I’m glad I read Before the Door Closes (by Judith Hall Simon) directly after Keeping My Balance. This, after that, reminds me that good writing is not so simple as replacing summary with scene, always; rather, good writing has both in moderation. If writing were as simple… Read More
Keeping My Balance is a unique memoir, because Stephanie Torreno’s life flies in the face of our stereotypical assumptions about disability. Torreno’s cerebral palsy is so severe that she cannot write without someone taping down the paper, cannot type except with a single thumb, cannot walk… Read More
I have had cerebral palsy for all the thirty years I’ve been alive. I’ve been through physical therapy, and surgeries. Yet, up until this week, I had never read a book advising treatment and rearing for those with cerebral palsy. I thought it would be… Read More
Running With Scissors is the memoir of a child who is neglected at best and endangered at worst, written by Augusten Burroughs. Living with his mother’s psychiatrist, Dr. Finch (who has no business tending to the mental illness of others), Burroughs loses his innocence as well… Read More
Reading Autobiography of a Face was much different than reading Karen, and not just because Lucy Grealy (its writer) dealt with Ewing’s sarcoma (cancer of the jaw) instead of cerebral palsy. As I read I focused on the opposite trajectory and mood of the narratives. Karen takes place… Read More
Step one in writing about my own childhood with spastic cerebral palsy has been to read Karen, by Marie Killilea – a book about another cerebral palsied kiddo, written by her mother. I thought it’d be smart to get a parent’s perspective. What I didn’t… Read More
Repeat after me: I don’t think I know what I am doing. I only know what I think I’m doing. Yet, I must act. I must. When I choose a course of action, the idea is not to avoid failure. I am going to fail… Read More
You have to get rejected to get accepted. Stephen King has already said this, in On Writing. Lots of other people have said it. I say it to people. But I thought that sharing the data and drawing conclusions might be useful. Something about looking… Read More
A thought: perhaps the fae wouldn’t be so awful if everyone would stop talking about how awful they are? Check out my flash fiction piece, “In Fairness to the Fair Folk,” featured this week on The Arcanist!
On Saturday, I made a special trip with Other Husband (Legal Husband was working) into New York City. We were going to Gramercy Typewriter, and it was going to be just like being in Ollivander’s wand shop: the right one was going to choose me.… Read More
