Crip Stories: An Anthology of Disabled Writers (ed BS Windon, Laura Pettenuzzo, Misbah Wolf & Katie Hansord, NewSouth)

Crip Stories: An Anthology of Disabled Writers, edited by BS Windon, Laura Pettenuzzo, Misbah Wolf and Katie Hansord, in partnership with Mascara Literary Review and with the support of Creative Australia, is a boldly diverse contribution to contemporary Australian disability literature. Bringing together 36 contributors across poetry, fiction and nonfiction, the collection positions disability not as a deficit but as lived experience, community and creative practice. Contributors write from across disability, chronic illness and neurodivergent perspectives, with sustained attention to intersections of race, queerness, gender and sexuality. Poetic standouts such as Mario Licón Cabrera’s “Approaching Blindness” and Priya Gore Johnson’s “Landlocked Whalefall” exemplify the collection’s diversity in lyrical style and embodied experience. In nonfiction works such as Skye Cusack’s “Here’s What I Think Happened” and BS Windon’s “Aye Can (Not) Partic[tic]ticipate”, race and disability converge to shape experiences that carry the weight of multiple systemic oppressions, offering piercing insights into trauma and resilience. Despite its diverse contributions, Crip Stories is firmly grounded in disability theory and activism. As Jenny Hedley insightfully asserts in her essay “Compulsively Me: Living and Evolving with OCD”, claiming a disabled identity can be a political act that challenges shame-based narratives and demands that institutions accommodate difference. This perspective threads throughout the anthology, with multiple voices emphasising that disability emerges from social and institutional barriers rather than from individual bodies. The reclamation of “crip” in the title signals a deliberate claim to literary and cultural space, affirming disabled lives as complex, community-driven and self-defined. Alongside other notable Australian disability works such as Growing Up Disabled in Australia and Raging Grace, Crip Stories will appeal to disabled and literary readers, as well as educators, librarians and booksellers seeking to develop inclusive, socially conscious collections.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Samantha Mylan is a librarian and freelance reviewer. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

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