Thirty years since the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, awareness of disability rights, advocacy, and visibility has increased, yet there is still a long way to go toward equality and understanding. Examining the complexities of disability issues with wisdom, humor, and honesty, author and disability advocate Rebekah Taussig offers a roadmap for broadening our awareness and expanding our understanding to help build a more inclusive world.

Growing up as a paralyzed girl in the 1990s and early 2000s, Rebekah saw disability depicted as something monstrous (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), inspirational (Helen Keller), or angelic (Forrest Gump). None of these depictions felt right because none of them represented her lived experience—complex and ordinary, uncomfortable and fine, painful and fulfilling. Rebekah seeks to normalize the lived experience of disabled persons while also advocating for improvements and a paradigm shift—something that we all play a necessary part in. Disability affects all of us, directly or indirectly, at one point or another.

We need more stories and more voices to understand the diversity of humanity and in Rebekah’s latest book, Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body, she challenges us as a society to be patient and vigilant, practical and imaginative, kind and relentless, as we build a more radically inclusive future together.

Join Rebekah in conversation as she talks about her book, her life and her work, and challenges us to work together to build a more inclusive world.

Rebekah Taussig, PhD, is a Kansas City writer and teacher with her doctorate in Creative Nonfiction and Disability Studies. She runs the Instagram platform @sitting_pretty, where she crafts “mini-memoirs” to contribute nuance to the collective narratives being told about disability. Released by HarperOne in August 2020, her memoir in essays, Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body provides a nuanced portrait of a body that looks and moves differently than most. Rebekah and her partner Micah are the new parents of baby Otto. You can follow her work at www.rebekahtaussig.com.

We are grateful to our Bookstore Partner:

Marcus Books is the nation’s oldest Black-owned independent bookstore celebrating its 60th year. Marcus Books’ mission is to provide opportunities for Black folks and their allies to celebrate and learn about Black people everywhere