires others to rise above adversity and strive for a better life. Her incredible story of survival and recovery is documented in the book “Finding Your Voice.” For more information visit: https://mannettemorgan.com

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Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins has been a disability advocate almost her entire life. At age 6, she had already been excluded from her neighborhood elementary school in Phoenix because of her wheelchair. Her family was unsure how to fight the exclusion.

That changed when her relative, photographer Tom Olin, visited. He described his experience taking pictures at a disability rights demonstration and urged the Keelans to get involved.

Attending her first ADAPT planning meeting was electrifying for Jennifer. “It was the first time I ever saw people in wheelchairs fighting for their rights and empowering themselves. That made a humongous impression.” Jennifer was a natural. By the end of her first protest, she was leading the march.

Jennifer and her mother, Cynthia, became deeply enmeshed in the disability rights community. They joined ADAPT’s national fight for bus lifts and traveled as far as San Francisco and Montreal to march. In 1990, they relocated to Colorado to work with Wade Blank and Atlantis Community, Inc.

At marches, Jennifer especially loved leading the chant, “The people united will never be defeated.”

“That was so powerful,” she remembers. “Even as a young child. I knew what that meant.”

Often Jennifer and her younger sister were the only children at protests, but that didn’t leave her feeling isolated. “I often felt like this was something bigger than myself, that I had a responsibility, not only for myself, but also for other children with disabilities.”

In 1990, when Jennifer was 8 years old, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was introduced in Congress. The disability rights community was, at first, thrilled at the prospect of sweeping legislation to protect disability rights. But excitement changed to concern as Congress dragged its feet at voting on the bill. To pressure Congress, a wide range of disability rights groups planned a joint march on Washington.

The Keelans joined in, marching down Pennsylvania Avenue, holding posters and shouting. The march ended with a rally at the bottom of the steps of the Capitol. At a prearranged signal, people abandoned their wheelchairs and started climbing the steps in a graphic, camera-ready demonstration of the kinds of barriers people with disabilities face.

Jennifer had been in meetings where the Capitol Crawl was planned, but organizers had told her she shouldn’t join in. She was, after all, only 8 years old. But as Jennifer watched her friends and fellow activists start to climb, she started to cry.

“I was heartbroken,” she remembers. Rev. Wade Blank approached her and asked, “Why are you crying?” Jennifer remembers telling him, “Because I want to participate and the others are telling me No.” And that’s when he said, “Do what’s in your heart.”

So Jennifer climbed out of her wheelchair and joined the Capitol Crawl. Soon, it seemed every camera was riveted on her, capturing her steely determination as she made her slow way up the steps. Microphones captured her shouted vow, “I’ll take all night if I have to!”

Images of Jennifer flashed around the world and helped galvanize support for passage of the ADA. Later that summer, it was signed into law.

I write books for kids about important moments in American history. In 2017, I was trying to write about the ADA and the sweeping changes it has brought to American society. Jennifer’s close-up, kids’-eye view of the ADA seemed like the perfect way to invite other kids into the story. I reached out to see if she’d like to work with me on the book and Jennifer agreed, despite being in her busy final semester of college.

I interviewed Jennifer by telephone, and she also patiently answered questions by email. Cynthia helped establish timelines and corroborate details.

Sourcebooks Publishers eagerly signed on to publish this important story for kids, and they invited Jennifer to write the foreword to the book. As is usual, the book’s editor found an illustrator, and Jennifer again slipped into the advisor-in-chief role, as the illustrator came back to her with still more questions.

All the Way to the Top: How One Girl’s Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything will come out on March 10, 2020. Jennifer and I are doing a book tour in Denver, Phoenix and Atlanta. We’ll be sharing the book in bookstores, elementary schools, and on college campuses. Her Capitol Crawl activism is also being commemorated in a sculpture by Gina Klawitter.

The Capitol Crawl is the most famous and widely-known of Jennifer’s protests, but it was far from the last. Today, Jennifer has a college degree in family and human development with a minor in political science. That professional expertise informs her continued activism and advocacy. She is working toward setting up a foundation that will help families access transportation, assistive technology in classrooms, and healthcare. In addition, she works as a Vantage Mobility International Brand Ambassador with Mobility of Denver to spread the word about their new Apex wheelchair accessible conversion van.

Both Jennifer and I hope that as children learn about the fight for the ADA they will appreciate how the ADA has improved all of our lives. We also hope that our story will remind kids that you don’t have to be a grown-up to make a difference.

Even an 8 year old can nudge the world in new directions.

Head to Amazon to pre-order the book now: All the Way to the Top: How One Girl’s Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything (affiliate link)

The post How One Girl’s Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything appeared first on Oleb Books.

The California Gold Rush attracted many unique and memorable characters to the West Coast. From farmhands who wanted to make it rich to crooks who were looking for their next prey, they all came to the Golden State to secure their slice of the pie. One of the most infamous names of that era was six-horse stagecoach driver Charley Parkhurst — who is more commonly remembered by the moniker “One-Eyed Charley.”

Parkhurst — who became blind in one eye after being kicked in the face by a horse — was also a revered shooter. In fact, a popular anecdote is that criminals would avoid stealing from any stagecoach driven by the stocky, tobacco-chewing driver. For decades, Parkhurst safely moved people and precious cargo between cities in California, like San Francisco and Sacramento, on dangerous dirt roads that hugged deep chasms. Records also show one of the eyepatch-wearing driver’s clients was Wells Fargo Bank.

The legend of One-Eyed Charley only grew when, after dying of cancer of the tongue in 1879, at the age of 67, a doctor discovered the famous driver and shooter was an assigned female at birth. A later investigation revealed Parkhurst’s birth name was Charlotte — who grew up as an orphan in New Hampshire.

Historian and educational publisher Mark Jarrett, Ph.D., 66, recently published the textbook E Pluribus Unum. The title, which is Latin for “out of many, one,” complies with California’s new standards under the FAIR Education Act — also known as Senate Bill 48 — a law that added disability and LGBTQ content requirements to the K-12 curriculum in the state. Moreover, one of the historic figures discussed in the book is Parkhurst.

“I wrote E Pluribus Unum myself, from scratch” said Jarrett, “using both the content standards and the 2016 [History-Social Science] Framework as my guide. It was a challenging task, reconciling both documents, but I thought my book would therefore make the job that much easier for teachers in the classroom.”

Little is known about One-Eyed Charley’s personal life, and Jarrett noted that this very fact pushes people to reflect on many issues. He questioned, “Why did Parkhurst choose to live as a man; how did Parkhurst succeed in concealing gender identity for so many decades; did any others know of Parkhurst’s true biological identity; what was Parkhurst’s sexuality, and did Parkhurst have partners?”

While Jarrett admitted he had not heard of Parkhurst prior to reading the new California History-Social Science Framework, released in 2016 — which specifically names Parkhurst in chapter 12, in the eighth grade content, under Women of the West and states “who was born as a female but who lived as a male” — he noted that the famous stagecoach driver has recently gained a lot of popularity through books and movies. Additionally, he also pointed out choosing a pronoun for Parkhurst has proven a difficult task for historians and journalists alike.

“Do we refer to the adult Parkhurst as ‘he’ or ‘she'”? asked Jarrett. “In other words, with Parkhurst, we immediately face the issue of whether gender is a social or biological construction.”

Jarrett, who is an LGBTQ ally and attorney, believes the stories of the LGBTQ community are important. He said, “I see the experiences and struggles of LGBTQ Americans as an important part of this larger story.”

“Middle school students should learn about Parkhurst,” he continued, “because Charley was part of the Old West. Students should realize that the West, like American society today, was not a monotone society, but one that was exceedingly diverse. Students should also realize that some women struggled to have greater choices in the work that they undertook, and in their struggles to be treated with greater respect, and to enjoy greater independence. Finally, middle schoolers are reaching puberty and should appreciate and respect the different feelings that develop. This is what empathy and understanding are all about.”

You can learn more about Jarrett at https://californiasocialstudies.com/about-the-author/ and read more on the FAIR Education Act at https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/senatebill48faq.asp .

Belo Miguel Cipriani is an award-winning author and prize-winning journalist. He will be reading from his new book, “Firsts: Coming of Age Stories by People with Disabilities,” at the Booksmith, in the Haight-Ashbury, September 30, at 7:30pm. For more event info and to RSVP, please click here.

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Not quite seeing or hearing artist and author Terry Galloway ambled through early childhood with mixed emotions. On one end, she was arrogant. In fact, she would even describe herself as “a little shit,” yet she also sought physical approval from the people around her.

“My deafness,” she said, “even before it was diagnosed, made me cleave more to others for a reassurance that I wasn’t quite aware I needed.”

When Galloway was 10 years old, doctors discovered she had a chemical imbalance caused by the introduction of drugs to the fetal nervous system, a result of medication her mother took while Galloway was in the womb. Ultimately, the reaction to the treatment left her deaf and with limited eyesight.

“I was saddled with glasses and hearing aids, and my deafness manifested itself then as a savage insecurity,” she said.

“I was mainstreamed,” Galloway, 68, continued, “and grew up not knowing any other kids who were deaf or Deaf. My own deafness, and my budding, constantly churning sexuality, made me feel warmer toward the kids with their own problems — kids who liked to dress differently, kids who were poor, kids who were too fucking smart for their own good, kids who felt uncertain about their sexualities, kids with disabilities — both hidden and visible. I identified with those odd ducks. When I was in my late teens, I met some other kids who were ‘big D’ Deaf. I admired the hell out of them, but they frightened me a little — they were tough. But then, they had to be.”

In her book, Galloway explained big D Deaf.

“There is a definite hierarchy in that deaf culture,” she writes. “If you are deaf of deaf — a deaf person born to deaf parents — and your language is Sign and the company you keep is primarily deaf, you are Deaf with a capital D.”

With plenty of experiences to draw from, Galloway plunged herself into the arts, and just like many young people with disabilities in the late 1960s, she faced a lot of discrimination.

“When I was graduating from high school, the guidance counselor was advising all my friends who were in the Thespians of the Scarlet Mask to apply for Yale, or UCLA, or any college that had a decent drama department,” she said. “But when I walked in the door, he took one look at me and said, ‘Oh, you’re the one.’ And handed me a brochure that read, errors and all: ‘Factory work make good job for deaf.'”

Like many LGBTQ and disabled people of that time, Galloway carved her own path into the arts. With the help of friends, she sought out or created spaces that would welcome people like her.

“Places with people who didn’t think of me as a waste of time because I couldn’t hear or talked with a kind of muffled lisp,” she said. “And from there I started to write pieces that spoke to the experiences of people like me — that’s when I started doing my solo shows.”

In 2009, Galloway published her memoir, “Mean Little deaf Queer,” which has become a cult classic among people with disabilities. Celebrated lesbian author Dorothy Allison called it “a damn fine piece of work that is unbelievably powerful.” Author Kenny Fries included it in his article on LitHub titled “8 Books That Move Disability from the Margins to the Center.”

“She gives us what we are rarely given in literature: a fully dimensional disabled person, warts and all,” Fries said.

Just a year after the release of her groundbreaking memoir, Galloway received a cochlear implant — a process not all deaf people are eligible for. And even Galloway herself was initially unsure it would work. The surgery allowed Galloway to gain significant hearing and her latest show, “You Are My Sunshine,” is about her experience of negotiating the world of sound.

Galloway identifies as being a “little d” deaf, omni-sexual, happily married, female-ish artist/activist. Along with her partner, Florida State University communication professor Donna Marie Nudd, Ph.D., she splits her time between Austin, Texas and Tallahassee, Florida.

The couple also co-directs the Mickee Faust Club — an arts nonprofit that creates performance opportunities for marginalized communities through workshops.

“I love Mickee Faust,” said Galloway. “I love playing the head rat, Mickee Faust, who is supposedly the sewer dwelling, cigar chomping, beer guzzling, foul mouthed, rat bastard brother of that other more famous unctuous rodent in Orlando.”

To learn more about the Mickee Faust Club, visit http://www.mickeefaust.com. To follow Galloway’s other projects, check out www.theterrygalloway.com.

Belo Cipriani is an award-winning author and prize-winning journalist. His new book, “Firsts: Coming of Age Stories by People with Disabilities,” is now available. Learn more at www.belocipriani.com.

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Oleb Books author Andrew Gurza recently published an article on HuffPost that we wanted to share with our readers. Click here to read all about his latest coming out story on HuffPost!

You can also read more about him in our blog piece titled: Meet Author Andrew Gurza: Shining a Bright Light on Sex and Disability.

Gurza contributed the piece “Baring It All” to our latest anthology, Firsts: Coming of Age Stories by People with Disabilities. Pick up your copy today on Amazon, IndieBound, Kobo, Barnes & Noble or Apple.

Please note that some of the links in this post are affiliate links and I will earn a commission if you purchase through these links (at no additional cost to you). By clicking these links, you consent to us placing a cookie on your browser for commission purposes. Thank you for your support!

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