Marginalized Identities, Disability and Vulnerability

Greetings friends, writers and readers!

It’s the first Saturday in December and Christmas is three weeks away. It’s crisp. It’s sunny. Chanukah is coming to a close. The winter solstice approaches.

Today, photographer Joan Zachary took a walk with Parisian Phoenix authors Angel Ackerman and Eva Parry at the Karl Stirner Arts Trail in Easton, Pa.

Yesterday was World Disability Day, or in perhaps more politically correct terms, International Day of Persons with Disabilities. What does such a day provide? Awareness? Recognition of the struggle those with disabilities have? Acknowledgment that many people with disabilities lead productive, meaningful lives?

Several staff members here at Parisian Phoenix Publishing Company have disabilities. And those writers talk about their disabilities in our upcoming anthology, Not an Able-Bodied White Man with Money. The anthology also presents nonfiction, art and poetry talking about weight, body image, neurodivergence, religion, sexuality, race and ethnicity among other topics.

And today, Angel gave Joan permission for a special photo series in the anthology highlighting her disability— cerebral palsy.

This is a hard project for Angel to not only see but to embrace openly and share. Disability never leaves those who have it. It always sneaks into the discussion or at the very least colors the disabled person’s experience.

In a time where we face political splintering and community splits as we consider various marginalized identity, Parisian Phoenix wants to offer a book that presents non-mainstream experiences and reinforce the idea that each and every one of us probably has something for which we face hate or discrimination.