Power and privilege in this and many other countries is rich, white, male, straight, and able-bodied. The fewer of those identities we can claim the more marginalised we become. I have spent my writing life centering and making visible the Other, showing that we exist and that we matter. Stories make culture. If we want to be visible in this culture we must make our voices heard.

#CripLit Twitter Chat
Resistance Through Writing
Sunday, December 4, 2016
4 pm Pacific/ 7 pm Eastern
Co-Hosts: Nicola Griffith @Nicolaz and Alice Wong @DisVisibility

Co-partners of #CripLit, novelist Nicola Griffith and Disability Visibility Project’s Alice Wong, are proud to host the fourth #CripLit Twitter chat for disabled writers.
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are welcome to participate in the chat including reporters, essayists, poets, cartoonists, bloggers, freelancers, unpublished or published.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 and @DisVisibility 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 timed 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 12/4 chat
Welcome to our 4th #CripLit chat. We had planned a chat with disabled editors but the recent US election has made this topic more urgent.
We hope to bring you that editor roundtable next month but this chat will discuss resistance through writing. #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 plus any links about you & your work #CripLit

Q2 As a disabled writer, what do you feel the need to resist right now? What forces are you ‘up against’? #CripLit

Q3 Whose writing has made a difference to you? In what way? #CripLit

Q4 What is the role of artists and writers in resistance and speaking truth to power in times of upheaval and uncertainty? #CripLit

Q5 Will writing be part of your resistance? What will you write about? #CripLit

Q6 Who do you want to read your work of resistance? Will you write in a different way to persuade your readers to resist? #CripLit

Q7 How will you and your work reach those readers? What strategies or advice do you have on getting one’s work out? #CripLit

Q8 What do you want your readers to take away from your writing? What actions or changes are you hoping for? #CripLit

Q9 What do you do for self-care during difficult times? What nurtures and sustains your creativity, passion, & ability to write? #CripLit

Q10 How can we best support each other in the next year? What critical conversations should disabled writers be having? #CripLit

This concludes our 4th #CripLit chat! Please keep the convo going. 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)

No Place For Self-Pity, No Room For Fear
Toni Morrison, The Nation (3/23/15)

Writing as Resistance
Chris Hedges, Washington’s Blog (7/17/16)

About

Nicola Griffith is a British novelist, now dual US/UK citizen. In Yorkshire, England, 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. She was diagnosed with MS the same month her first novel Ammonite was published. Her other novels are Slow River, The Blue Place, Stay, Always and Hild. 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. Among other honours her work has won the Washington State Book Award, the Tiptree, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards, the Premio Italia, and six Lambda Literary Awards. She is married to writer Kelley Eskridge and lives in Seattle where she emerges occasionally from work on her seventh novel to drink just the right amount of beer and take enormous delight in everything.
Twitter: @nicolaz
Blog: https://nicolagriffith.com/blog/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicolagriffith
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/amm0nit3/playlists

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.
Twitter: @SFdirewolf
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/356870067786565/
Website: http://DisabilityVisibilityProject.com