It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything On Here, but I’m hoping that I’m able to make that part of my routine again. There have been a lot of reasons for my absence over the last year or so on this site, but that hasn’t kept me from being active on other parts of the internet. I think I’ll slowly share bits and pieces of what I’ve been up to during that time now that I’m back, and today I want to start off by talking about my recent-ish appearances on a bookish podcast.
I had the privilege of being asked by one of my Instagram followers if I’d be open to being a guest on her podcast, Tales from a Bibliophile, specifically to discuss books on disability, and I was so honored and excited to be a part of it! You can find this podcast on Apple and Spotify.
First Appearance: Disability Representation
During my first appearance, we both talked about our favorite books by disabled authors, with disabled characters, or about life with a disability. We both have fibromyalgia, so we have a bit of a similar framework, and it was such a healing conversation for me. I will say that I was going through a bit of a flare-up and was experiencing some brain fog, so please excuse the slow speed at which I respond to questions and articulate my thoughts. But I hope that if you haven’t yet, you will take the time to listen and will get something out of this episode. Maybe you’ll even walk away with a book you’re excited to check out.
This is a conversational podcast, so we go start off talking about our health journeys and then go back and forth throughout the episode, sharing books that spoke to us that included some kind of disability representation. You can find all the books that we mentioned during that episode on Bookshop.
I’m always looking to read books by disabled authors and about disabled characters. Anytime I read those books, I add the ones I recommend, including the condition of the character to an ever-growing list on my Bookshop as well. That list is consistently growing, and I don’t think it will ever stop.
Second Appearance: Celebrating Disability Pride Month
I returned about two months later to Tales from a Bibliophile for an episode during Disability Pride Month, which takes place every July, since that is the month that the ADA was signed into law.
During that episode, we discussed two specific books written by disabled authors that we both read prior to our conversation. These books were Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc and Crip Kinship: The Disability Justice & Art Activism of Sins Invalid by Shayda Kafa. If you would like to read both books before listening, you can absolutely do that, but know that since both books are non-fiction, we don’t really “spoil” anything, per se. We start off the conversation giving an overview of each book and then talk about our takeaways from each book, as well as what our expectations were versus what the reality was.
Even though these were the main books we showed up to talk about, other books came up throughout the conversation, as often happens when conversing with bookworms. If you want to find the list of all the books you hear mentioned throughout that episode, you can find them all available on that episode’s Bookshop list.
These are just a couple of the places I’ve appeared recently, and it was such an honor to be asked to be a guest. I always love talking about books and about my perspective on disability and how the books I’ve read have shaped that perspective. So both of these conversations felt so constructive and healing to me.
As I mentioned before, while I’ve been absent here, I’ve been active in other spaces. In the upcoming weeks, I’ll be sharing more about where I’ve been hanging out online, as well as what I’ve been reading.
Brisa Ramirez 