SpAN Editor Cait Gordon has a few words to share about the upcoming year. Closed captioning is available for this video. Happy new year! Continue reading
Tag Archives: representation
SpAN Contributors Nominated for Prix Aurora Awards!
Welcome! It’s your friendly neighbourhood editor-in-spoons posting this week. Today I wanted to give a shout-out to the Spoonie Authors Network contributors who are on the ballot for the Prix Aurora Awards. This is a prestigious award for Canadian speculative fiction writing. How exciting is this? Hint: super exciting. So, let’s begin! Best Young Adult … Continue reading
Becoming a Sensitivity Editor of Indigenous Content
The thing about sensitivity editing, and looking for content that might be inaccurate or offensive, is that no particular group is a monolith. This is the thought that entered my head when I was asked to be a sensitivity editor for any Indigenous content that appeared in the forthcoming anthology, Nothing Without Us. There are … Continue reading
Disability Tropes 101: The “Tiny Tim”
The trope that I call the “Tiny Tim” is the creation by an author of a disabled character whose exclusive role is to be an object of pity and in need of charity. I have used the name of the best known of these figures from Dickens—”Tiny Tim.” Tiny Tim doesn’t have a life outside … Continue reading
Body positivity / Cerebral Palsy / chronic pain / Represention / sex / Sexah / Why Representation Matters
How do you make *this* sexy? Why representation in fiction matters.
“How do you make this sexy?” a reader asked me, gesturing to her wheelchair in the middle of one of my sex education Q&A sessions. The question stumped me because the answer isn’t an easy one. The short version is: You don’t. There isn’t anything inherently sexy about using a wheelchair or a walker, or having … Continue reading
Tale from a Token Crip
I’m really tired of being disabled and I don’t wanna do it no more, mkay? Oh yeah, that’s not a thing. I guess I’ll just take a deep breath, use my words, and say, “WTF is the matter with you people without disabilities?” No, seriously, are you all right? Is there anyone I can call? … Continue reading
