Around 20% of Americans live with a disability, but for many disability remains a taboo subject. Too often, the complex experiences of the disabled are reduced to pity or inspiration. On this panel, three disabled authors of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction discuss their work and what we don’t talk about when we talk about disability. With EMILY MALONEY, KAY ULANDAY BARRETT, and JT HILL. Hosted by JT HILL.

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EMILY MALONEY is the author of COST OF LIVING (Henry Holt, 2022). Her work has appeared in Glamour, Virginia Quarterly Review, Best American Essays, and the American Journal of Nursing, among others. In addition to her work as an ER tech, she has worked as a dog groomer, horse trainer, pastry chef, general contractor, tile setter, and catalog model and sold her ceramics at art fairs. She has twice been awarded a MacDowell Fellowship and lives in Evanston, Illinois.

KAY ULANDAY BARRETT is a poet, essayist, cultural strategist, and A+ napper. They are the winner of the 2022 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry and a recipient of a 2020 James Baldwin Fellowship at MacDowell. Their second book, More Than Organs (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020) received a 2021 Stonewall Honor Book Award by the American Library Association and is a 2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalist. They have received fellowships from VONA Voices, Monson Arts, Macondo, and The Lambda Literary Review. They have featured at The United Nations, The Lincoln Center, The Hemispheric Institute, Symphony Space, Brooklyn Museum, Dodge Poetry, The Poetry Foundation, The School of the Arts Institute, Manchester PRIDE, Sesame Street, & more. Their contributions are found in The New York Times, Poetry Magazine, Academy of American Poets, Colorlines, Asian American Literary Review, The Advocate, Al Jazeera, NYLON, Vogue, The Rumpus, The Lily, VIDA Review, and elsewhere. Currently, they serve as a curator at The Asian American Writer’s Workshop.

JT HILL Hill is the author of a memoir, Blind Man’s Bluff (August 2021, W. W. Norton). His fiction debut, Academy Gothic, won the Nilsen Literary Prize for a First Novel. His essays have been listed as Notable in the 2019 and 2020 editions of Best American Essays, and his fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Writer’s Digest, Story Quarterly, and Hobart, among others. He serves as fiction editor for the literary journal Monkeybicycle and contributing editor for Literary Hub, where he writes a monthly audiobooks column. He lives in Greensboro, North Carolina with his wife.