Reviewed by Ona Gritz
My first husband’s aunt once told me this story about a friend’s adult son. He lived in his parents’ basement and noodled around for years in the hope of inventing something useful. His various attempts went nowhere until the day he thought to thread tiny lights through a tube. These became the glowing floor strips that illuminate darkened movie theaters and airplanes. An innovation we had no idea we needed until there it was, guiding our way.
I can’t verify this story, but what I can say is that it perfectly illustrates how I felt when I read Sarah Fawn Montgomery’s new craft chapbook, Nerve: Unlearning Workshop Ableism to Develop Your Disabled Writing Practice. That I’d come upon something enlightening and essential. Something that begs the question: how has this not been here all along?
In truth, I tend to approach craft books, or any how-to books for that matter, with a bit of trepidation. A concern that they’ll be too rigid and prescriptive, leaving me feeling as though I’ve been going about my work—or some other essential aspect of life—all wrong. But Montgomery’s fine offering is not only the opposite of what I’ll call a should-book, it’s the antidote. A craft book, yes, but also a manifesto and permission slip. The one book on writing that understands the concept of spoon theory, acknowledges the veracity of crip time, and addresses the reality that not all writers live pain-free lives or have the capacity to sit at a desk, hold a pen, or put in hours of work without causing harm to our bodies or brains.
How then do we disabled writers accomplish our work? By developing a disabled writing practice. Not Montgomery’s disabled writing practice—though she’s generous and candid in sharing that with us—but our own.
Nerve invites us to trust our instincts and prioritize our well-being. “If, like me,” Montgomery writes, “the work of your life right now is living rather than writing, let this be a welcome lesson in craft, for struggling to survive is an act of narrative, storytelling an act of resistance.”
What is success? What constitutes a good day’s work? The answers, according to Montgomery, are ours to define. She favors the terms claiming and reframing, suggesting we “reframe [our] notions of what ‘counts’ as writing” to include “gathering inspiration, taking notes, and reflecting as part of the process.” She also urges us to forgo strict output goals and, instead, write when it works for us. “Even if this is a line you compose while in the bathtub or an image you discover while waiting for a medical appointment … claim this as worthy progress.” Nerve is a call to reject ableist definitions of productivity and “capitalistic hustle culture,” along with writing spaces that have rejected us through their inaccessibility. Doing so, Montgomery tells us, is critical “… to both the craft of creativity and the craft of care.”
While Nerve is an excellent guide to self-care for working disabled writers, the small volume is also a fount of useful and motivating craft advice. Montgomery encourages us to discover, as she has in her own insightful and innovative work, forms and structures that both serve and reflect our disabled lives.
“If your experience with disability, chronic illness, and neurodivergence makes you feel disconnected from the body and brain, try writing in the second person to replicate that distance, or writing in the form of medical notes to create further distance from the narrator.”
She writes that we should neither shield readers from our difficulties or perform our trauma for their voyeuristic pleasure. Nor should we write tidy endings that are untrue to our experience.
“Let your work linger in uncertainty, in the gray area of making a life in a world that does not make space for us. You do not owe readers a resolution you have never received.”
Montgomery reminds us that one of our greatest resources is each other, disabled creatives in community. She also points out that living with disability requires continual experimentation and revision, skills that are there for us when we approach the page. “This,” she tells us, “is an essential element of craft—the art of revision. I revise my perception of myself and my practice, revise my belief about my body and brain, revise my expectations on a day-to-day basis.”
Nerve is filled with sage advice and it’s such good company, it warrants multiple readings. And as I mentioned, it’s not a long book—less than fifty pages. Nonetheless, it is a tremendous gift to disabled writers. It’s also a literal gift in that Sundress Publications has made it free for download as both an eBook and an audiobook narrated by the author. You are sure to love Sarah Fawn Montgomery’s voice and be inspired by her clarion call to share your own, taking care of yourself as you do.
Title: Nerve: Unlearning Workshop Ableism to Develop Your Disabled Writing Practice
Author: Sarah Fawn Montgomery
Publisher: Sundress Publications
Year: 2025
Editor’s Note: An audio version of this text can be found at the following link: https://www.sundresspublications.com/audio/nerve.mp3. The PDF linked above includes a digital book cover that may not be accessible to all readers; however, it appears that the remainder of the book PDF is accessible.
Back to Top of Page | Back to Book Reviews | Back to Volume 19, Issue 1 – Summer 2025
About the Reviewer
Ona Gritz’s new memoir, Everywhere I Look, won the Readers’ Choice Gold Award for Best Adult Book, the Independent Author Award in New Nonfiction, the Independent Author Award in True Crime, and is an Independent Book Review 2024 Must-Read. Her nonfiction has appeared widely, including in The New York Times, The Guardian, Brevity, Parents, and River Teeth. Among her recent honors are two Notable mentions in The Best American Essays and a Best Life Story in Salon. The Space You Left Behind, Ona’s first young adult novel, written in verse, has just been released from West 44 Books and is featured in The Children’s Book Council’s Hot Off the Press roundup of anticipated best sellers.