Sensory sensitivities plagued me in the classroom. I heard the wall clock ticking, the whir of the air conditioner, the sound of shuffling and every student conversation. I smelled the whiteboard markers, the chemicals used to clean each day, the students’ shampoo and laundry detergent and body spray, each item of food and beverage. The overhead lights flickered and shimmered, leaving painful glares on the whiteboards and linoleum floors. There was no escaping the onslaught, which made it impossible to concentrate and left me depleted. And the creative writing classroom came with its own specific physical pain. My body tensed uncomfortably as I wrote, hands and neck ached, and I experienced chronic pain and migraines, which distracted me from writing and left me miserable. But while I was competent in class, the real success came at home, a sensory safe space that was impossible at school, and somewhere I could craft stories from the comfort of my bed or while pacing to relieve the tension in my body.

While this text is geared toward disabled students who may have struggled in the traditional writing classroom, it is also for abled instructors who wish to provide greater access to students.

It was not until I had earned tenure as a creative writing professor and published a half-dozen books that I discovered why I suffered so much in the classroom. A late autism diagnosis explained my sensory sensitivities, and several horrific spinal injuries—which resulted in long-term nerve damage to each of my limbs—revealed that I had a genetic connective tissue disorder, which explained why sitting for long periods of time hunched over a keyboard or notepad was so painful.  My latest book, Nerve: Unlearning Workshop Ableism to Develop Your Disabled Writing Practice (available for free in digital and audio formats), is written for other disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent students who struggle in the creative writing classroom. Providing a comprehensive overview in a manageable size, this text provides readers ways to unlearn ableist craft advice they may have come across in traditional writing workshops in favor of developing their disabled writing practices, writing spaces, forms, and structures. The text also offers practical tips for the business of being a writer and various craft exercises and creative writing prompts. And while this text is geared toward disabled students who may have struggled in the traditional writing classroom, it is also for abled instructors who wish to provide greater access to students. One of the main threads woven throughout this book is a focus on embodiment as an essential technique for creating access.

Before Class Begins: Inclusive Classroom Policies

There are many ableist aspects of the traditional writing workshop, but an essential place to start building access is to reimagine the physical and digital spaces of the classroom. The classroom is inherently ableist by design: students expected to learn in-person, seated for long stretches of time at individual desks or conference tables, reading from hardcopy books and handouts, and completing writing exercises by hand. But if we write about an active world, why do we teach students to do so from an inactive position?

Embodied writing grants wisdom to the body, framing the body as an essential tool for creation. This theory urges writers to turn to their bodies as sources of inspiration and intuition rather than asking writers to ignore the body in favor of the brain. This may mean encouraging writers to turn to their bodily experience as subject or style, writing stories about the disability experience or structuring their writing after the chronic illness experience. It may mean encouraging writers to stim while writing to get into a flow state or write in bed rather than at a desk if this reduces pain and allows the writer to focus on the work. Embodied writing also encourages writers to tend to their bodies so they can tend to their bodies of work. If disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent writers do not take care of their bodies, they will not be able to take care of their work, and both will suffer as a result. And yet embodied writing is given little consideration in the teaching of creative writing, access often framed as an afterthought rather than as an essential teaching tool. 

Embodied writing grants wisdom to the body, framing the body as an essential tool for creation.

Embodied writing requires the instructor to make a concerted effort to invite all bodies to participate, which begins with attendance. While the class structure (virtual, in-person, or hybrid) may not be within an instructor’s control, instructors do have control over the attendance policy and language around attendance. Enforcing strict attendance policies presupposes abled brains and bodies. But for students with fluctuating symptoms and abilities, complex medical needs, and frequent medical appointments and treatments, this model is an immense barrier to learning. Disabled students cannot guarantee their abilities will be consistent throughout the course, and students with chronic conditions frequently experience an increase of symptoms as the semester wears on, which is why many instructors observed disabled students—regardless of their initial success in a course—falling behind or accumulating absences as the semester wears on. Similarly, students with complex medical needs, or those who require extensive medical care may accrue absences throughout the course simply to seek medical treatment. Disabled students often require many medical appointments and procedures, some of which are scheduled months, or even years, in advance, and with little regard to a student’s school schedule. 

If instructors have control over course modalities, virtual or hybrid courses further allow disabled students to tend to the fluctuating needs of their bodies and brains while still participating in the course. Students for whom getting to campus or a classroom is difficult or impossible can attend from home, where they have the technology, furniture, and various accessibility tools they need to thrive. Students with frequent medical appointments or procedures and who would otherwise have to choose between traveling to an appointment or to class might be able to attend both. Students recovering from a procedure, taking pain medication that prevents them from driving, or navigating chronic pain can also attend class, but can be near the furniture, medications, and devices they need to find more comfort, which allows them to more fully engage in the learning process. 

If teachers are unable to provide virtual options or still prefer in-person methods, there are other ways to reimagine the classroom space in order to provide more access. If possible, instructors can request classes in buildings close to accessible parking, accessible doors, and elevators, or on first floors. Instructors can also request classrooms with accessible furniture—tables with chairs as opposed to the all-in-one desk models that accommodate so few bodies. While these preferences are certainly a privilege that will not be available to everyone, if instructors have this option, choosing it will provide greater access for students. Instructors may also encourage students to bring furniture, assistive devices, and other objects that can help in getting more comfortable in class. This might include cushions, back supports, and other devices. Encouraging students to stand, stretch, pace, or stim is also a way to support disabled students, as is encouraging students to use the restroom without asking, eat and drink, take medication, crochet or use stim devices, or use noise cancelling headphones when appropriate.

Rather than putting the burden on the disabled student to come to you and ask for support, which can be very difficult, it is helpful when the instructor issues an invitation. Instructors might ask if students prefer to sit in certain locations in the class or if they prefer to raise their hands rather than be called on at random. Asking if speaking or reading or sharing in front of others is a challenge allows instructors to provide alternate ways for disabled students to participate. Instructors can also email the class ahead of time to inquire if anyone has food allergies other students should be cognizant of or sensory issues that can be accommodated by asking the class to refrain from wearing fragrance, using overhead fluorescent lights, and other factors that can cause sensory overwhelm for neurodivergent students. Recording lectures, using a microphone, encouraging students to take photos of the whiteboard, or encouraging students to share notes also provides access for disabled students. 

There are numerous accommodations instructors might offer, but emailing the class directly to invite them to collaborate on policies creates an inclusive community, rather than one that offers accessibility as an afterthought. Remember, many accommodations are offered punitively rather than supportively and require students to jump through many merciless medical and bureaucratic hoops that are costly and labor intensive and may discourage students from seeking them at all. Self-reporting is essential for disabled people, who best know their needs and how to meet them, and this reporting is increasingly essential in a time where disabled and neurodivergent people are under attack by the current political administration and may therefore not want extensive records of their disabilities on file or may not want to seek formal diagnosis at all.

Inside the Class: Activities

In addition to the physical and digital spaces of the classroom, embodied writing asks teachers to reconsider course texts and tasks. For example, many creative writing courses ask students to read physical books, workshop submissions, and handouts. But for many disabled students, physical copies are simply inaccessible. Students may require digital or audiobooks, but these are unavailable for many texts, and unless instructors check for digital or audiobook availability ahead of time, students who rely on this accommodation may be left with no way to access course materials. Similarly, some students may rely on screen readers to engage with printed materials, but if handouts are distributed in class with no digital options available, are inaccessible for screen readers, or if instructors do not allow technology in the classroom, students who rely on digital texts may be unable to access the texts of the class. 

For students who rely on technology to write, rigid requirements to write by hand impede their ability to work. Disabled students may require assistive software like microphones or their phone’s voice recorder to type for them, or they may require the stimulation of using a keyboard to type. Students with mobility issues may struggle to hold a pencil or pen, their writing much slower or more difficult to read when faced with the challenge of writing by hand, which some students are penalized for by instructors. Some disabled students may also experience pain or a worsening of their disability symptoms when writing by hand. In the wake of AI abuse in the classroom, many instructors are beginning to ban technology in favor of a return to writing by hand during class. But while these inherently ableist methods do not necessarily crackdown on AI use, they do remove access for disabled students who rely on technology to participate in a course. 

We can also incorporate embodied writing into our courses by asking students to turn to the body as a source of inspiration.

We can also incorporate embodied writing into our courses by asking students to turn to the body as a source of inspiration. We can assign texts by disabled writers to demonstrate a range of experiences. We can invite students to share their varied approaches to writing—writing using dictation software, writing in small moments of pain-free time and using segments to structure the work, or simply writing shorter works altogether—stressing that every writer must listen to their bodies and brains when it comes to their practice. We can also invite students to be in their bodies in our classrooms by encouraging students to write from different places in the classroom or on campus, including from their desks, the floor, from standing positions, in hallways, at outside tables, on the grass, and virtually any other space. We can encourage movement during in-class writing exercises—asking students to compose in their heads while walking, inviting students to stim, or leading students through a guided exercise that invites them to notice various parts experiences of the body while writing—incorporating movement as part of the prompt and discuss writers who use movement in their practice. We can incorporate sensory experience—music, food, scent, images and video, touch, movement—into our lessons and lectures, our prompts and practices. We can invite students to be more fully in their bodies and brains as a way to become better writers. Our bodies are an essential part of our practice. Since we use our bodies to explore the world, we should also remember to use our bodies as part of our creation. There are endless ways to incorporate embodiment into our classes to offer essential access for disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent students who have long been excluded from the traditional writing workshop, as well as to enrich our classes for abled students. Providing greater access should not be considered a burden, afterthought, or an increase in workload, but rather a vibrant teaching tool to increase creativity for all students.

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When I think of the difficult years I spent as a disabled student, I’m surprised I pursued writing. The classroom was so unnecessarily painful that it seems a wonder I enjoyed—let alone succeeded at—creative writing. Now, with my long-term spinal injuries and persistent nerve damage, I would likely be unable to participate at all. 

Nearly every aspect of my bodily experience would prevent me from engaging in a traditional writing workshop. I am unable to sit for more than 20 minutes at a time and require assistive furniture. I am unable to read physical or digital books, relying instead on audiobooks. I am unable to write by hand or with a keyboard, relying instead on a microphone and assistive software to type for me. I am unable to write for extended periods of time, writing instead in 20-minute intervals before I must pause for extensive stretch breaks. I can only write in the morning because I must complete two to three hours of daily physical therapy, have frequent medical appointments whose scheduling I have little control over, and because I take a host of pain medications each afternoon and evening with sedative effects that leave me unable to drive or concentrate. And I am unable to predict when my symptoms will flare to the point that I am incapacitated, unable to ensure that I will not injure myself again.

And yet, in the two and a half years since my injuries, I have published two books and nearly 100 craft articles and pieces of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. This is not a superhuman feat, but rather the result of careful attention to my body. I struggled to produce this much work prior to my injuries, back when I forced myself to follow the prescriptive practices I’d been taught since childhood. The result of insisting my disabled body adhere to these ableist practices was intense pain, injury, and frustration at my inability to succeed in the ways I knew I was capable of if only my body were different. It was only when I injured myself, losing almost all ability to write in the ways taught in traditional workshops, that I learned how to allow embodiment to guide my writing.

There is no need for disabled students to suffer in order to meet ableist expectations. The traditional writing workshop is not only a barrier but a punishment for the circumstances of many disabled students, and one they are often expected to tolerate without complaint. But embodiment allows teachers to offer greater access and creative support, providing writers with the flexibility needed to develop their craft. If creative writing asks us to reflect on an active world, it only makes sense to write from active spaces, allowing our bodies to inform our work.

Featured photo by Tiarra Sorte.