Disability Essays

Caring or careless? In this powerful and moving essay, Micheline Lee tells the story of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, a transformative social change that ran into problems. For some users it has been “the only lifeboat in the ocean,” but for others it has meant still more exclusion. Lee explains what happened, showing that the NDIS, for all its good intentions, has not understood people with disabilities well enough. While government thought the market could do its job, a caring society cannot be outsourced.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A GLAMOUR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A hilarious new essay collection from Samantha Irby "engages readers with her characteristic combination of laugh-out-loud moments, heartfelt passages and plenty of awkward experiences.... Quietly Hostile will delight established...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER This essay collection from the “bitches gotta eat” blogger, writer on Hulu’s Shrill and HBO's And Just Like That, and “one of our country’s most fierce and foulmouthed authors” (Amber Tamblyn, Vulture) is sure to make you alternately cackle with glee and...

Hilarious and bawdy musings on disability, sex, family, and Hollywood, from Emmy-winning writer and creator of the Netflix series Special. This program is read by the author. "[Author Ryan] O'Connell's narration is passionate, whether he’s recounting a heartbreaking story of childhood trauma...

The much-anticipated follow up to the groundbreaking anthology Disability Visibility: another revolutionary collection of first-person writing on the joys and challenges of the modern disability experience, and intimacy in all its myriad forms. What is intimacy? More than sex, more than romantic...

'I was an intern a decade ago now, but I still remember it the way soldiers remember war.’ Intern is Sandeep Jauhar’s story of his days and nights in residency at a busy hospital in New York City, a trial that led him to question every assumption about medical care today. Residency—and...

From one of America's most celebrated psychiatrists, the book that has taught generations of healers why healing the sick is about more than just diagnosing their illness. Modern medicine treats sick patients like broken machines -- figure out what is physically wrong, fix it, and send the...

The essential read on disability, spirituality, and social justice that won the 2025 Grawemeyer Award in Religion, the 2024 National Jewish Book Award, and more A transformative spiritual companion and deep dive into disability politics that reimagines disability in the Bible and contemporary...

From the author of the widely praised Raising America--a compelling exploration of child genius told through the gripping stories of fifteen exceptionally gifted boys and girls, from a math wonder a century ago to young jazz and classical piano virtuosos today. A thought-provoking book for a...

Boldly claiming a space in which people with disabilities can be seen and heard as they are-not as others perceive them - About Us captures the voices of a community that has for too long been stereotyped and misrepresented. Speaking not only to those with disabilities, but also to their families, coworkers, and support networks, the authors in About Us offer intimate stories of how they navigate a world not built for them.

One in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some disabilities are visible, others less apparent—but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Now, just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, activist Alice Wong brings...

Early in her career, Katie Pryal learned that being a professor isn’t easy if your brain isn’t quite right. “I was a junior in college when I finally realized that I was different in a way that my medically inclined parents would call ‘clinical.’” In these deeply personal, fiery essays, Pryal tells her story of transformation that began the moment she chose to publicly disclose her own mental illness and leave her career in higher education to begin fighting for a better world for people with psychiatric disabilities. 

Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Biography Prize The Number One Irish Bestseller 'Utterly magnificent. Raw, thought-provoking and galvanising; this is a book every woman should read.' Eimear McBride, author of A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing...

An eye-opening portrait of the diverse disability community as it is today, and how disability attitudes, activism, and representation have evolved since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) In Disability Pride, disabled journalist Ben Mattlin weaves together interviews and...

私たちは本当に「見て」いるのか?触れて、聴いて、初めてわかる、この社会のかたち。時に鋭く、そしてあたたかく。ユーモアに満ちた随想集。

Foreword by DeAndre Hopkins In this extraordinary memoir, Sabrina Greenlee, the indomitable mother of NFL sensation DeAndre Hopkins, unveils her journey of triumph over adversity—a saga of tenacity, redemption, faith, and the profound reclamation of personal power. Sabrina Greenlee was born to...

The first book to cover the entirety of disability history, from pre-1492 to the present Disability is not only the story of someone we love or the story of whom we may become; rather it is undoubtedly the story of our nation. Covering the entirety of US history from pre-1492 to the present, A...

Dismantles the Woody Guthrie we have been taught—the rough-and-ready rambling’ man—to reveal an artist who discovered how intimacy is crucial for political struggle Woody Guthrie is often mythologized as the classic American “rambling’ man,” a real-life Steinbeckian folk hero who...

先天性疾患を持って生まれ、「生まれた時から歩けなくなることは分かっていた。」という彼が、１２歳で車いすユーザーになり、車いすバスケに出会い、銀メダルを獲るまでをまとめたヒューマンエッセイ。

Reject the stigmas of trauma and chronic illness by fostering queer forms of intimacy—and embracing the many ways humans can care for one another. The writer behind the popular @softcore_trauma Instagram offers a deeply personal memoir for folks seeking healing and better care. The forms of...