As we continue to celebrate Disability Pride Month, here are 5 more Texan writers to read. Their compelling stories offer a powerful and authentic view on disability in our society.
- Laurie Clements Lambeth – Laurie received an MFA and a PhD in creative writing from the University of Houston. Lambeth is the author of the National Poetry Series selection Veil and Burn (University of Illinois Press, 2008). She teaches English at the Honors College at the University of Houston. Read her poem “Cusped Prognosis”
- ire’ne lara silva – ire’ne is the 2023 Texas State Poet Laureate. She is the author of furia (Mouthfeel Press, 2010), Blood Sugar Canto (Saddle Road Press, 2016), Cuicacalli//House of Song (Saddle Road Press, 2019), FirstPoems: ani’mal, INDíGENA, and furia (FlowerSong Press, 2021), and the eaters of flowers (Saddle Road Press, 2024). Read her poem, “blood.sugar.canto”
- Natalia Treviño – Natalia has won several awards for her poetry and fiction including the 2004 Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, the 2008 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize and the 2012 Literary Award from the Artist Foundation of San Antonio. She is the author of VirginX (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and Lavando La Dirty Laundry (Mongrel Empire Press, 2014). Read her poem, “Coatlicue and How She Became The Virgin.”
- Victoria Garcia-Zapata – Victoria is the author of Peace in the Corazon (Wings Press, 1999) and Another Water Bug is Murdered While It Rains In Texas or Entre la Muerte: New & Selected Poems (Wings Press, 2009), and Te Prometo (Paloma Press, 2015). Read her interview with Cindy Huyser.
- Maria R Palacios – María R. Palacios is a poet, author, spoken word performer, motivational speaker, social change advocate, disability rights activist, mentor, and workshop facilitator. Listen to her piece, “The Language of Eugenics.”
FURTHER READING:
- Kenneth Fries – Kenny Fries is the author of In the Province of the Gods (University of Wisconsin, 2021), which received the Creative Capital literature award; The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin’s Theory (Da Capo Press, 2007), winner of the Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights; and Body, Remember: A Memoir (University of Wisconsin, 2003). He also edited Staring Back: The Disability Experience from the Inside Out (Plume, 1997). Read his essay, “Without Us: Disabled Writers 30 years after the ADA.”