Best of
Disability

2022

Like A Charm


Elle McNicoll - 2022
    No one can see them... until Ramya Knox. As she is pulled into her family's world of secrets and spells, Ramya sets out to discover the truth behind the Hidden Folk with only three words of warning from her grandfather: Beware the Sirens.Plunged into an adventure that will change everything, Ramya is about to learn that there is more to her powers than she ever imagined.

One for All


Lillie Lainoff - 2022
    Everyone in town thinks her near-constant dizziness makes her weak, nothing but “a sick girl”; even her mother is desperate to marry her off for security. But Tania wants to be strong, independent, a fencer like her father—a former Musketeer and her greatest champion.Then Papa is brutally, mysteriously murdered. His dying wish? For Tania to attend finishing school. But L’Académie des Mariées, Tania realizes, is no finishing school. It’s a secret training ground for a new kind of Musketeer: women who are socialites on the surface, but strap daggers under their skirts, seduce men into giving up dangerous secrets, and protect France from downfall. And they don’t shy away from a swordfight.With her newfound sisters at her side, Tania feels for the first time like she has a purpose, like she belongs. But then she meets Étienne, her first target in uncovering a potential assassination plot. He’s kind, charming, and breathlessly attractive—and he might have information about what really happened to her father. Torn between duty and dizzying emotion, Tania will have to lean on her friends, listen to her own body, and decide where her loyalties lie…or risk losing everything she’s ever wanted.This debut novel is a fierce, whirlwind adventure about the depth of found family, the strength that goes beyond the body, and the determination it takes to fight for what you love.

The Beauty of Dusk: On Vision Lost and Found


Frank Bruni - 2022
    He wondered at first if some goo or gunk had worked its way into his right eye. But this was no fleeting annoyance, no fixable inconvenience. Overnight, a rare stroke had cut off blood to one of his optic nerves, rendering him functionally blind in that eye—forever. And he soon learned from doctors that the same disorder could ravage his left eye, too. He could lose his sight altogether. In The Beauty of Dusk, Bruni hauntingly recounts his adjustment to this daunting reality, a medical and spiritual odyssey that involved not only reappraising his own priorities but also reaching out to, and gathering wisdom from, longtime friends and new acquaintances who had navigated their own traumas and afflictions. The result is a poignant, probing, and ultimately uplifting examination of the limits that all of us inevitably encounter, the lenses through which we choose to evaluate them and the tools we have for perseverance. Bruni’s world blurred in one sense, as he experienced his first real inklings that the day isn’t forever and that light inexorably fades, but sharpened in another. Confronting unexpected hardship, he felt more blessed than ever before. There was vision lost. There was also vision found.

Shades of Lust


E.M. Lindsey - 2022
    A former acrobat, Stone’s life was changed dramatically after an accident, and now he runs The Carnal Tower, a place where people can go to have their deepest and sometimes darkest fantasies realized.Stone is a man who is rarely taken by surprise, so when he meets the artist, August Ashley, he doesn’t expect to trip and fall at his feet—literally. But there’s something about the quiet stranger in the park that Stone wants to take apart, and that feeling only gets worse the more Stone gets to know him.Stone is well aware he can’t mix business and pleasure, but when August comes to him with a proposal for a trade—seven paintings for seven nights with Lust—he can’t say no. Not when it means he’ll be able to have August exactly the way he wants him—even if it’s just for a week.Stone has every plan to strip August down to his very soul, but the longer the week goes on, the more Stone comes to realize that August might very well be his undoing.Shades of Lust is the first book in a new series. It features a bi-awakening, high heat, low angst, and the human embodiment of a seven deadly sin whose sole purpose is to make sure his client never forgets their week at The Carnal Tower. Each book in the series can stand on their own, and all contain no cheating, and a happily ever after.

The Moth Girl


Heather Kamins - 2022
    She runs track with her best friend, gets good grades, and sometimes drinks beer at parties.But one day at track practice, Anna falls unconscious . . . but instead of falling down, she falls up, defying gravity in the disturbing first symptom of a mysterious disease.This begins a series of trips to the hospital that soon become Anna's norm. She's diagnosed with lepidopsy: a rare illness that causes symptoms reminiscent of moths: floating, attraction to light, a craving for sugar, and for an unlucky few, more dangerous physical manifestations.Anna's world is turned upside down, and as she learns to cope with her illness, she finds herself drifting further and further away from her former life. Her friends don't seem to understand, running track is out of the question, and the other kids at the disease clinic she attends once a week are a cruel reminder that things will never be the same.From debut author Heather Kamins comes a beautiful and evocative story about one girl's journey of choosing who she wants to be--in a life she never planned for.

The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness


Meghan O'Rourke - 2022
    Renowned writer Meghan O’Rourke delivers a revelatory investigation into this elusive category of “invisible” illness that encompasses autoimmune diseases, post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, and now long COVID, synthesizing the personal and the universal to help all of us through this new frontier. Drawing on her own medical experiences as well as a decade of interviews with doctors, patients, researchers, and public health experts, O’Rourke traces the history of Western definitions of illness, and reveals how inherited ideas of cause, diagnosis, and treatment have led us to ignore a host of hard-to-understand medical conditions, ones that resist easy description or simple cures. And as America faces this health crisis of extraordinary proportions, the populations most likely to be neglected by our institutions include women, the working class, and people of color. Blending lyricism and erudition, candor and empathy, O’Rourke brings together her deep and disparate talents and roles as critic, journalist, poet, teacher, and patient, synthesizing the personal and universal into one monumental project arguing for a seismic shift in our approach to disease. The Invisible Kingdom offers hope for the sick, solace and insight for their loved ones, and a radical new understanding of our bodies and our health.

Ellen Outside the Lines


A.J. Sass - 2022
    She attends temple with Abba and Mom every Friday and Saturday. Ellen only gets crushes on girls, never boys, and she knows she can always rely on her best-and-only friend, Laurel, to help navigate social situations at their private Georgia middle school.Laurel has always made Ellen feel like being autistic is no big deal. But lately, Laurel has started making more friends, and cancelling more weekend plans with Ellen than she keeps. A school trip to Barcelona seems like the perfect place for Ellen to get their friendship back on track.  Except it doesn't.Toss in a new nonbinary classmate whose identity has Ellen questioning her very binary way of seeing the world, homesickness, a scavenger hunt-style team project that takes the students through Barcelona to learn about Spanish culture and this trip is anything but what Ellen planned.Making new friends and letting go of old ones is never easy, but Ellen might just find a comfortable new place for herself if she can learn to embrace the fact that life doesn't always stick to a planned itinerary.

Switch-Hitter


E.M. Lindsey - 2022
    It’ll be fun, they said.And then Thierry shows up and Pietro realizes his mistake. Because he knows Thierry. A little too well.Thierry is the man who told his ex to leave him.Thierry is the man who punched Pietro and ran.Thierry... is his ex-boyfriend’s best friend.But Pietro also knows the man needs a job. An injury destroyed his former career and Pietro is nothing if not a bleeding heart. Besides, he doesn’t have time to search for a new chef, not with the World Series looming and his team ready to go all the way.Life gets more complicated, though, when he and Thierry cross a line one night after a lot of wine and several bad jokes. And while hooking up is one thing, Pietro knows the last thing in the world he needs is for his heart to get involved.Too bad it tends to make decisions without him. Switch-Hitter is the first book in a fictional MLB series featuring a lonely baseball player with a chip on his shoulder and hope in his heart, a team ready to win no matter what it takes, a grumpy French chef who will defend escargot to the death, and a few bottles of dry red wine leading to the sweetest happily ever after. Each book in the Hit and Run Series stands alone, contains no cheating, and has a happily ever after.

Between Safe and Real


Dannie M. Olguin - 2022
    With two hungry siblings, an empty fridge, and a violent mother to tip-toe around, Zoe can't slow down enough to catch a breath. When she discovers Mama’s been reading her diary, Zoe realizes she has to stop writing in it. Trouble is, if she stops, Mama’s sure to think she’s hiding something, and will tear through her room like a tornado—again—to find out what. Her solution: write Mama-safe entries in the first diary, while writing her real thoughts in a plain-old composition book.The more entries she makes, the fuzzier the line between safe lies and terrifying truths becomes, and it’s not long before Zoe fears she’s just as unstable as Mama. After all, the apple never falls too far from the tree. If there’s even a shred of truth to her safe journal, then maybe her real journal’s just a hot mess of made-up horrors. When things at home escalate, Zoe must face reality in order to keep herself and siblings safe. But facing reality means taking steps that could shatter her family. Can her friends, Cheryl and Nate, help her understand that love shouldn’t hurt and blood doesn’t make a family?

Forever, Again (Shelby Beach #4)


Skylar M. Cates - 2022
    But the thing he takes pride in the most, his business, is failing.Single father and entrepreneur Nico Kastellanos knows success is hard-won and tries to give back to those who, like him, have to fight for their dreams. His one regret is how things ended with his childhood best friend. Their friendship and their secret kisses linger in his mind.When Oliver unwittingly hires Nico’s PR firm to breathe life into his failing gym, their connection rekindles instantly. The chemistry is potent, the memories heart-wrenching. They're no longer awkward, troubled kids. They are men who know what—and who—they want.Will Oliver and Nico finally get their long-overdue forever together, or will the ghosts from their past continue to haunt them?

We've Got This: Stories of Disabled Parenting


Eliza Hull - 2022
    

Air


Monica Roe - 2022
    Instead of replacing the ramp, her school provides her with a kind but unwelcome aide--and, seeing a golden media opportunity, launches a public fundraiser for her new wheels. Emmie loves her close-knit rural town, but she can't shake the feeling that her goals--and her choices--suddenly aren't hers anymore. With the help of her best friends, Emmie makes a plan to get her dreams off the ground--and show her community what she wants, what she has to give, and how ready she is to do it on her own terms.Air is a smart, energetic middle grade debut from Monica Roe about thinking big, working hard, and taking flight.

Sexy But Psycho: How the Patriarchy Uses Women’s Trauma Against Them


Jessica Taylor - 2022
    . . Women have long been pathologized, locked up and medicated for not conforming to whichever norms or stereotypes are expected of them in that time and space. Sexy But Psycho is a challenging and uncomfortable book which seeks to explore the way professionals and society at large pathologize and sexualise women and girls.Utilising decades of research, real case studies and new data from her own work, Dr Taylor's book will critically analyse the way we label women with personality disorders. Why are women and girls pathologized for being angry about oppression and abuse? How have so many women been duped into believing that they are mentally ill, for having normal and natural reactions to their experiences? Sexy But Psycho argues that there is a specific purpose to convincing women and girls that they are mentally ill, as the world avoids addressing violence against women and their centuries of ignored trauma.

Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence


Gavin Francis - 2022
    Recovery and convalescence are words that exist at the periphery of our lives - until we are forced to contend with what they really mean.Here, GP and writer Gavin Francis explores how - and why - we get better, revealing the many shapes recovery takes, its shifting history and the frequent failure of our modern lives to make adequate space for it.Characterised by Francis's beautiful prose and his view of medicine as 'the alliance of science and kindness', Recovery is a book about a journey that most of us never intend to make. Along the way, he unfolds a story of hope, transformation, and the everyday miracle of healing.

Fearlessly Different: An Autistic Actor's Journey to Broadway's Biggest Stage


Mickey Rowe - 2022
    I am an actor, a theatre director, a father, and a husband. I am also a man with autism. You think those things don't go together? Let me show you that they do. Growing up, Mickey Rowe was told that he couldn't enter the mainstream world. He was iced out by classmates and colleagues, infantilized by well-meaning theatre directors, barred from even earning a minimum wage. Why? Because he is autistic. Fearlessly Different: An Autistic Actor's Journey to Broadway's Biggest Stage is Mickey Rowe's story of growing up autistic and pushing beyond the restrictions of a special education classroom to shine on Broadway. As an autistic and legally blind person, living in a society designed by and for non-disabled people, it was always made clear to Mickey the many things he was apparently incapable of doing. But Mickey did them all anyway--and he succeeded because of, not in spite of, his autism. He became the first autistic actor to play the lead role in the play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, landed the title role in the play Amadeus, co-created the theatre/philanthropy company Arts on the Waterfront, and founded the National Disability Theatre. Mickey faced untold obstacles along the way, but his story ends in triumph. Many people feel they are locked out of the world of autism--that it's impossible to even begin to understand. In Fearlessly Different, Mickey guides readers to that world while also helping those with autism to feel seen and understood. And he shows all people--autistic and non-autistic alike--that the things that make us different are often our biggest strengths.

Hear No Evil


Sarah Smith - 2022
    Unable to communicate with their silent prisoner, the authorities move Jean to the decaying Edinburgh Tolbooth in order to prise the story from her. The High Court calls in Robert Kinniburgh, a talented teacher from the Deaf & Dumb Institution, in the hope that he will interpret for them and determine if Jean is fit for trial. If found guilty she faces one of two fates; death by hanging or incarceration in an insane asylum.Through a process of trial and error, Robert and Jean manage to find a rudimentary way of communicating with each other. As Robert gains her trust, Jean confides in him, and Robert begins to uncover the truth, moving uneasily from interpreter to investigator, determined to clear her name before it is too late.Based on a landmark case in Scottish legal history Hear No Evil is a richly atmospheric exploration of nineteenth-century Edinburgh and Glasgow at a time when progress was only on the horizon. A time that for some who were silenced could mean paying the greatest price.

REVENGE BODY


Caleb Luna - 2022
    While refusing to hide, minimize, justify or ignore instances of trauma, it also refuses to succumb to them. Instead, it probes these histories as a strategy to move through the pain and forge an alternate path for a new tomorrow."REVENGE BODY teems with sharp, curious, brilliant work gilded with a sense of humor that careens from deadpan to ALL CAPS and back. Luna's writing is measured, generous, examining everything unexamined, but also percussive, bereft, and fiery. I love this book, I read it three times back-to-back on my first read, and I suspect you will too."Tommy Pico, author of Feed, Junk, Nature Poem and IRL“Caleb Luna brings maw and might in their debut chapbook REVENGE BODY while undeniably presenting a collection that plays with tone, rhythm and form fantastically. REVENGE BODY demands to be witnessed while graciously ferrying readers throughout the journey that Luna traverses in a body that refuses to be an apology. REVENGE BODY sincerely envisions a different tomorrow for the many bodies so many of us forget.” jaye simpson, author of it was never going to be okay“Caleb Luna’s REVENGE BODY is a searing examination of how lived experiences can accumulate inside a body--a body adorned by narratives inherited and prescribed. These poems probe the soft space between memory and hope, making tender, the bodies weaponized by language. The clarity in which Luna writes: "i / want you to see me / & / I don’t / want / that / to / be / brave," shakes me awake, as if I’ve been dormant this whole time. When I first read REVENGE BODY, I was scared by how much it seemed like the poems knew me, but that fear quickly settled into a feeling of kinship. I want to throw this book at the strangers who stare at my body. I want to make it required reading for all my past and future lovers, to say: before you know me, you must know this: “the body is a celebration / & I have had a lot / to celebrate.” I celebrate this book. I celebrate this poet.”Hieu Minh Nguyen, author of This Way to the Sugar and Not Here“Caleb Luna's debut collection of poetry is a series of beautiful and real love and honesty notes to and about fat brown disabled queer survivor body landscapes. These are medecine stories for everyone needing to hear their body and heart's stories and questions remembered, written with fierce power and grace. Take your time and let them linger on your heart and tongue.” Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, author of Tonguebreaker, Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice and Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home“In Caleb Luna’s REVENGE BODY, the body is defined and redefined so as to reflect the terror and the beauty of the world. There is a great poetic power exhibited here; through odes, elegies, flashbacks, and polemic, Luna shows how structures of violence - fatphobia, heteropatriarchy, racism, capitalism - interlock but ultimately cannot wholly deny a freedom intuited as something more than “one long masochistic scene.” Destruction, Luna powerfully concludes, is not theirs to hold.” BIlly-Ray Belcourt, author of A HISTORY OF MY BRIEF BODY

Unravel


Amelia Loken - 2022
    True, she’s in line for the throne before him and he contends she’s too deaf to rule, but she’s known since he broke her hand to keep her from using sign language. Now, as the kingdom’s Bishop-Princep, Uncle Reichard has declared war on magic and Marguerite must hide the fact that she’s a witch.While witnessing her first witch trial, Marguerite rescues a child from death with the help of a handsome, itinerant acrobat, Tys. Marguerite flees, hiding in the neighboring empire where magical gifts can flourish. Before her training is complete, war threatens. She returns home, only to witness her uncle seizing the throne. He isolates and imprisons her. Marguerite’s love for her people drives her to continue defying him. But to challenge him means she’ll have to rely on her homemade invisibility cloak, questionable allies, and Tys, the one boy she never should have trusted.

Izzy at the End of the World


K.A. Reynolds - 2022
    Reynolds's IZZY AT THE END OF THE WORLD, about a neurodiverse young girl surviving the end of the world with her dog as a companion as she uncovers the truth about her mother, to Emilia Rhodes at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's, in an exclusive submission, for publication 2-21-2023, by Thao Le at Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency (world).

Ungodly


Maggie Bowyer - 2022
    And sometimes bad people hurt good people. This collection of poetry depicts the strength it takes to have faith that, no matter who you are, you are worthy of love and forgiveness exactly as you are. Ungodly seeks to heal wounds that this world leaves in us, and seeks to reveal the glimmering spots in our humanity.