Alice Wong Redefines ‘Disability Intimacy’ in New Anthology

KQED's Forum

“Intimacy is about relationships within a person’s self, with others, with communities, with nature, and beyond,” writes Alice Wong, founder and director of the Disability Visibility Project and editor of the new anthology, “Disability Intimacy.” When Wong began work on the book, she googled what would become its title — and what was she found was “basic AF” and made her go “Ewwwwww.” That inspired her to commission and collect writing from people with disabilities about what intimacy meant to them. The essays reflect on friendships, parent-child bonds, romantic relationships and disability communities. We’ll hear from Wong and some of the anthology’s contributors about the intimacy of sharing and disclosing our relationships with ourselves, with others and with disability itself. And we’ll hear their stories of “love, care and desire” — and the personal and systemic change that intimacy can bring.

Guests:

Alice Wong, disabled activist, writer and community organizer; editor, "Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire"

s.e. smith, freelance journalist whose essay in "Disability Intimacy" is "Skin Hunger and the Taboo of Wanting to be Touched"

Yomi Sachiko Young, Oakland-based disability justice activist; dreamer whose essay in "Disability Intimacy" is "Primary Attachment"

Melissa Hung, writer, editor and journalist whose essay in "Disability Intimacy" is "The Last Walk"; founding editor in chief, Hyphen - an independent Asian American magazine; former director, San Francisco WritersCorps