Pushing Limits

Two Writers; Three Books – Pushing Limits – May 5, 2023

Interviews with two authors with disabilities who have written books from their lived expertise.

Stephanie Heit is the author of Psych Murders, a poetic memoir of her encounters with the psychiatric medical system.  Dr. Sami Schalk, professor of gender studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, discusses her book, Bodyminds Imagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction, which relates disability, Blackness and speculative (science) fiction, and Black Disability Politics.

Stephanie Heit is part of Turtle Disco, an imaginative creative space in Ypsilanti, Mich., along with her wife, longtime Bay Area disability culture fixture Petra Kuppers.  Dr. Schalk writes for mainstream outlets, serves as a board member for Freedom, Inc, and once twerked with Lizzo.  She identifies as a fat, Black, queer, cisgender, disabled femme.  She is polyamorous and a pleasure activist.