Wordgathering

A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature

Volume 8     Issue 4     December 2014

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Book Reviews and Excerpts in this Issue

When Wordgathering put out its first issue in March 2007, it contained one lone book review. Since that time, our inclusion of book reviews in each issue has spiraled to the point that we might well change the name of our journal to the Wordgathering Review if we chose. Because one of our goals is to bring the reading public as much new disability literature as possible, we are presenting eight new books for review in this issue – our largest selection yet. New poetry books by writers with disabilities continue to be a major focus and this time we have new works by four poets: Sheila Black, Therése Halscheid, Nancy Scott and Daniel Simpson, all of whose work has previously appeared in Wordgathering. In addition, there is an innovative anthology put out by Creative Connections of Western Australia, where poets are teamed up with artwork by people with disabilities. The three remaining reviews are Erika Madden's mystery novel about mental illness and patient abuse, Canadian disability scholar Jay Dolmage's important work Disability Rhetoric, and John Lee Clark's collected essays on his life and opinions as a DeafBlind man.

• Sheila Black, Wen Kroy
• John Lee Clark, Where I Stand
• Creative Connections, Anthology 2014
• Jay Dolmage, Disability Rhetoric
• Therése Halscheid, Frozen Latitudes
• Erika Madden, Cries from the Fifth Floor
• Nancy Scott, Running Down Broken Cement;
• Daniel Simpson, School for the Blind

In addition to reviews of new books, we also offer excerpts from three different literary genres. J. R. McRae's "Girls' Story" about a deaf runaway slave in the American Civil War comes form her novel Free Passage. Raymond Luczak's "Ilya Kaminsky, Poet" is a selection from his interviews of deaf and hard of hearing artists collected in From Heart to Art. The third excerpt is from Caitlin Hernandez's play Dreaming in Color, a musical based on the life of a blind teenager.

• Caitlin Hernandez, from Dreaming in Color
• Raymond Luczak, "Ilya Kaminsky, Poet"
• J. R. McRae, "Girl's Story"

The Wordgathering editors want to thank our guest book reviewers for this issue: Maya Northen, Kristen Ringman and Kathi Wolfe. Book review writing is a literary art in itself, and this journal has been fortunate to have had a great group of reviewers in our past issues. Sometimes their work has flown under the radar, but the list reads like a mini who's who of disabiity literature:

Linda Benninghoff
Barbara Crooker
Rebecca Foust
Ona Gritz
Ann Kaier
Marie Kane
Ellen LaFleche
J. L. Powers
Daniel Simpson

Wordgathering welcomes hearing from writers who are interested in writing book reviews and writers or publishers interested in having a disability-related book reviewed. For the latter, please send a query, briefly describing the book.

This site is maintained by Michael Northen and Eliot Spindel.