how the literary community can be more welcoming to disabled readers

Hello again, dear friends, and happy Disability Pride Month! I hope all is well for you, and if it’s not then I hope brighter days head your way soon! Today I have an important post for Disability Pride Month which is a post that I feel very passionately about.

I was actually aiming to get this post up during Disability Pride Month back in July of 2024, but, ironically enough, my chronic illness symptoms kept flaring up and got in the way 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️ Talk about irony, lol! Ah well, such is life 😅

💗 I want to take a minute before beginning to mention that the disabled community includes:

• physically disabled individuals
• chronically ill individuals
• terminally ill individuals
• neurodivergent individuals
• individuals with chronic AND short-term mental health disorders
• disfigured individuals
• individuals who are temporarily disabled
• individuals who are chronically disabled
• individuals who were born disabled
• individuals who developed a disability later in life

💗I also want to take another brief moment to say that if you are in any way disabed, regardless of whether or not you feel “disability pride,” I want you to know and remember that your very being is inherently worthwhile, valuable, and worthy.

Now, without any further ado let’s discuss…

educate yourself on disability and ableism in literature and in society at large

All good advocacy begins with education, so that’s the first place to begin. And if you’re wondering where to start, start the same way you start educating yourself about other marginalized groups: start by actively listening to us. Read disabled scholars, watch unbiased interviews conducted by disabled folks interviewing other disabled folks. Learn our history and learn what’s going on today. This may seem overwhelming, but remember: we’re not asking you to know everything immediately, just to commit yourself to continuously learning and allowing your education to change how you view, interact with, and advocate for us! Little by little, piece by piece will do, just like how you learn about anything else. But within that education, prioritizing disabled voices (especially those who are intersectionally marginalized) is crucial!

don’t forget that disability representation also falls under the “diverse literature” umbrella

The amount of times DAILY that I come across people in the bookish community (both online and off) recommending “diverse lit” and then totally omitting books by and about disabled folks is…frankly, appalling. I can’t tell you how invalidating, othering, and isolating it is to be marginalized and to also be actively forgotten and not advocated for. It’s a big deal to advocate for diverse literature and literature by marginalized writers because it turns more focus onto such literature and promotes more sales, thus causing a domino effect where more diverse literature is picked up by publishers. You know which marginalized group is currently only barely represented in literature and which one is barely being picked up by publishers? The disabled. So, it’s important to include us in calls for “diverse literature” and in recommendations for currently available “diverse literature.” I’ll finish this by saying this, and I mean every word of it: if you’re not including disability representation under what you consider the umbrella of “diverse literature,” then you’re not truly reading or advocating for diverse literature very well, if at all.

advocate for disabled authors to be able to tell the stories they want to

Listen. Just like other marginalized authors might not write about characters who share their marginalization but those authors still deserve our support and advocacy, the same goes for disabled authors. I’d actually say this is especially true for disabled authors as the publishing process is particularly difficult on them, given they struggle not only with the typical emotional and mental struggles that all authors going through the publication process face, but also with the addicitional accessibility issues that the publication process poses which are unique to disabled authors. But beyond this, advocating for disabled authors also allows for there to be more varied perspectives on the disabled experience in the publishing world and broader litarary community—something which is sorely needed. And such perspectives allow for more authentic representation of disability in literature, allowing for more readers to feel welcome within our community, which leads me to the next point…

advocate for authentic disability representation in literature

Many of the books starring disabaled people that are currently on the market are not only written by able bodied/neurotypical authors, they are also written by authors who clearly—and sometimes proudly and admittedly—did not do any research on what it is like to live with one or more disabilities. For example, despite being widely praised by both audiences and critics, author Hanya Yanagahara has proudly and publicly admitted that she did no research on physical disability, mental health disorders, or the intersection and overlap of the two when writing her acclaimed novel about those subjects, A Little Life. This is not okay. It is actions like this which lead to the rampant misrepresentation we currently see of disabled folks and our lives, which ripples out into affecting how the general public—and even legislators—view us and treat us. I am not saying you need to be disabled to write about disability, because I believe you can not be a member of a marginalized group and still write an authentic story about that group well, provided you do the research. But that’s the thing: if we want to read, write, and advocate for stories about disability, those stories need to be authentic, and that requires researching disability and listening to actual, real, living disabled people.

call out instances of ableism in literature

This goes hand-in-hand with the last point because non-authentic representations in literature also leads to instances of ableism in literature, and, lemme tell you: it is truy galling how frequently I come across ableism in books of any and all genres! And let me be clear, I am in no way saying authors set out to be ableist, but that’s what happens when you don’t do research on a particular community that you’re representing, even in passing. But it’s not just on authors to do research. Because, despite how frequently I come across ableism in literature, I almost never see readers and reviewers call it out, which is also wildly invalidating and dehumanizing. Listen. The importance of calling out ableism in books cannot be overstated Why? Because nothing changes if no one notices. If ableism in books isn’t called out by readers and reviewers who let publishers know that they’re not okay with it, publishers will never get the message and the ableism in literature will continue.

call out instances of ableism within the literary community

Okay, see, this is another thing that boils my blood. The fact that ableism goes unchecked in a community that is so vigilant when it comes to things like racism and queerphobia is another slap in the face. From not making content accessible to straight up ignoring disabled readers when we speak up for ourselves and our broader community, the ableism in the book community can make it difficult and emotionally painful to navigate. Look, I’m not gonna pretend like making content and community more accessible isn’t work, but it’s work to create content in the first place and making it accessible shouldn’t be viewed as an “extra step,” but rather as inherently part of the original work to begin with. So, please. Correct autocaptions on your booktube video so that the transcript is accurate. Use alt text on your bookstagram and book Twitter photos. Add an accessibility menu to your book blog. Do what you can to make this community as lovely for everyone as it is for you personally.

remind people that ALL formats of reading (including audiobooks, e-books, and braille books) “count as reading”

This is a big one considering I still see numerous people (including bookish influencers) arguing that particularly audiobooks “don’t count as reading.” This is despite the fact that cognitive scientists have proven time and time again that there is virtually no difference between taking in information auditorily versus taking in information via visual text. Don’t believe me? Check out this article from Time magazine. Or this article from New York magazine. Oh, and here’s another article. As a matter of fact, here, just read the research directly, it’s free. But beyond science and semantics, it’s also extremely ableist to say that formats such as audiobooks and e-books “don’t count as real reading.” For example, what do you think blind people are supposed to do when they want to read a book? Suffer?? When you deny that audiobooks and/or e-books and/or any alternate format book “counts” you are denying millions of people who don’t have another choice the joy of reading. It’s not just blind people—audiobooks can help make reading accessible to people with such as myself who have chronic migraines and chronic fatigue, e-books can help visually impaired and dyslexic folk, and so on. And there are plenty of other people with a variety of other, different disabilities to whom these alternate formats make reading accessible!

support disabled literary influencers (book bloggers, booktubers, bookstagrammers, and booktokers)

I know this sounds silly, but this step is a tiny one you can take to help make our bookish community more inclusive and welcoming. Follow and support disabled literary influencers. It may seem like this is just a nicety, but the truth is that it’s an important step in bolstering how welcoming the literary community is. Disabled literary influencers can call out ableism and inaccessibility in the community and in literature, review books featuring disability representation from an inside perspective, and, to top it all off, we’re just fabulous people, like everyone is as well! Disabled literary influencers add a vital perspective to the broader literary community!

🌸What You Should Know About Book Blogging While Disabled

🌸We Still Have A Long Way To Go With Disability Representation In Literature + Recommendations

🌸Eight #OwnVoices Fantasy Recommendations For Disability Pride Month (And Year-Round)

🌸Bertie’s (Luminosity Library) discussion of ableism in the bookish community

🌸Bertie’s (Luminosity Library) Ableism 101 Series:

• The Disabled Villain Trope
• The Miracle Cure Trope
• The Inspiration Porn Trope
• The Desexualization Trope

🌸Madeline’s (The Bookish Mutant) discussion of her disability experience and why disability representation matters, plus recommendations of books featuring disability representation

🌸Neelam’s (The Tsundoku Chronicles) talk about why she loves the disability representation in the Theft of Sunlight duology

🌸Sia also talked about her disability experience and gave recommendations for books with disability representation

🌸Heather put together a list of books and comics releasing in 2024 that have disability representation

What are your thoughts on this issue? What do you think the literary community (online and offline) needs to do to treat disabled readers and writers better? Also, what are some of your favorite books by disabled authors?

Learn more the author of this post:

Lila @ Hardcover Haven

Lila is a 30 year old anthropology student and lover of literature who's been book blogging for an eternity. Her hobbies include reading, singing, writing, arts and crafts, and snuggling her two cats, Snoopy and Clementine.