Publishers need input from people with disabilities

A while ago, I wrote that library staffing diversity needs to include autistic perspectives to help identify trouble-areas when evaluating materials for the library. Well, mainstream publishing houses are a frequent channel for disssemination of these resources — but a Diversity Baseline Survey conducted by Lee & Low stated that 92 percent of publishing-industry staff do not have a disability.
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Some readers might ask, why this is important? Well, as Jennifer Baker explains at Electric Lit, editors help a writer to write outside the writer’s own experience (for example, a writer who is not autistic but is writing about an autistic character). But just as a writer might have preconceived notions and biases, so too might the editor.

“There are points of structure and personal bias that writers bring to their work. This is also inherent in how we read and critique work. Recognizing that we view certain groups under certain gazes can help editors offer feedback to better deconstruct what’s working and what isn’t, as well as why.”

At Bustle.com, writer Alaina Leary argues that “Editors and other publishing professionals have an impact on how readers view disability — including the autistic experience, which is often steeped in harmful stereotypes and myths.”

(To cite one recent, really awful, example: a memoir, To Siri with Love, which was written by the non-autistic mother of an autistic teenager. In it, as summarized by blogger Lydia X.Z. Brown, the author shares intimate details about her son’s habits watching porn. The mother also says she’s “counting the days” until she can gain medical power of attorney and have her son involuntarily sterilized. Like other bloggers on the spectrum, I am so deeply troubled by this author’s invasion of her son’s privacy and this threat to his personal autonomy. Just reading the author’s introduction, for me, raised a feeling of concern. In it, she says she did not consult with her children about their place in her book. She did not consult with her children, but this book is about them! Whatever she writes has the potential, for years, to shape people’s perceptions of her children.)

At all levels in publishing, having people on staff who are autistic or have other types of disabilities could help to catch issues with non-disabled writers’ books. These people could also help to shepherd the careers of actually-disabled writers. The result: books that respectfully and accurately convey experiences with disability. That’s good for readers, and it’s also good for libraries that want their collections to mirror the diversity among members of their communities.