Category: ableism

  • New Essay Published!

    September was Suicide Prevention Month, and this piece is important enough to warrant being late. The one on suicide prevention is the story of my two attempts in a nutshell. I shared this story because it’s integral to who I am and because I know there are people out there struggling like I was. Maybe…

  • The Paths We Take

    It’s the uncertainty that gets to me. I’m the kind of person who likes to have a backup plan for a backup plan because nothing ever seems to go right. Backup plans fail often too but they bring a sense of security, of having a way out that might save me this time.   But plans…

  • Prescriptivism

    I’ve talked at length about how classist, ableist, and racist correcting grammar is. I’ve discussed the effects of weaponized grammar as well. But prescriptivism is more than just correcting spelling and grammar and I’m here to shine a light on what it is and what it looks like.   Prescriptivism is when you try to…

  • Suffering and Art

    No, you don’t need to suffer to produce art. That’s a misconception plenty of people have, and it’s a dangerous one. It prevents people from getting help, for one thing. But is it even true to begin with?  I’m mentally ill. I’m mentally ill because I had a traumatic childhood, and as both a teenager…

  • Weaponizing Grammar

    I’ll link the post where I talk about why it’s classist, ableist, racist, and rude to correct grammar because I’m here to expand on that topic. I covered those points well enough, but I just had someone report a spelling error in my book and I’m here to talk about why you should either ignore those…

  • Audiobooks Count as Reading (and Saying Otherwise is Ableist)

    I see this all the time on social media, that audiobooks don’t count as reading. It’s listening. Aside from how heavily pedantic that argument is (seriously, does it really matter that much?) it’s ableist. Let’s unpack this, shall we?  First of all, how do you think blind people read? Not all blind people read braille,…

  • Correcting Grammar is Rude (and I’m Here to Tell You Why)

    There is an interesting divide between the folks who correct spelling and grammar online and those that don’t, and those that correct grammar online are almost always those who don’t get paid to do it. You’d think it would be the other way around until you consider that’s a paid service. People don’t tend to…