Disability in poetry and performance

Centre for the Study of North America

With readings/performances from Sarah James, Beth O'Brien, and Jamie Hale.

Sarah James is a poet, fiction writer, journalist, occasional playwright, photographer, poetryfilm maker and arts reviewer, as well as editor at V. Press. Her 2021 collection Blood Sugar, Sex, Magic (Verve Poetry Press, 2022), a poetic exploration of 40 years living with type one diabetes, was highly commended in the Forward Prizes. 

Beth O'Brien is currently studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham, researching the (mis)representation of disability in contemporary fairytale retellings; she is a poet and fiction writer, and the author of I Left the Room Burning (Wild Pressed Books, 2021), as well as her forthcoming middle-grade debut, Wolf Siren (HarperCollins). Having been born visually impaired and with an upper-limb difference, O'Brien has a long-standing interest in the representation of disability in literature and is the founder and editor of Disabled Tales, a website dedicated to discussing disability in fairytales and folklore. 

Jamie Hale is a multidisciplinary creative practitioner, cultural leader, and research & policy analyst, who has been named one of the 100 most influential disabled people in the United Kingdom (Shaw Trust 2021, 2022). One of the three Jerwood Poetry Fellows in 2021-2022 and a previous London Writers’ Awards winner, their first poetry pamphlet, Shield 

Photo of Jamie Hale by Holly Falconer.