Fairfield University’s College of Arts and Sciences and Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction are excited to announce a special September issue of the popular online publication titled "Experiences of Disability." The issue’s 15 featured essays, each 750 words or less, were chosen from among more than 300 entries and selected by Brevity staff and students and alumni from Fairfield University’s low-residency Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing.

Each of the selected nonfiction essays are available to read at www.brevitymag.com and consider all aspects of illness and disability, including what disability is, what it means, and how our understanding of disability is changing. The issue’s featured authors explore how disability is learned during childhood, lived over the entire course of a life, and how our changing understanding of disability shapes the way we experience ourselves and others. Authors also examine the lived experience of illness and disability, as well as encounters with ableism, and show readers a new way to understand the familiar or give voice to underrepresented experiences.

“There’s such a need for writing about disabled people’s lives in a way that is complex and pushes against clichés, stereotypes, and the view of disabled people as either inspiring or pitiful, with nothing in between,” said Sonya Huber, MFA, professor of English and author of five books, including Pain Woman Takes Your Keys and Other Essays from a Nervous System, a collection of essays on dealing with chronic pain. “The theme of this issue, and the high profile of this journal, mark an incredible opportunity for disability awareness both in and beyond the community. It was an honor to serve as a guest editor for the issue, which has been about a year in the making, and was staffed with almost all alumni and current students of our MFA program.”

To help raise funds for the special “Experiences of Disabilities” issue, Huber, a longtime activist and disabled writer living with rheumatoid disease, set-up a GoFundMe campaign with fellow guest editors Keah Brown and Sarah Fawn Montgomery. The virtual campaign successfully exceeded its goal, raising $1,875 to subsidize expenses for producing the social issue. 

For more than two decades, Brevity has published well-known and emerging writers working in the extremely brief essay form, including Pulitzer prize finalists, numerous NEA fellows, Pushcart winners, and Best American authors. Founded by Fairfield MFA faculty member and editor-in-chief Dinty W. Moore, the journal recently celebrated its 20th anniversary as one of the most respected outlets for literary nonfiction in the U.S. 

For more information, visit www.brevitymag.com.