Disabled and d/Deaf Dykes

Disabled and d/Deaf Dykes have always been at the forefront of the movements for greater access and rights for all disabled and d/Deaf people. Sinister Wisdom invites and welcomes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, art, and genre-bending works from all disabled and/or d/Deaf Lesbians. As long as you identify as disabled--including mental illness and chronic illness--and Lesbian, we'd love the chance to read your work.

Write to us about dis/ability, how your lesbian and disabled identities intersect. Show us your stories about how, to quote long-time disability activist and out lesbian Connie Panzarino, "Trached dykes eat pussy without coming up for air."

Tell us about your embodied and dis-embodied experiences, the horrors or joys of the medical vs. social models of disability. Your mobility aids as sites of embodied pleasure.

Share your #DisLit and #CripLit and #ActuallyAutistic words with us, your crip futurities and your radical accessibility.

Submit through Submittable by May 31, 2020.

Guest Editor: Valerie Wetlaufer is a disabled lesbian poet and adjunct professor. She is the author of Call Me by My Other Name and Mysterious Acts by My People, winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry. She holds a PhD in Literature from the University of Utah, and an MFA in Poetry from Florida State University. Valerie teaches at Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

"Empowerment comes from ideas."

Gloria Anzaldúa

“And the metaphorical lenses we choose are crucial, having the power to magnify, create better focus, and correct our vision.”
― Charlene Carruthers

"Your silence will not protect you."

Audre Lorde

“It’s revolutionary to connect with love”
— Tourmaline

"Gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught."

― Leslie Feinberg

“The problem with the use of language of Revolution without praxis is that it promises to change everything while keeping everything the same. “
— Leila Raven