Image description: A bright yellow background with an icon of a book on the left and a laptop screen on the right, flanking text: “#CripLit Twitter Chat, Writing Disability, August 6, 2017. 4pm Pacific/7pm Eastern. Co-hosts: @Nicolaz and @DisVisibility.”

#CripLit Twitter Chat
Writing Disability
Sunday, August 6, 2017
4 pm Pacific/ 7 pm Eastern

Co-hosts: @nicolaz and @DisVisibility

You are invited to the ninth #CripLit Twitter chat co-hosted by novelist Nicola Griffith and Alice Wong of the Disability Visibility Project®.

We’re both writers of fiction and nonfiction. We’re both readers. We want to talk about the experience of writing about and from being disabled—how it feels, what we love, what we hate. We want to talk about all kinds of writing: fiction and drama, poetry and creative non-fiction, journalism and personal essays. We’re interested in why we want to write about or from the perspective of disabled characters, or perhaps why we need to. We want to look at the kind of narratives we’ve seen a lot—Cure narratives, Pity narratives, Outcast narratives—and the kind we might sometimes write ourselves: Wish Fulfilment, Coming Out, Triumph, Norming narratives. What are they? What are some examples of each? What’s good about them? What’s bad? Why do we want/do not want to write them? How can we learn to do it better?

Additional Links

How to Participate

Follow @DisVisibility and @nicolaz on Twitter for updates.

When it’s time, search #CripLit on Twitter for the series of live tweets under the ‘Latest’ tab for the full conversation.

If you might be overwhelmed by the volume of tweets and only want to see the chat’s questions so you can respond to them, check @DisVisibility’s account. Each question will tweeted 6-8 minutes apart.

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

Check out this captioned #ASL explanation of how to participate in a chat by @behearddc:
https://www.facebook.com/HEARDDC/videos/1181213075257528/

Introductory Tweets and Questions for 8/6 Chat

Welcome to the #CripLit chat on Writing Disability. This chat is co-hosted by @nicolaz & @DisVisibility. Please remember to use the #CripLit hashtag when you tweet.

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

Q1 Roll call! Please introduce yourself and share any links to your work or anything else about yourself. #criplit

Q2 Do you write about disability? What kind of #criplit stories do you write?

Q3 What are the joys/challenges (physical, emotional, mental/intellectual) of writing disability? #criplit

Q4 What are some disability narratives: Cure, Outcast, Pity, Triumph, Wish Fulfilment, Coming Out? Which do you love/hate? #criplit

Q5  What kind of stories are missing? How do we expand disability narratives? How do we get more #criplit on shelves and screens?

Q6 What’s your approach to writing about disability? #criplit

Q7 Should disabled writers write only stories with disabled characters, or about   issues? #criplit

Q8 Are you ever tempted to tone down the disability in your work in order to be ‘more publishable/marketable’? #criplit

Q9 Do you see parallels between #criplit narratives and those of other marginalised groups: #ownvoices stuff by queer, POC, immigrants, etc?

Q10 Would you want to take a class/workshop for crip writers? What would it be like? Are there any you’d recommend? #criplit

Thank you for joining our #CripLit chat. Please continue the conversation!

A Storify will be up tomorrow. Check the #CripLit hashtag. Feel free to contact @DisVisibility @nicolaz with any ideas/feedback 😀