Resources on disabilities you don't share
Sat, Oct. 27th, 2012 01:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Now that I'm here, this seems like a good place to ask about something. I've brought this up before, but not really in a place or with people that would be conducive to talking it out and doing anything about it. (A simple solution like "go looking for a community of people who would totally already be interested" didn't occur to me immediately. *facepalm*)
There needs to be a resource for disabled writers (and nondisabled ones, I guess) to go to for information specific to portraying disabilities they don't share. I'm imagining that it would involve links to relevant articles and forums, if any exist, book titles that might be helpful, blogs by people with the disability in question (ones who blog about their disability, obviously), a few common problematic representations, and ideally it would include one or more people willing to answer questions, discuss plots, beta for accuracy, whatever. It would also be cool if it had a "pop quiz" to check whether you'd absorbed enough from the listed resources. Obviously, that last idea would hardly be perfect on its own, but I'm thinking it could serve as a wake-up call that you don't know as much as you thought you did, or as reassurance that you're not going to fail and you can breathe easy.
Does this exist already? If not, I... really don't know what to do to make it, but volunteer to do most/much of the work putting it together if someone gives me ideas and helps me figure out what to do.
(And it really needs a way to submit anonymously. The disabilities with the worst media representation are probably also the ones people least want to admit to having.)
ETA: it exists! You can find it at
accessportrayal and on LJ at
accessportrayal. By the way, does anyone know how to put a link in a profile?
There needs to be a resource for disabled writers (and nondisabled ones, I guess) to go to for information specific to portraying disabilities they don't share. I'm imagining that it would involve links to relevant articles and forums, if any exist, book titles that might be helpful, blogs by people with the disability in question (ones who blog about their disability, obviously), a few common problematic representations, and ideally it would include one or more people willing to answer questions, discuss plots, beta for accuracy, whatever. It would also be cool if it had a "pop quiz" to check whether you'd absorbed enough from the listed resources. Obviously, that last idea would hardly be perfect on its own, but I'm thinking it could serve as a wake-up call that you don't know as much as you thought you did, or as reassurance that you're not going to fail and you can breathe easy.
Does this exist already? If not, I... really don't know what to do to make it, but volunteer to do most/much of the work putting it together if someone gives me ideas and helps me figure out what to do.
(And it really needs a way to submit anonymously. The disabilities with the worst media representation are probably also the ones people least want to admit to having.)
ETA: it exists! You can find it at
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