Alice Wong Redefines ‘Disability Intimacy’ in New Anthology

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KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2024

⏱️ 57 minutes

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Summary

“Intimacy is about relationships within a person’s self, with others, with communities, with nature, and beyond,” writes Alice Wong, founder and director of the Disability Visibility Project and editor of the new anthology, “Disability Intimacy.” When Wong began work on the book, she googled what would become its title — and what was she found was “basic AF” and made her go “Ewwwwww.” That inspired her to commission and collect writing from people with disabilities about what intimacy meant to them. The essays reflect on friendships, parent-child bonds, romantic relationships and disability communities. We’ll hear from Wong and some of the anthology’s contributors about the intimacy of sharing and disclosing our relationships with ourselves, with others and with disability itself. And we’ll hear their stories of “love, care and desire” — and the personal and systemic change that intimacy can bring. Guests: Alice Wong, disabled activist, writer and community organizer; editor, "Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire" s.e. smith, freelance journalist whose essay in "Disability Intimacy" is "Skin Hunger and the Taboo of Wanting to be Touched" Yomi Sachiko Young, Oakland-based disability justice activist; dreamer whose essay in "Disability Intimacy" is "Primary Attachment" Melissa Hung, writer, editor and journalist whose essay in "Disability Intimacy" is "The Last Walk"; founding editor in chief, Hyphen - an independent Asian American magazine; former director, San Francisco WritersCorps Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	Support for Forum comes from Rancho La Puerta, boated the number one wellness resort and spa by readers of travel and leisure magazine in 2024.
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0:26.6	Support for Forum comes from Broadway SF, presenting Parade, the musical revival based on a true story.
0:34.4	From three-time Tony-winning composer Jason Robert Brown comes the story of Leo and Lucille Frank,
0:40.6	a newlywed Jewish couple struggling to make a life in Georgia. When Leo is accused of an
0:46.3	unspeakable crime, it propels them into an unimaginable test of faith, humanity, justice, and
0:53.2	devotion.
1:02.1	The riveting and gloriously hopeful parade plays the Orpheum Theater for three weeks only, May 20th through June 8th.
1:06.4	Tickets on sale now at Broadway, sF.com.
1:09.0	From KQED. From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Nina Kim.
1:28.0	Coming up on forum, a new anthology called Disability Intimacy, share stories of intimate connection,
1:34.3	desire and caregiving.
1:36.0	In the words of acclaimed activist Alice Wong, who edited the essay collection, there is so
1:40.6	much disabled wisdom and creativity that completely expands and blows up conventional understandings of intimacy.
1:48.1	This hour, we'll hear from Wong and three other contributors to the anthology about the intimacy of friendship, parenthood, touch, and community.
1:57.2	What are the many intimacies of your life?
2:00.2	Join us.
2:19.8	Music What are the many intimacies of your life? Join us. Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. In 2022, shortly after writer and disabled activist Alice Wong got the green light to pursue an anthology all about intimacy, she had a series of medical crises. She was hospitalized
2:26.1	for a month and emerged from the intensive care unit profoundly changed. Wong has edited
2:31.7	multiple anthologies, including 2020's celebrated disability visibility,
2:36.0	and low and slow, a series of food writing by disabled people.
	...

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