Wordgathering

A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature

Volume 7     Issue 3     September 2013

Fiction and Book Excerpts in This Issue

As followers of Wordgathering know, this journal has been making an effort in the last few issues to provide a forum for disability fiction, an area of writing that receives far too little attention. The editors are fortunate in this issue to be able to provide a large selection–three short stories and two excerpts from novels.

Short disability fiction, despite the efforts of writers like Anne Finger and Noria Jablonski, is a genre still on the verge of coming into its own. Christopher Jon Heuer's "Trauma(2)," a story that explores the effects of family dysfunctionality on a deaf student, and Kara Dorris' hauntingly noir" Littoral Drift" provide readers the chance to immerse themselves in longer pieces. By contrast, Lee Amir illustrates the opportunities that disability presents for flash fiction.

Though novels have seen somewhat greater success in the marketplace than short fiction, they too, need great exposure. The two excerpts included here are chapters from novels. "Seeking Help" comes from Carol Smallwood's novel Lily's Oddyssey ( All Things That Matter Press, 2010), a psychological novel about child abuse. "We Can Find No Scar But Internal Difference" is a diary entry by the cantankeorous Dexter Ripley, narrator of Adam Pottle's satiric novel Mantis Dreams (Caitlin Press, 2013).

A review of Mantis Dreams can be read in the Book Reviews section of this issue.

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