In honor of Disability Pride month, discover the writings of these 6 Texan authors during the month of July.
Let’s explore the diverse experiences, strengths, and contributions they bring to the literary landscape.
Here are 6 phenomenal Texan writers to get you started:
- Leticia Urieta (Pflugerville) – author of Las Criaturas. Read her short story, “This Night World.”
- Vassar Miller (Houston) – author of Adam’s Footprint, Wage War on Silence, If I Could Sleep Deeply Enough, Struggling to Swim on Concrete, If I Had Wheels or Love. Read her poem, “On A Weekend in September.”
- Viktoria Valenzuela (San Antonio) – Her work has appeared in Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century Anthology (published by Cutthroat, a Journal of the Arts, 2020); We Are Not Your Metaphor: A Disability Poetry Anthology (Squares & Rebels, 2019); Raising Mothers; Mutha Magazine; and CONTRA: Texas Poets Speak Out (FlowerSong Press, 2020). Read her poem, “Oh Say Can You See.”
- Sheila Black – former Executive Director of Gemini Ink. Her fifth full-length book is Radium Dream (Salmon Poetry, 2022). She is the author of a chapbook All the Sleep in the World (2021), Iron, Ardent (2017), Wen Kroy (2014), Love/Iraq (2009), and House of Bone (2007). She has co-edited two anthologies: Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability (2011) and The Right Way to Be Crippled & Naked: The Fiction of Disability (2017). Here is a sample poem by Sheila Black: “The Earth.”
- Greg Marshall (Austin), author of Leg: The Story of A Limb and The Boy Who Grew From It. Read his essay, “I Am Spasticus! On Discovering You Have Cerebral Palsy.”
- Jasminne Mendez (Houston), author of Aniana Del Mar Jumps In, City Without Altar, Islands Apart: Becoming Domnican American, Josefina’s Habichuelas, Night-Blooming Jasmin(n)e, and Island of Dreams. Read Jasminne Mendez’s poem, “Along The Border.”
Further reading:
Disability Poetics on the Poetry Foundation website, co-authored by Sheila Black.
