Editors and agents don’t need a disabilit to help, though. As they peruse future disabilit titles, they can challenge their thinking. Do I believe a non-disabled reader would buy this, and if not, why? How can marketing promote this to reach the large number of disabled readers and the “purple pound”? Publishers can also help promote disabled talent generally. Books on disabilit need to be given more mainstream credit, but progress will also come when disabled authors are welcomed to write about family, cooking or crime, just like any other author.


Progress will come when disabled authors are welcomed to write about family, cooking or crime, just like any other author


Publishing doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The media oſten has a large role in how books are promoted, and marketing teams can help in how they frame disabilit titles in pitches to editors and producers. For example, I deliberately appeared on mainstream politics shows to present my book to audiences as a political non-fiction rather than solely a “disabilit title”. Tackling this is not simply the right thing to do, it’s wise business. Greater diversit means more untapped talent and, in turn, more sales. It’s time disabilit was brought in off the sidelines and put front and centre. The industry will be all the richer for it.


Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist and author. Her work has been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and Paul Foot Award. Her début Crippled: Austerity and the Demonisation of Disabled People (Verso) is out now in paperback.


TheBookseller.com


Author Interview


Activist Judith Heumann’s memoir is an unflinching tale of struggle—and hope


different way and begin to ask the right questions”. There is a growing interest from broader readerships, and getting “these stories out there enables us to have deeper, more thoughtful discussions”. Most people with a disability acquire


it during their life, rather than being born disabled. This is likely to increase in the wake of Covid, and Heumann is concerned with the kind of information available—“much of it has been pretty negative”. It is important to notice absence, and there is an absence of disability in publishing. We need “to be uncomfortable with that absence and demand that absence disappear”; to make visible what is so often invisible. “It’s important publishers recognise the power of these stories. Disability is a normal part of life.” People should not live in fear of


B


Louise Kenward @louisekenward


eing Heumann: The Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist (W H Allen), produced by


Judith (Judy) Heumann in collaboration with writer Kristen Joiner, tells the story of Heumann’s life growing up in Brooklyn, confronted at every turn with barriers excluding her from engaging in society and living her life. This is a story we should all know: the story of the civil rights movement for disabled people. But as with most things related to disability, it has gone unseen. Heumann’s story throws a much-overdue spotlight on this. Speaking to me from Washington DC, she says her readers have echoed my own response: why didn’t I know this story? Heumann’s life of activism emerged


Being Heumann: The


Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist was released in the UK by W H Allen in July.


from a summer camp in the 1970s (docu- mented in “Crip Camp”, currently showing on Netflix). Attendees of the camp later united to fight for equal rights, resulting in the signing of the much-resisted Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act in the US, which “forbids organisations and employers from excluding or denying individuals with disabilities an equal opportunity to receive program benefits and services”.This set a precedent for The Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, and the UK followed in 1995 with The Disability Discrimination Act. “Disability has been so invisible,” she


tells me, “it’s important for people to be able to see themselves.” Books are how we learn, and how we “look at issues in a


Kenward photography: Alex Woodcock 27


recrimination on the basis of their disability, she says. It may be temporary or permanent but we shouldn’t shy away from it. It’s important that “the voices of the disability community are representa- tive of the community in the broadest way possible”, and that it’s a global movement. So many of us live with invis- ible disabilities and aren’t disclosing, and we need to respect one another’s choices, but it is also important that we say “I have a disability”, because many of us are in positions of power in the public and private sector; not disclosing limits the power we have to make the changes that we could do—we are stronger together. For those who struggle to identify as


disabled, for whatever reason, Heumann is poignant in reminding me that you can feel alone, but “overarching issues, like discrimination in the workforce, how you are treated by the community and how you are seen… there are certain experi- ences that we all have.” With more than a billion disabled


people in the world, “if we see ourselves as part of the community, fighting for the same changes,” then the more we come together, the more impactful we can be. “We need everyone to feel they’re part of the solution.” We need to be able to ask, “What types of changes do we need to make in ourselves and in our communities?” We need to be “driven, not only by wanting to make one’s individual life better, but in benefiting more people. These are important things that everyone should be concerned about.” At the end of “Crip Camp”, Heumann


says: “If you don’t respect yourself and if you don’t demand what you believe in for yourself, you’re not going to get it. But it’s hard. We can’t do it alone.”


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