Own Voices: Our Stories, Our Words

Join us for a discussion on the importance of amplifying the voices of disabled writers and ensuring that own-voice stories are afforded an equal platform to stories about disability written by non-disabled authors. Drawing from their range of experiences, the panel will consider how disability is portrayed in – or omitted from – fiction; the difficulties disabled writers face in having their voices heard, and how non-disabled writers can address harmful or silencing stereotypes of disability in their own work. 

This event has been produced in partnership with the University of Atypical for Arts and Disability.

Professor Tess Maginess,  BA, MA, PhD, PFHEA,  is the director of the Open Learning Programme at Queens Unviersity Belfast. Her field is literature. She has worked in adult education for over 20 years and has published books and articles on innovative education, literature and culture. She lives on the Tyrone-Armagh border, on the farm where she was born.

Alice McCullough is a poet, writer, storyteller has changed the face of performance poetry in Belfast over the past decade, with courageous award-winning performances that push the boundaries between stand-up, storytelling, poetry and theatre. Her unique and unconventional way with words has won her poetry slams and loyal fans, having supported top talents in music, comedy and poetry.

Angeline B. Adams is an author and lived experience consultant, with a focus on autism and chronic illness. She was recently nominated for Robert E. Howard Foundation Awards for her talk on Disability and the Roots of Heroic Fantasy, and for The Red Man and Others, co-authored with Remco van Straten. Together, they write fantasy and horror fiction, which appears in various anthologies, including Beyond the Veil (2021) from Flame Tree Press.

Medbh McGuckian was born in 1950 to Catholic parents in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where she now lives with her family. She studied with Seamus Heaney at Queen’s University, earning a BA and MA, and later returned as their first female writer-in-residence. She is the author of over 20 poetry collections including most recently Love, The Magician (2018), Blaris Moor (2015), The High Caul Cap (2012), and The Currach Requires No Harbours (2010).