Thanks as always to my agent, Samantha Haywood, for unwavering belief and cheer. To Alana Wilcox and Melanie Little for the wonderful, incisive edits; to Ricky Lima, James Lindsay, Crystal Sikma, and the rest of the team at Coach House Books for giving this book and this author such a lovely home.
I am deeply grateful to all of the members of the disability community who shared their stories and their lives with me in the course of writing Disfigured. Thank you to Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Natalie Abbott, Kelly Aiello, Madeleine Battista, Rebecca Cokley, Irené Colthurst, André Daughtry, Laura Dorwart, Dominick Evans, Jeannine Hall Gailey, Andrew Gurza, Sarah Jama, Errol Kerr, Bethany Killen, Jónina Kirton, Grace Lapointe, Cara Liebowitz, Penny Loker, Dominik Parisien, Adam Pottle, Elsa Sjunesson-Henry, Rebecca Thorne, Emily Urquhart, Jerome van Leeuwen, Allison Wallis, and David Williamson. I hope there is something in this book that speaks to you the way you’ve all spoken to and given hope to me.
The work of disability rights is a long and winding road. I am privileged to follow in the path of so many brilliant individuals and writers who have fought this fight for so long. Thank you in particular to Imani Barbarin (#HashtagQueen), Bronwyn Berg, Patty Berne, Keah Brown, Hamilton, Mia Mingus, Mike Oliver, Dorothy Ellen Palmer, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Vilissa Thompson, Ace Tilton-Ratcliff, Alice Wong, and Stella Young. Your fierceness and love have carried so many of us, and I will be forever grateful.
Many thanks to Sarah Henstra for sitting down to talk fairy tales and the hostile world; to Pauline Greenhill at the University of Winnipeg for her stellar advice and recommendations; and to Tea Gerbeza for her wonderful thesis on ableism in the Harry Potter books.
Heartfelt thanks to Garnette Cadogan and Jonny Diamond, who were instrumental in shaping Chapter Eight, ‘Monsters and Marvels,’ and giving it its first home as a standalone piece at LitHub.
I am indebted to Shay Erlich for their careful read of this book, and for helping to ensure that I was as open and sensitive in the work as I could be.
Many thanks to the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts, whose financial support made the completion of this book possible. Thanks also to the Ontario Heritage Trust and the Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence program, for providing the space and quiet necessary for Disfigured to come alive.
Thanks to Jess Babcock, Harolynne Bobis, Amy Fournier, Vito Zingarelli, and everyone else at Hedgebrook who continue to create and nurture space for women authors and their stories.
Thanks to the friends who remind me that one is never alone in this writing business: Carleigh Baker, Trevor Cole, Sean Cranbury, Jessica DeSanta, Liz Harmer, Jaime Krakowski, Jen Sookfong Lee, Adam Pottle, Ben Rawluk, Amanda Reaume, Jael Richardson, Peter Snow, Sarah Taggart, and Andrew Wilmot.
Special witchy coven thanks to Piyali Bhattacharya, Vero González, Mira Jacob, Ashley M. Jones, Lisa Nikolidakis, and Yaccaira Salvatierra, who were there with me at Hedgebrook when the idea for this book came into being. Our friendship is the stuff of magic, and I will always be grateful that the world brought us together.
Thanks to my family – Raymond and Debra Leduc, Alex Leduc, Aimee Leduc, and Allison, Adam, Areyana, and Adelyn DiFilippo – for believing in me always.
Finally – thank you to Sitka, the Dog of Doom, who saw fit to not tear this manuscript apart, for which I am very grateful.