Last year I wrote two short stories for disability-themed collections: Uncanny Magazine #24: Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction and Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens.
The first is online as of today. It’s about an eighth grade field trip to a castle reconstructed in a very inconvenient location. I wrote it while listening to NASA’s Golden Record, and the more I learn about that project the more I adore its optimism. NASA cut an album and then dropped it into the void.
The great Erika Ensign read the story for the podcast, after which I am interviewed by the equally great Haddayr Copley-Woods.
Unbroken will be in bookstores as of September 18th. It has earned many rave reviews.
My contribution, “Found Objects,” is about theatrical magic. It’s been a long time since I wrote about theatrical magic, and I’ve missed it.
This particular story is also my first piece of published YA fiction. I get to be a YA author now. Most people assumed that I was one already, because few know what “middle grade” means, but now the assumption is actually true.
Neither story is thinly veiled autobiography, by the way. I wasn’t yet disabled in eighth grade, or in high school. Both are #ownvoices, though, and therefore frightening to write.
I hope you like them, and I hope you also read the astonishing work that they get to share pages with.