It was my first byline there, and one of my first major stories about disability. That project eventually got published in the New York Times in 2016. For my graduate school project, I spent months developing a photo essay and writing an accompanying article about what navigating the dating world is like for women with muscular dystrophy. I wrote a little bit about disability in college, but I was still figuring things out and had a lot to learn. Wendy Lu: I can’t remember a moment in my life when I did not want to be a writer. A different editor acquired and published Body, Remember in a two-book deal with Staring Back: The Disability Experience from the Inside Out, the first US multi-genre anthology of disabled writers writing about disability, which I edited … I’ve been writing creative nonfiction ever since. It was then that an editor who couldn’t publish poetry asked if I would be interested in writing a memoir. These poems, as well as my poem sequence about the early days of HIV/AIDS, The Healing Notebooks, became the foundation of my first full collection, Anesthesia. In the late 1980s, I started writing poems directly about/from my disability experience.

Kenny Fries: I started my journey as a playwright but always wrote poetry. Wynter K Miller: Can you describe your personal journey toward becoming an artist and how that journey was influenced by disability? That said, Disability Futures is a glorious example of one step in a promising direction. This year’s cohort of Disability Futures Fellows includes a number of talented writers, four of whom- Kenny Fries, Wendy Lu, Naomi Ortiz, and Khadijah Queen-generously agreed to answer my questions about their creative lives and work, and how both are influenced and augmented by disability. Of course, one initiative is far from enough in terms of addressing the serious inequities and access barriers that disabled artists face on a systemic level.

Now in its second round, the initiative addresses field-wide problems in arts and culture, journalism, and documentary film, including: a dearth of disability visibility in the cultural sector, lack of professional development opportunities accessible to disabled practitioners, and the unique financial challenges facing disabled artists and creative professionals. Each fellowship includes an unrestricted $50,000 grant, totaling $1 million for the cohort overall.

The Disability Futures Fellowship supports twenty disabled creative practitioners whose work advances the cultural landscape.

Sustaining Spirit by Naomi Ortiz