July 15th was Mad Pride, and I celebrated by reflecting on the newly released, ‘Mad World’ by Micha Frazer-Carroll. The book reads like a breath of fresh air, as it provides a much-needed approach to mental health – one which is firmly rooted in a necessary anti-capitalist and abolitionist politics. Exploring and rejecting the harmful limitations of ‘awareness-raising’ campaigns and diagnoses, Frazer-Carroll asks us to reckon with what ‘sanity’ would even look like in a world which works ceaselessly to drive us mad. Frazer-Carroll approaches her discussion of mental illness through an explicit ..read more

The Sims. Twilight. Vampire Diaries. WKD and other sugary alcopops. Sleepovers. The Sims, again. I never thought the things that made up the background to my teenage life would some day fill my notebooks with aliveness, nostalgia and poetry. In fact, I never thought you could write poetry about these things at all – besides, I was too busy and self-conscious to write poetry as a teenager, struggling every day to just get through school and survive. But as an adult, poetry has given me the freedom to process, make sense of and even rethink my past experiences of growing up as a neurodivergent f ..read more

When my older sister was 13, she got a job at a fish-and-chip shop. Watching her cash tills and serve customers, I was in awe at her self-composure and sparkling confidence. Though just two years older, she seemed a decade ahead of me in every way, and I often wondered what was wrong with me.  I knew that even in five years, I wouldn’t be able to hold a regular job like her or my teenage classmates.  Ten years later, I still felt like the anxious, sensitive child I’d always been. Though I’d been Dux of my high school and had moved from my regional hometown to the city to attend unive ..read more

Holly Smale is the author of the incredible Geek Girl and Valentine’s Young Adult series. At the age of 39, after decades of always feeling different, Holly was diagnosed with autism and everything about Geek Girls’ Harriet – and Holly’s life – made more sense. Her new book The Cassandra Complex is her first foray into adult fiction and explores how an autistic and neurodivergent adults traverse relationships and life differently. I’m overjoyed to share my Q&A with Holly below. What inspired you to write The Cassandra Complex ? I had the basic idea for The Cassandra Complex six years ago ..read more

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below: Password: The post Protected: “If I’m not writing honestly there’s no point in writing at all” – Q & A with Author Holly Smale appeared first on The Unwritten ..read more

12 million people in the UK are currently living with hearing loss and deafness, according to the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID). That’s about 1 in 5 people in the UK. Look around you right now. Are you at work? On public transport? In a park? Find a group of around five people. The likelihood is that one of them has hearing loss, because that’s how fractions work – and also I literally just told you that. Chances are, one person in your family has hearing loss or is deaf. It might even be you. Two people in my family are deaf, because we’re high-achievers. Yep, I have one hea ..read more

Building a business as a disabled person has been both challenging and rewarding. The highs make it all worth it, even when the lows make you question everything. But it constantly teaches me valuable lessons. Not just how to navigate the working world as a disabled person but also how to take up space and set boundaries – and stick to them! Most importantly how to spot and make the most of all the opportunities around me. This article aims to share a little insight into what I’ve learned, in the hope that it will empower other disabled people to pursue their dream careers- whatever that looks ..read more

Before A Kind of Spark was even an idea, I was living out Addie’s life in full. In year six I had a teacher (we’ll call her Mrs S) whose approach to teaching was that she wouldn’t give any child “special attention”. For an eleven-year-old autistic child, this was the start of my year of hell. Stimming was banned in class as it was seen as disruptive. Anything I’d stim with would be snatched out of my hand or I’d be sent out of the classroom. If I didn’t answer a question quickly enough or didn’t know the answer, it would be shouted in my ear.  I remember how hard it was to grasp the conce ..read more

I wanted to update you all on the future of The Unwritten. As you all know I started The Unwritten to give disabled people the space to tell our own authentic stories in a way mainstream media just wasn’t allowing. And though it’s only been a short time, I truly believe we’ve made waves. However, as my career grows and my conditions worsen, I’ve had to make an incredibly hard decision. From mid-June, The Unwritten will be on a 6 months hiatus, during which time I will be assessing its and my own direction.  In the meantime, we have a raft of content still to get out and will be publishing ..read more

Box-Ticking Exercise is a monthly(-ish) column by Melissa Parker in which she dissects ableism and the portrayal of disability in tv, film and media. Being M, this is of course all done with her pen as a scalpel. It was a moment of catharsis in an aisle filled with garish colours. An emotional pull, a toy that looked a little like me—a Barbie in a wheelchair—in plastic flesh, my eyes filled with tears —I could almost see my once chubby little fingers reaching for it.   It wasn’t until days later that I faced a jarring reality that often hits home profoundly and unexpectedly—a friend ..read more