There are still not enough resources for disabled writers, but the list is growing.

If you’d like to add to this list, please scroll down the page for the form.

Thank you!

Writing & Media Related Organizations

Disabled Writers: a resource to help editors connect with disabled writers and journalists, and journalists connect with disabled sources. Their goal is to promote paid opportunities for multiply marginalized members of the disability community, and to encourage editors and journalists to think of disabled people for stories that stretch beyond disability issues.

The Inevitable Foundation: “Empowering mid-level disabled writers with the job placement, professional development, funding, networking and mentorship they need to build thriving careers in the entertainment industry.”

The Perkoff Prize at The Missouri Review: “The Perkoff Prize is a tri-genre contest that awards $1000 and publication each to writers of the best story, set of poems, and essay that engage in evocative ways with health and medicine as judged by the editors.”

Rooted in Rights: “Rooted in Rights tells disability stories by disabled people. Since 2015 we’ve produced short videos, short and long form documentary pieces, blogs, trainings, resources, and events.”

The Squeaky Wheel: Disability Satire for Disabled People, a great place to submit satire and humor pieces.

Zoeglossia: a community for poets with disabilities.

Grants, Fellowships, Residencies & Scholarships

Awesome Disability: Launched in April 2017, Awesome Disability is an independent chapter of the Awesome Foundation, a global community that provides micro-grants with no strings attached. 

Deaf Artist Residency Program at the Anderson Center: “Anderson Center at Tower View provides residencies of two to four weeks’ duration from May through October each year. Since 2014 the Anderson Center at Tower View has offered such month-long residencies in alternating years to small groups of Deaf artists, including poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers, whose native or adoptive language is American Sign Language (ASL). Supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Anderson Center's Deaf Artist Residency is the only program in the country that is Deaf-centric. It was developed with the goal of contributing to the creation of a network of Deaf culture-creators in Minnesota and the United States.”

Disability Visibility Scholarships for Esme Wang’s The Unexpected Shape Writing Academy: The Disability Visibility Fellowships are sponsored by Alice Wong (she/her), a disabled activist, writer, editor, and community organizer. Each of the ten fellowships will give the recipient full access to The Unexpected Shape Academy and Writing Intensive for three months.

The Judy Neri Scholarship for Disabled Poets (The Writer’s Center): “Judy was was a writer in Silver Spring, Maryland, and a passionate supporter of the DC area poetry community. In Judy’s memory, each year, The Writer’s Center will award scholarships of $250 to 4 recipients (which may be used toward 1 or more workshops at The Writer’s Center).”

NBCUniversal Tony Coelho Media Scholarship

Stimpunks Creators Grant: arts grants for disabled and neurodivergent creatives

VSA Playwright Discovery Program at The Kennedy Center (ages 14-19)

Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) - Marian Treger Fellowship for Enduring Creativity: This VCCA fellowship is intended to support women artists (fiction writers, screenwriters, or visual artists) emerging in mid-life and beyond, whose creative paths, like Marian Treger’s, may have been detoured or hindered by chronic health conditions or disabilities.

Cool Stuff for Writers

The Disability Dispensary: lots of swag for disabled writers, designed by writer and activist Kelly Dawson.

Do you know of any additional resources for writers who identify as disabled? Let me know!

Why do I use the word Disabled?

Some of you may be scratching your heads at my use of the word disabled. When I was growing up there were all kinds of cutesy ways to talk about disabled bodies: differently-abled, special, handicapable, etc. But I never heard the word disabled. In fact, I was told by a lot of people that they didn’t see me as disabled, and they meant this as a very kind compliment. When we tell people to hide something about themselves we send a message that it should be seen as a source of shame. Imagine if your own identity was treated like this: “Oh, we don’t see you as North Carolinian” … “I don’t think of you as an athlete.”

 Each person deserves the right to identify as they choose, and that identity may change or shift over time (some people in the disability community prefer person-first language: “person with a disability”), but I find that using the word disabled not only allows me to reclaim pride in my identity, and it also makes clear that a disabled life includes barrier. There is a very large segment of the population that needs access, that needs to be seen as disabled so that we can make more room for their bodies and their voices with ramps and accessibility captions, schedule flexibility, payment plans (because many disabled people live below the poverty line) and anything else that helps them be in the room.

 Let’s not talk around it, or avoid it, or come up with a cute new way to designate it - let’s just #saytheword disabled, and by saying the word we can open up new opportunities, new ways of belonging and allow the creativity, resilience and resourcefulness of the disability community to be seen and heard so that we can learn from all of the expansive wisdom and clarity this community has offer.