Right Way to Be Crippled and Naked : The Fiction of Disability

When you're disabled, you don't have to be naked to be naked.

"I remember I believed all my problems would be solved, if only I were beautiful. Then I was beautiful." --Jonathan Mack, from his story "The Right Way to be Crippled and Naked."

Welcome to the worlds of the disabled. The physically disabled. The mentally disabled. The emotionally disabled. What does that word "disabled" mean anyway? Is there a right way to be crippled? Editors Sheila Black and Michael Northen (co-editors of the highly praised anthology Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability) join newcomer Annabelle Hayse to present short stories by Dagoberto Gilb, Anne Finger, Stephen Kuusisto, Thom Jones, Lisa Gill, Floyd Skloot, and others. These authors --all who experience the "disability" they write about -- crack open the cage of our culture's stereotypes. We look inside, and, through these people we thought broken, we uncover new ways of seeing and knowing.

Sheila Black is the author of over 40 books for children and young adults as well as the author of two poetry collections and two chapbooks. Black was chosen as one of the 2012 Witter Bynner fellowship recipients. She was born with X-Linked Hypophosphatemia (XLH), a rare genetic bone condition, often called Vitamin D Resistant Rickets. Two of her three children also have XLH.

Michael Northen edits Wordgathering, A Journal of Disability and Poetry and coordinates the annual Inglis House Poetry Contest for disability-related poetry. For over 40 years, he has taught adults with physical disabilities, women on public assistance, prisoners, and rural and inner city children.