Disability Biography

Meet the exhausted group of caregiving mothers who offer extraordinary care to a child with disabilities or unique needs. These unsung heroes, who walk invisibly among us, dedicate time, energy, love, and their entire lives to help their loved one who is unable to help themselves. A child with a rare degenerative disease. A sibling with autism. A teen wading through anxiety and depression. An adult child with a debilitating illness. A child with extreme ADHD.

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Kate Bowler's The Everything Happens Book Club Pick! Award-winning writer Heather Lanier's memoir about raising a child with a rare syndrome, defying the tyranny of normal, and embracing parenthood as a spiritual practice that breaks us open in...

While preparing to deploy with the US Army, Marcus suffered a severe spinal injury that left him paralyzed. After dying on the operating table twice, the surgeons saved his life, but told him he'd never walk again. Having no other option, Marcus started doing some brutally honest soul-searching, looking for the lesson to be learned from his injury. Once he started seeing his adversity as a gift instead of a curse, something miraculous began to happen....

When she was 54, Lisa Knopp’s weight dropped to a number on the scale that she hadn’t seen since seventh grade. The severe food restricting that left her thin and sick when she was 15 and 25 had returned. This time, she was determined to understand the causes of her malady and how she could heal from a condition that is caused by a tangle of genetic, biological, familial, psychological, cultural, and spiritual factors.

In Everything Is Going to be K.O. Kaiya Stone writes about her own experiences of living with specific learning difficulties: from struggling at school to being diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia while at university, to performing her own one-woman stand up show inspired by her journey. Always funny and unfailingly honest, Kaiya outlines the frustrations of having SPLDS but also the ways in which they have fuelled her creativity.

With his signature acerbic wit and hilarious voice, 20-something author, blogger, and entrepreneur Shane Burcaw is back with an essay collection about living a full life in a body that many people perceive as a tragedy. From anecdotes about first introductions where people patted him on the head instead of shaking his hand, to stories of passersby mistaking his able-bodied girlfriend for a nurse, Shane tackles awkward situations and assumptions with humor and grace.

A memoir penned with one good finger, Ndopu writes about being profoundly disabled and profoundly successful Global humanitarian Eddie Ndopu was born with spinal muscular atrophy, a rare degenerative motor neuron disease affecting his mobility. He was told that he wouldn’t live beyond age five...

The vividly told, gloriously illustrated memoir of an artist born with disabilities who searches for freedom and connection in a society afraid of strange bodies “Golem Girl is luminous; a profound portrait of the artist as a young—and mature—woman; an unflinching social history of...

In this deeply moving memoir, L.A. Batista recounts her incredible journey through a life filled with obstacles — family turmoil, physical challenges, an abusive marriage, and single parenthood. Despite the hardships, her story is one of unyielding strength and resilience. Beginning with her childhood in the 1960s in a neighborhood in New York City, the author recounts her family life as she dealt with an undiagnosed rare disease.

After a diagnosis of a degenerative eye disease, John Samuel’s life—and his chance at success—started to vanish. In a world systemically unequipped for accessibility, disability inclusion is often left out of conversations about diversity. For people with disabilities, it can feel impossible to adapt and thrive when you’re already set up for failure.

Musical director and arranger David Loud, a legendary Broadway talent, recounts his wildly entertaining and deeply poignant trek through the wilderness of his childhood and the edge-of-your-seat drama of a career on, in, under, and around Broadway for decades. He reveals his struggle against the ravages of Parkinson's and triumphs repeatedly. This memoir is also a remarkable love letter to music. Loud is the Ted Lasso of the theater business, ever the optimist!

Waking one morning to find he has little to no motor control, Jamieson only wants the world to return to how it had been before. After a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, he thinks his life is over. What he doesn’t know is that it’s only just begun. Trying to navigate through the world in a body he no longer understands, Jamieson must travel through the dark forest of depression while waging a constant battle against himself. Over time, he learns what he’s truly capable of and what it actually means to be courageous.

In Fractured Realities, Ryder Budden shares a deeply personal and raw account of his life with schizophrenia, offering a rare glimpse into the struggle, resilience, and hope that defines his journey. From vivid hallucinations and delusional paranoia to the gradual path toward healing, this memoir explores the highs and lows of navigating a fractured reality. Ryder's story begins with childhood encounters with the impossible, from seeing extra limbs in reflections to vivid visions of God.

“Honey, you’ve been very ill and they’ve had to amputate…” His voice cracked. I searched his face, looking for some kind of clue to tell me why I sensed so much pain from him and in me. “…Your hands and feet.” Cyndi tried to grasp the new reality that flesh-eating disease had changed her life forever. Her recent memories of being a successful business manager and new mom seemed oceans away. It just couldn’t be true. I tried to speak, but no words came. Please God—let this be a dream.

Lorsqu'on rencontre Martin pour la première fois, ce qui frappe immédiatement, c'est son sourire charmeur, son enthousiasme, son oeil qui pétille, son aisance à l'oral et ses idées qui fusent dans tous les sens. Son fauteuil, on n'y pense même pas. On ne le voit pas. C'est tout juste si l'on remarque que ses doigts, qui paraissent pourtant si agiles, sont inertes, tant Martin a de choses à partager, d'anecdotes à raconter et de montagnes à déplacer. Pourtant, Martin est tétraplégique.

On an overcast September day in 1993, Jim Abbott took the mound at Yankee Stadium and threw one of the most dramatic no-hitters in major-league history. The game was the crowning achievement in an unlikely success story, unseen in the annals of professional sports. In Imperfect, the one-time big...

" On ne saura jamais quel aurait été mon destin sans cette maladie – une méningite bactérienne foudroyante à l’âge de six ans –, mais je n’aurais sans doute pas vécu le quart de ce que j’ai eu la chance de vivre jusqu’à présent. Je suis Théo Curin, vingt-deux ans, amputé des quatre membres, bien dans ma tête, bien dans ma peau. Quand on me demande comment je réagirais si on me rendait bras et jambes, je réponds : “Non, merci, je ne saurais qu’en faire !” J’ai des choses à dire et le sentiment d’être écouté, que demander de plus ? "

There are 1.3 billion people around the world who identify as having a disability. When you include friends and family, the disability market touches 53 percent of all consumers. It is the world’s largest emerging market. Unleash Different reveals how companies like Google, PepsiCo, and Nordstrom are attracting people with disabilities as customers and as employees. Replacing “nice to do” with “return on investment” allows market forces to take over and the world’s leading brands to do what they do best: serve a market segment - in this case, the disability market.

Having grown up on their great-grandfather’s stories, Royd Tolkien and his brother, Mike, have always enjoyed adventures. So when Mike is diagnosed with motor neurone disease, also known as ALS, the brothers decide to use the time they have left to tick off as much as possible from Mike’s bucket list, from remote camping in Norway to travelling through Royd’s beloved New Zealand. Yet, when Royd loses Mike, he discovers his brother had been writing another kind of bucket list: 50 things he wanted Royd to do after his death.

The first book to cover the entirety of disability history, from pre-1492 to the present Disability is not only the story of someone we love or the story of whom we may become; rather it is undoubtedly the story of our nation. Covering the entirety of US history from pre-1492 to the present, A...