You are the expert on yourself. (This article first appeared in Write, the official magazine of the Writers’ Union of Canada, Summer 2022 edition.) One of my favourite things about being in author spaces is discovering how many ways there are to reach the end of a first draft. Some folks are pantsers, meaning they don’t …
Continue reading The Ableism and Privilege Behind “You Must Write Every Day”
Content note: I will be mentioning some ableist words, for educational purposes. Because I am a sensitivity editor for ableist terms and themes, I often get asked this question from writers who want to avoid ableism (without nuance) in their work: How can I stop using ableist phrases? Let me begin by saying that I, …
Continue reading How to Avoid Being Accidentally Ableist in Your Writing
Registration is open! Go to the Renaissance website to learn more about this amazing virtual con and register for other panels! There will be a virtual vendor room and we can chat and socialize on Discord! I'm going to be participating in two panels, which should be kinda awesome. (I pretend that I know stuff …
Save the date! I'll be moderating a panel called Ableist, me? That's cr*zy! on Saturday October 24 at 1:00 PM EST for RenVCon, a virtual writers conference hosted by Renaissance. Sign up here! This has been a panel I've wanted to do for some time. Ableist expressions are so entrenched in our everyday language that …
Before the pandemic started (and my brain could words), I really enjoyed participating in Twitter writers chats. They’re pretty fun. Often, the first question asked is our name and the genre we write in. I almost always write something like this: Hi, I’m Cait (like cat). I’m a humorist who writes space opera with aliens …
Hey, I wrote a thing and it got published in Disability Acts! To Get to the Other Side is available right now! (I originally wrote this in 2017 but expanded the story upon the advice of the excellent editors I worked with.) Cheers, Cait G
Some writers are able-bodied. Some have disabilities that impair cognitive function. Some can blaze on the keyboard with ease. Others have too much pain to type or even sit up to use their dictation software. If you command that all writers must write every single day, can you see how this might be an ableist thing? Maybe let’s not assume everyone’s life is exactly the same.
Cait Gordon—author and editor 