Out yesterday, an interview I did with Marian Ryan for Catapult in which I chat about the importance of seeing characters like ourselves in fiction.
“It helps to see someone else coping,” she told me. “We all borrow from fictional characters. But there aren’t enough good crip characters to borrow from, so we’re all learning on our own. It shouldn’t be that hard.”
Women with disabilities barely seem to exist in fiction, let alone queer women with disabilities or women of color with disabilities or queer, non-binary or trans women of color with disabilities. “You only seem to be allowed one degree from the norm,” Griffith said. “If the norm is straight white rich boys, then you can be a woman, you can be queer, you can be crippled, but you can’t be all those things.” In other words: You have to fight to be seen as a normal person living a normal life.
Nicola Griffith 
Wonderful article. Like all layers of marginalized, intersectional groups, I appreciate hearing your experience of wishing to find characters that are coping and who can act as mentors. This. We need much more of this. As you say, it shouldn’t be that hard.
Great way to sum it up: “You only seem to be allowed one degree from the norm.” It would be wonderful to see a more diverse breakthrough character hit the NYT bestseller list (I mean ‘go mainstream). To open doors that these are interesting (heroic/vulnerable etc) people…