1. Krystine says:

    I think this is a great idea.

    I live with serious chemical sensitivities and I’m trying to raise my daughter. I’ve lost so much of my independence, but I still have to find ways to live up to my responsibilities. Like, how am I going to find a way to volunteer at her school for ten hours this year? (it’s required)

    I have to find a way to do this without triggering a bad chemical reaction or wiping myself out so badly someone else has to scrape my pieces up off the floor and put them back together. And right now, I physically can’t…

    I can’t physically hack going to church either, and I’m wondering how I’m going to get through her graduation at the end of the year. (I have a bad chemical reaction to lots of people in an enclosed space wearing perfume, dry-cleaning, etc)

    Somehow, I have to find a way around this. I’ve missed so much else, but I am not going to miss my daughter’s graduation!

  2. Great article, Chris, and I wholeheartedly agree about the need to show characters with chronic illnesses and other disabilities as fully rounded characters with lives and stories of their own, not just as objects of pity or token sidekicks to the healthy, able-bodied heroes. I wrote an article about this subject in regard to children’s literature a few years ago which generated some good discussion (those interested can find it at http://rj-anderson.dreamwidth.org/594220.html), and since then I’ve discovered a few more nuanced and non-stereotypical portrayals of characters living with chronic conditions that gave me hope for more such stories in future. But it’s all too easy for writers to be careless or oblivious to these things.

What do you think?