Access Oriented Lit is a monthly reading series created by and for disabled* poets and writers. Everyone, disabled or non-disabled, is welcome to attend.

This series is for folks who can't and won't attend unsafe in-person readings for the sake of their health and their community’s health.

This series is for folks craving connection to other writers who have also been cut from creative writing spaces because too many organizations have been all too willing to disregard the pandemic.

We define disability broadly to include people with physical impairments, people who belong to a sensory minority, people with emotional disabilities, people with cognitive challenges, and those with chronic/severe illness. We understand the experience of disability to occur within any and all walks of life, with deeply felt connections to all communities impacted by the medicalization of their bodies, including trans, gender variant and intersex people, and others whose bodies do not conform to our culture(s)' notions of "normal" or "functional.” Source: Sins Invalid

We are committed to building solidarity with our Indigenous community members that goes beyond land acknowledgment, but if you're unaware of the original stewards of the land you reside on, you can find out here.

We are committed to the principles of disability justice, and we invite feedback and collaboration.

We’re all on crip time here, let’s be patient with ourselves. We also want to make it known that we prioritize chat communication equally with spoken communication.

We provide ASL and Zoom captioning in all of our events.

We want you to be comfortable— come as you are from bed or the couch!

We ask that if there is sustained strong movement or flashing lights in your virtual or physical background, you turn your camera off to respect others’ access needs.

We ask that if you speak, you give a quick image description.

We ask that if you aren’t speaking, you mute yourself.

We will have a bodymind break during each meeting. Please remind the facilitator if this doesn’t happen!

For readers, there is always an option for someone else to read your poems on the day of if you would like that!

We encourage but do not require content warnings. We are actively discussing their value in our space.

We definitely want folks to name if something makes them feel uncomfortable (i.e. “Ouch!”)

We want to foster an environment where readers aren't reading into a vacuum— use the chat, if you feel invited to, to applaud and appreciate the wonderful words of our readers!

We will change the meeting time every month to accommodate new folks joining and different/changing schedules.

We do record these events, but the recordings are only available to those on the email list.

Want to be added to our email list to receive monthly event invites?

Interested in being a facilitator?

Are you a disabled poet or writer interested in reading your work?