#97 Resist Expectations with Author Cicely Belle Blain

Welcome to our last instalment of this string of episodes on writing with limitations and disabilities.

I’m so happy to end this with the wonderful Cicely Belle Blain, the final member of my writing community who kindly agreed to join us to discuss limitations and disabilities when it comes to writing.

Reading from Cicely’s bio: Cicely Belle Blain is a Black/mixed, queer femme activist, equity and inclusion consultant, and writer. Their bestselling poetry collection Burning Sugar was called “an intimately powerful debut” by Quill and Quire. With laughter and fearlessness, they harness a passion for justice, liberation and meaningful change via transformative education.

They talk about their consulting work as well as writing and how the fairly recent journey of learning about their ADHD intersects with both of these practices.

Cicely also reads work on the theme of grief, aptly bringing to the fore the subtext of what is often the experience of having limitations and disability.

Their bio mentions their passion for justice, and so, of course, they shared their sage perspective, which underscored the enormity of this series of themed episodes—not asking for simply understanding of their or others' individual limitations and disabilities but solidarity with those attempting to resist the expectations of writing, the publishing world, social media, social capital, deadlines, and capitalism.

All of the notes for this episode are up at rachelthompson.co/97

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