Disability is diverse and subjective. Many people develop long-term health conditions, and when that happens, two things occur: firstly, everything becomes intensely medical, to ‘cure’ or ‘manage’ the condition. Secondly, there’s no handbook for becoming or identifying as disabled. Sometimes there may be a cognitive dissonance regarding what condition a person lives with and an acceptance of that as disabling.
Disability representation in publishing is on the rise. The Publishers Association stated in their 2020 diversity and inclusion report that the proportion of people within the workforce with disabilities has risen from 5% in 2018 to 8% in 2020. Despite this increase, disability remains under-represented: according to the Publishers Association, there are 13.3 million disabled people in the UK – just under one-fifth of the population.
This year’s A-Level results saw dramatic changes to the ways in which results were determined in light of the absence of exams, with an algorithm being introduced to calculate results on the basis of the prior attainment of the student, and the historic record of the school.
Earlier this year, author L.L. McKinney started the Twitter hashtag #PublishingPaidMe, calling for authors to share the advances they had received for their books. The results revealed that Black authors with well-established fanbases still found it difficult to secure advances[…]
The impacts of COVID-19 on all sectors have been immense, but perhaps one of those hardest hit is the independent publishing industry. Already heavily reliant on events to garner income, as well as book sales, with no dedicated financial support from the government, many small publishers across the UK are on the brink of closure.