writing

Filed under: Regular Contributors, Lynne Murray, Themes, The Skinny on Fat

Quoting regular Irked contributor Lynne Murray, commenting on Laurie Toby Edison’s Body Impolitic blog:

A New Yorker cartoon I liked a lot (and lost so I don’t have the creator’s name) shows a man sitting on the metal table in the paper gown while the doctor looks at his file and says, “I see here you’re 57 years old. We’d like to get that down a bit.”

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Read all Irked posts by Lynne

Read all Irked posts tagged “Laurie Toby Edison”

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Filed under: Books & Book Reviews

To read a truly beautiful excerpt from Migration Songs, a new novel by Anna Quon, click here (PDF).

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According to Anna’s official website:

It’s well and truly September and the world is starting to show its straggly side, as though it’s been turned inside out. Lots of goldenrod, cicadas and leaves falling. The world is going beautifully bald. I’m getting ready for my poetry workshops for women with disabilities, for the book tour, and trying to start another novel… which is about like I imagine breastfeeding to be…at times lovely, at others painful, unending and occassionally mind numbing. Let me know if there is another, better way…

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And according to her official Twitter account…

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Purchase Migration Songs here and here!

Click here to read Anna’s awesome Irked essays!

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Filed under: Books & Book Reviews

Quoting beavertonvalleytimes.com:

Some kids beg not to go to school. Beaverton mom Marjie Braun Knudsen knows this struggle all too well. Of her four children, two have dealt with issues related to social anxiety. That’s why she partnered with Dr. Jenne R. Henderson, a children’s psychologist, to write the book, “BRAVE: Be Ready and Victory’s Easy.” The book follows a fictional fifth-grader named Danny as he deals with his own trials of social anxiety and models coping strategies to make life seem a lot less overwhelming. Knudsen says she decided to write the book—which came out last year—because when her daughter was struggling with similar issues, she didn’t find any resources that met her needs . . . After realizing that she wanted to write the book, Knudsen starting talking with Henderson, her children’s doctor, about co-authoring the story. They spent several months going through the draft, switching off writing duties almost sentence by sentence (luckily, they have similar writing voices). After the book was completed, they shopped it around to various publishers, who told them to change aspects of the completed book. The authors decided to go a different route. “We realized that if we wanted it to stay how we wanted it, we’d have to publish it ourselves,” Knudsen says.

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“BRAVE” is now available at:

Powell’s

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

& summertimepress.com

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Filed under: Themes, Auties & Aspies, QuIrked Kids

The Colorado Springs Gazette recently asked a remarkable 11-year-old boy, Joshua, to write an essay on living with autism. Here’s what he came up with:

Autism is like a disease that you can never find a cure for. For me, it all started when I was born on June 11, 1998. When I was 3, I was diagnosed with autism. So, I watched the same movies constantly (such as “The Lion King,” which I absolutely LOVE!!!!!!), had scattered & disorganized language, & woke up constantly when my mom had already put me to sleep! My twin brothers Seth & Noah did the same things I did (except waking up when they’re put to sleep)! When I went to preschool, I was in the Special Needs class. I was also known for my runaways and escapes from the classroom. I also had some escapes when I was in second grade. I think I ran away because I didn’t want to do my work. In third grade, I never made escapes again, but I did have to have a para. (editor’s note: a paraeducator.) Now, even though I’m in middle school, I’m still very dependent on my para (I would rather be dancing, singing, & drawing than be doing school work!). Middle school, for me, is turning out harder than I thought it would. I have to arrive to classes in less than five minutes, solve harder problems, & do hard bell-ringers. When I am with my family, it feels much better than just being at school (except when I’m with my friend Isabella!!!!!!!). When people have autism, they don’t do anything to get it. They’re just born with it. Sometimes, if there’s too much for them, they can take deep breaths or do something else for a while to make them calm down. Even though autism can be a challenge in life, we people with autism can live complete and happy lives. People with autism can also be very opinionated. That means some things we like & others, we’ve always hated (Hey! I just made a rhyme with words that ended with the -ated sound!). For me, I love Disney and hate pirates and pirate movies. Some of us may have our likes and dislikes, but we are still regular people no matter what & autism is great because it makes us who we are!

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Read more great stories at colgazette.onset.freedom.com >>

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Filed under: Irked Videos

Jason Koger is a loving husband to his wife Jenny and father to his beautiful girls Billie Grace and Cambell Leigh. Anyone who has ever come in contact with Jason knows what a wonderful, kind and caring person he is (and that he gets it from his upbringing). He is the type of person that would give you the shirt off his back and expect nothing in return.

On March 1, 2008 Jason was involved in a horrible accident in which he was electrocuted by a down power line. Both of Jason’s arms were amputated below the elbow and he’s been facing the long road to recovery.

In ordinary circumstances, this might seem like a hopeless cause, but not in Jason’s case. He is a fighter with the drive and determination to overcome this obstacle, and he will win.

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Watch Jason’s commercial for Superior O&P

Read Jason and Jenny’s detailed journal

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Filed under: Themes, Blind Visionaries, Deaf Jam, Irked Videos

Last week, we told you about HumanWare’s very groovy Trekker Breeze handheld talking GPS for people who are blind and visually impaired. But the company makes MANY cutting-edge, disability-friendly products! Check out these two BBC videos about another one of HumanWare’s groundbreaking devices—The DeafBlind Communicator (DBC), conceived by Washington state’s Office of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, built by the Canadian company HumanWare and perfected with feedback from members of Seattle’s deaf-blind community, consists of a Braille note-taker linked by Bluetooth to a mobile phone:

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Filed under: Uncategorized

Quoting Deb Levin, on KnowItAlz.com:

As an artist manager I represented Matt Groening, creator of The Simpson’s cartoons and quadriplegic cartoonist, John Callahan. As part of my work, I shepherded the publication of over 15 books through the representation of very successful New York literary agents and publishers, including William Morrow, Random House, Ballantine Books, and Vintage. I was also able to receive a great amount of publicity for my clients that included a profile on 60 Minutes, People Magazine, Business Week, and the cover story for the Sunday New York Times. Now I am working on a book about my mother living with Alzheimer’s and the stories of others dealing with a loved one affected by this disease. I am looking for real life humorous stories relating to Alzheimer’s for this book, Remembering Alzheimer’s. I want to publish a book about the personal and often humorous side of Alzheimer’s, a dark and serious disease but with a slant that helps the caregiver breathe deeper and survive stronger. I hope that my desire to receive stories that offer laughter is not misconstrued as offensive. My hope is to provide levity. The intent is not to make fun of any one’s situation but hopefully by laughing we will survive easier, talk more openly, and be better caretakers of ourselves and others. My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s several years ago. My mother is not who she used to be, but once I began to see her sense of humor, which still exists, and share her stories—often back at her and often with others, I began to feel healthier. This ability to see the humor and the silliness has allowed me to be with my mother, rather than run away from fear and frustration. I have been a better daughter and have given my mother better care. My mother’s condition is not a secret nor should my mother be a secret. We know the horrors; I want to share the comical which will open doors of the unspoken. I treat my mother with dignity and honor, but I can still see utter madness and craziness of her behavior—which can be very funny.

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Please share your stories with Deborah at http://rememberingalzheimers.typepad.com.

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Read other people’s stories here

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Filed under: Books & Book Reviews

Details about Anna’s book tour…after the jump!

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Filed under: Themes, Cerebral Ballsy

Glenda Watson Hyatt (aka The Left Thumb Blogger, aka The Red Hot Motorcycle Mama) is a phenomenally talented writer, public speaker and entrepreneuse. On her award-winning and always-fascinating blog, she regularly shares her experiences living with cerebral palsy to motivate and inspire others to think about how they perceive their own situation and their own world around them. She does all this by typing with only her left thumb!

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CLICK HERE to read a very, very,

very, very, very, very, very, very,

very, very, very, VERY powerful

essay that Glenda wrote recently

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And click here to read all of Glenda’s Irked posts

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Filed under: Themes, Tumour Humour

So I had my annual booby-squashing this morning, and since I have recently become a Twitter addict (follow me @heidisa) I thought it would be funny to “live tweet” it, which basically means posting a running commentary to Twitter on the action. (It’s nothing compared to the Austin woman who recently live-tweeted the birth of her child, but whatever. We all do what we can.)

So…here goes:

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