Improbable Press Blog — Disability

By Sebastian Jack Hi! My name is Sebastian Jack, I’m a bilateral, above-knee amputee, and I use a wheelchair full-time. 15% of the world’s population (one billion people!) live with some form of disability. One fifth of them (between 110 – 190 million people) experience significant or profound disability. So, why don’t 15% of our fictional characters have disabilities? If you’re interested in writing complex, nuanced, disabled characters, here are some tips to get you started in the right direction! First things first: What is your character’s disability, and how did they acquire it? Do they have an amputation? If...

Improbable Press' submission guidelines used to ask for works about differently-abled characters. That phrase, differently-abled, was mine and with it I wanted to include my friend with almost-daily migraines, a person with chronic anxiety or depression, as well as people in wheelchairs or with limb differences. Disabled Fiction, Differently-Abled Fiction…Or? The thing is, I didn't research at all what phrasing was appropriate, and I did not ask disabled people for their thoughts on the phrasing, and then a disabled woman kindly dropped me an email to tell me that overall, disabled people use the word disabled. I did do some...