“I think the idea of an emerging writer only being someone barely emerged from puberty is a problem. Some 25% of Canada is over 65. Where are our first time senior writers? The only senior writers we see are people who have had a long career. Who started in their thirties. And some of that is fueled by capitalism. I've had agents look me in the eye and say, ‘You know, you're a fabulous writer. You're as good a writer as anyone I represent, but I'm just not going to take you on because I don't think you have five books left in you.’”

Dorothy Ellen Palmer shares her thoughts on the opportunities that the pandemic presents for advancing disability justice. In this episode, she discusses:

• 00:01 | Ageism in Can Lit
• 03:35 | Sensitivity readings…and how to kill someone with a walker
• 05:05 | Ethical representation of disabled characters by abled authors
• 10:27 | What inspired her books When Fenlon Falls and Falling for Myself: A Memoir
• 13:48 | How to teach character development with her exercise “Pass the Pudding”
• 15:35 | The importance of combining activism with an artistic practice

Guest Bio:

Dorothy Ellen Palmer is a disabled senior writer, accessibility consultant, and retired high school drama teacher and union activist. For three decades, she worked in three provinces as a high school English/Drama teacher, teaching on a Mennonite Colony, a four-room schoolhouse, an adult learning centre attached to a prison and a highly diverse new high school in Pickering. Elected to her union executive each year for fifteen years, she created staff and student workshops to fight bullying, racism, sexism, sexual harassment and homophobia.

Dorothy sits on the Accessibility Advisory Board of the Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD) and is an executive board member for the Canadian Creative Writers and Writing Programs (CCWWP) where she writes a monthly column on disability in CanLit for the newsletter.

Her work has appeared in: REFUSE, Wordgathering, Alt-Minds, All Lit Up, Don't Talk to Me About Love, Little Fiction Big Truths, 49th Shelf and Open Book. Her first novel, When Fenelon Falls, features a disabled teen protagonist in the Woodstock-Moonwalk summer of 1969. She lives in Burlington, Ontario, and can always be found tweeting @depalm.

About the Podcast:

Parallel Careers is a monthly podcast about the dual lives of writers who teach.

Few writers make their living from publication alone; many fill the gaps with teaching in both academic and community settings. Much of the work is precarious, and there are few opportunities for professional development.

Parallel Careers features writers with diverse practices and points of view—writers who are at the top of their game in both craft and pedagogy. Tune in to hear the big ideas and practical tips they take into their classrooms. Take their insights into your own class or craft.

Credits:

Parallel Careers is produced by Claire Tacon, in partnership with The New Quarterly magazine. Erin MacIndoe Sproule is our Technical Producer and Story Editor. Music composed by Amadeo Ventura. Financial and in-kind support provided by the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, St. Jerome’s University, and the Government of Canada.

Access more writing and teaching tips from Dorothy Ellen Palmer at:

tnq.ca/parallel