We asked the many independent literary presses and magazines that make up our membership to share with us some of the literature they recommend reading in honor of Disability Pride Month, observed annually in July.
Poetry Collections
Black Under by Ashanti Anderson
Black Lawrence Press | 2021
This poetry chapbook “layers outward perception with internal truth to offer an almost-telescopic examination of the redundancies—and incongruences—of marginalization and hypervisibility.”
You Do Not Have To Be Good by Madeleine Barnes
Trio House Press | 2020
In this poetry collection, Barnes “intimately immerses us in what it means to be chronically ill and reflects on the body’s connection to the planet.”
If This Is the Age We End Discovery by Rosebud Ben-Oni
Alice James Books | 2021
Ben-Oni’s poems “are precisely crafted, like a surgeon sewing a complicated stitch, moving through the multiverses of family, religion, and discovery itself.”
Passager Books | 2023
In this poetry collection, Bergman “offers up poems about aging parents, love, chronic illness, and friendship.”
Haymarket Books | 2024
Dobbs’ poetry collection “explores surveillance, queerness, disability, race, and working-class identity in post-9/11 America.”
This, Sisyphus by Brandon Courtney
YesYes Books | 2019
According to Justin Phillip Reed, “Courtney’s erotic, erosive soldier’s psalms enunciate the guilt of doing what one can with the awful gift of a human life in the aftermath of another’s destruction.”
The Bearable Slant of Light by Lynnell Edwards
Red Hen Press | 2024
This poetry collection “documents a web of clinical assessments, medications, the terrible beauties of delusion, and the fragile gifts of darkness.”
Phantompains by Therese Estacion
Book*hug Press | 2021
This poetry collection, which takes inspiration from Filipino horror and folktales, “is a visceral, imaginative collection exploring disability, grief and life by interweaving stark memories with dreamlike surrealism.”
Flare, Corona by Jeannine Hall Gailey
BOA Editions | 2023
Flare, Corona “paints a self-portrait of the layered ways that we prevail and persevere through illness and natural disaster.”
The Wild Language of Deer by Susan Glass
Slate Roof Press | 2021
According to Alison Luterman, this chapbook, “with its exquisite woodcuts and a poem in Braille translation, will subtly reorient your relationship to our world.”
Decade of the Brain by Janine Joseph
Alice James Books | 2023
This poetry collection is “an odyssey of what it means to recover—physically and mentally—in the aftermath of trauma and traumatic brain injury, charting when ‘before’ crosses into ‘after.’”
Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky
Graywolf Press | 2019
A finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Kaminsky’s “astonishing parable in poems asks us, What is silence?”
Switchback Books | 2024
According to Cynthia Arrieu-King, Khoury “plunges us into the heartbreak of caregiving, maternal relationships, disability, and abusive dismissal.”
Only Bread, Only Light by Stephen Kuusisto
Copper Canyon Press | 2000
In his first poetry collection, Kuusisto “explores blindness and curiosity, loneliness and the found instruments of continuation.”
Switchback Books | 2008
According to Gerry Gomez Pearlberg, “Munson’s intriguing, kaleidoscopic poems transport the reader into a tough- and tender-hearted world of blood, illness, medical authoritarianism, and stubborn life force.”
Body of Diminishing Motion Poems and a Memoir by Joan Seliger Sidney
CavanKerry Press | 2004
This collection of poetry and memoir “speaks to the author’s experiences living with multiple sclerosis for four decades.”
We Mad Climb Shaky Ladders by Phoebe Sparrow Wagner
CavanKerry Press | 2009
This collection features “poems written over the course of twenty-five years as the author struggled to live with a devastating mental illness, paranoid schizophrenia.”
Cyborg Detective by Jillian Weise
BOA Editions | 2019
Weise’s third collection of poetry “holds a magnifying glass to the marginalization and fetishization of disabled people while claiming space and pride for the people who already use technology and cybernetic implants every day.”
Novels, Fiction Anthologies & Short Fiction Collections
Feminist Press | 2022
According to Jamia Wilson, “Moore’s sharp and provocative voice adds much-needed complexity to the public discourse about the impact of COVID-19 on queer and disabled communities.”
Autumn House Press | 2023
This short fiction collection “is a celebration of the bond of devotion possible between humans and dogs, and it presents an intimate rendering of the lives we share.”
Someplace Generous: An Inclusive Romance Anthology
Generous Press | 2024
Edited by Elaina Ellis and Amber Flame, this anthology “presents voices largely new to the genre of romance, each bringing a fresh take on what it means to tell a love story.”
Nonfiction Books
Head Above Water: Reflections on Illness by Shahd Alshammari
Feminist Press | 2023
This hybrid memoir “revisits personal journals to slowly piece together a narrative of chronic illness—a moving account of survival, memory, loss, and hope.”
Cataloguing Pain by Allison Blevins
YesYes Books | 2023
In this memoir, Blevins “explores motherhood, sexuality, and queerness as it juxtaposes the author’s diagnosis of MS with her partner’s gender transition.”
In Hospital Environments: Essays on Illness and Philosophy by Jake Goldsmith
Sagging Meniscus Press | 2024
According to P. J. Blumenthal, this essay collection “should be made required reading for the chronically ill and the chronically healthy in the school of life.”
A Dangerous Country: An American Elegy by Ron Kovic
Akashic Books | 2024
Kovic “completes his Vietnam Trilogy with this poignant, inspiring, and deeply personal elegy to America.”
Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc
Coach House Books | 2020
In this book, Leduc “looks at fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm to Disney, showing us how they influence our expectations and behaviour and linking the quest for disability rights to new kinds of stories that celebrate difference.”
Bellevue Literary Press | 2020
In this extended lyric essay, Olstein “mines her lifelong experience with migraine to deliver a marvelously idiosyncratic cultural history of pain—how we experience, express, treat, and mistreat it.”
Your Hearts, Your Scars by Adina Talve-Goodman
Bellevue Literary Press | 2023
In this essay collection, published posthumously, Talve-Goodman “tells the story of her chronic illness and her youthful search for love and meaning, never forgetting that her adult life is tied to the loss of another person—the donor of her transplanted heart.”
Autistic Adults: Exploring the Forgotten End of the Spectrum by Daniel Smeenk
Ronsdale Press | 2023
In this book, Smeenk discusses “how autistic adults present and how they see themselves and offers insights on autistic adults, from an autistic writer.”
Voice of the Fish by Lars Horn
Graywolf Press | 2022
This interwoven essay collection “explores the trans experience through themes of water, fish, and mythology, set against the backdrop of travels in Russia and a debilitating back injury that left Horn temporarily unable to speak.”
Vine Leaves Press | 2024
This memoir “honors the grace of a face that stands out in a crowd, defying societal beauty norms.”
Floppy: Tales of a Genetic Freak of Nature at the End of the World by Alyssa Graybeal
Red Hen Press | 2023
According to Rebecca Fish Ewan, “Graybeal spins a richly imaged and often hilarious story from the fibers of her own quest for life while navigating the challenges of having a rare genetic disorder.”
Literary Magazines
“Lilacs were my first rhapsody” by Kay Ulanday Barrett
The Hopkins Review | 2024
This poem begins, “all of them gawkers, neighbors pointing, and a kindergarten / teacher clumsily mash-jammed letters that were supposedly / my mother’s name.”
“Minds Can Fly, Too” by Cassandra Brandt
Multiplicity Magazine | 2024
This essay begins, “The sun was just beginning to rise in the cloudless sky, and from my position seventy feet up on the steel, I was privy to a breathtaking view of it.”
“During the Days After My Official MS Diagnosis” by Allison Blevins
SWWIM | 2022
This poem begins, “You need to discuss feelings, make plans. Yesterday, a man posted in your spouse support group about his wife’s dementia.”
“On Being Envious of Able-Bodied Writers from the Global North” by Mugabi Byenkya
The Cincinnati Review | 2024
This essay begins, “Today I woke up and was immediately wracked by: 1. An agonizing burning sensation all over my body, from head to toe, one of the manifestations of my chronic pain….”
“L’appel du vide” by Telaina Eriksen
Under the Sun | 2024
This essay begins, “This morning, I walked outside with my dog Cordelia. I wasn’t fully awake, but I noticed the quality of light had changed.”
Boston Review | 2024
This forum, which features discussions about terminology and the fight for disability rights, includes contributions by Robert Chapman, Ari Ne’eman, and others.
ANMLY | 2017
According to editor Sarah Clark, “When I put out the call for work for Glitterbrain, what I wanted the most was realness, whatever that may mean. Because neurodiverse, queer, people of color are denied what is real.”
“Words and Clarity” by Jake Goldsmith
Exacting Clam | 2024
This essay begins, “I’m almost fearful of the unwanted connotations so many words possess.”
SWWIM | 2024
This poem begins, “As we cross the bridge, I count a dozen pelicans / perched on the railing, each waiting for the perfect / bite.”
Exacting Clam | 2023
This issue features “extraordinarily varied writing relating to disability and chronic illness,” including excerpts from four books longlisted for the 2023 Barbellion Prize.
“Starship Somatics: Disability Walking in Outer Space” by Petra Kuppers
The Hopkins Review | 2024
This essay begins, “Walking is strange to me. I experience it as something akin to being on a ship: unstable, rocking, faintly surprising.”
Richard Scott Larson and Matt Lee
Full Stop | 2024
In this conversation, Larson and Lee “touch on voyeurism, persona, and the implications of laying bare our most intimate thoughts and feelings.”
“To the Smoker on 72nd Street” by Jasmine Ledesma
Off Assignment | 2020
This letter begins, “I met you in the heat of the afternoon. The clouds were drowning in a blue-glass sky, and New York stretched on all around.”
Another Chicago Magazine | 2022
At the beginning of this interview, Lehrer says, “I have had to learn medical language for a number of reasons. Certainly for my own care. The experience of being in the hospital in particular demands it.”
“Ordinary Psalm with Near Blindness” by Julia B. Levine
Bellevue Literary Review | 2020
This poem begins, “The world mostly gone, I make it what I want: / from the balcony, the morning is a silver robe of mist….”
“Coming of Age” by William Luvaas
Under the Sun | 2024
This essay begins, “We were perched on a narrow platform high atop a scaffolding overlooking the stage sixty feet below, upon which a Fife and Drum Corps from Pennsylvania went through its paces.”
manywor(l)ds | 2024
This poem begins, “my bed asks me where my / will to get up is; my will to / get up runs and hides / under layers of illness.”
“Cloudy With A Chance of Blindness” by Price Maccarthy
Wellspringwords | 2021
This essay begins, “When I tell people how I slowly started losing my vision, I begin most times with the day people started walking in opposite directions and I sat on the big rock outside my grandmother’s shop wondering if I had unlocked a magical dimension only I could see.”
“1:11 p.m. at Hippie Hollow” by Greg Marshall
Off Assignment | 2022
This essay begins, “1:11 p.m. at Hippie Hollow is lake smells and crushed beer cans and butt angels on the rocks.”
Full Stop | 2021
In this conversation, Mathis and Berkowitz discuss “how our texts, our selves, and our writing practices have changed since our books were first published.”
“Appropriate Treatment” by Thalia A. Mostow
Another Chicago Magazine | 2018
This essay begins, “I began golfing in my early twenties after developing an overwhelming desire to better know my father and grandmother, who both believe the best place to spend a sunny, or rainy, or overcast Saturday is on the golf course.”
“Our Lady of the Stairs” by Susannah Nevison
Kenyon Review | 2023
This essay begins, “When I see my daughter for the first time, at my twenty-week scan, she is lying on her back with her ankles crossed. She is a lady of leisure.”
Sinister Wisdom | 1990
This issue “contains work from and about womyn whose lives are seriously disrupted by long-term conditions,” including Pat Parker, Barbara Ruth, and Amy Edgington.
“Dissociation: An Ars(enal) (of) Poetica” by Addie Tsai
manywor(l)ds | 2024
This hybrid work begins, “I’m asked to write an essay about my relation to attention. I insert the word dissociate.”
“Dispatch from Bewilderness” by Judith Hannah Weiss
Bellevue Literary Review | 2020
This essay begins, “Probes puncture my scalp, surveying my mind. Temporal lobe, occipital lobe, you name it; there’s a probe for the lobe.”
Writing Ourselves / Mad and Writing Ourselves / Mad Part 2
ANMLY | 2021
According to editor Sarah Cavar, the poetry, fiction, photography, and artwork in this two-part folio celebrates “Mad creation, craft, and methodology” and “offers a third, collaborative option, in which we can bring our whole, multiple, unrecovered and anti-recovery selves to the table to tell the stories only we know how to tell.”
