#DWord Book Club
#DWord refers to the word “disability.”
Disability Network Southwest Michigan is excited to partner with Kalamazoo Public Library to launch the #DWord Book Club—a book club dedicated to promoting access, connection, disability pride, and spreading the message that Disability is not a bad word.
Join us for an opportunity to engage in respectful, thought-provoking discussions of books by and about people with disabilities, uplifting lived experiences from across the Disability Community and creating space for meaningful conversation and connection.
All are welcome, whether you’re new to disability-focused literature or a longtime reader/consumer. This is a cost-free group and participants are not required to have a library card to join. To ensure accessibility for all, each book is available in print, digital, and audiobook formats.
#DWord Book Club Meeting Details
- Wednesday, February 18 from 6:00-7:30 PM – Disability Intimacy by Alice Wong
- Wednesday, May 20 from 6:00-7:30 PM – Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
- Wednesday, August 19 from 6:00-7:30 PM – I Will Die on This Hill: Autistic Adults, Autism Parents, and the Children Who Deserve a Better World by Meghan Ashburn & Jules Edwards
- Wednesday, November 18 from 6:00-7:30 PM – So Lucky by Nicola Griffith
Accommodations & Joining Virtually
Accommodations can be provided upon request. Call Jade W. at Kalamazoo Public Library at (269) 553-7944 or email her at jadew@kpl.gov. If in-person participation isn’t a good fit for any reason, contact Jade for the opportunity to participate virtually via Zoom.
Venue
CEN/Boardroom at Kalamazoo Public Library, located at 315 S. Rose St, Kalamazoo, MI 49007. Registration is not required for in-person participation.
Book Selection
November’s book selection is So Lucky by Nicola Griffith.
ABOUT — Mara Tagarelli is on top of her world. She’s the head of a multimillion-dollar AIDS foundation, an accomplished martial artist, and happily married. Then, in the space of a week, her wife leaves her, she is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and she loses her job.
Mara has never met a problem she can’t solve—until suddenly she can’t solve any of them. Everything begins to feel like a threat. At first, she thinks it’s just her newfound sense of vulnerability. Then she realizes the threat of violence is real, deadly, and imminent.
But how do you defend yourself when you can’t trust your own body? How do you face down danger when others believe you are helpless, yet you know monsters are coming? This will be a fight unlike any Mara has faced before.
Nicola Griffith’s So Lucky is fiction from the front lines, incandescent and urgent, a narrative juggernaut that rips through sentiment to expose the savagery of the experience of being disabled and chronically ill in America. Yet So Lucky also blazes with the hope and authority of the life that becomes possible when we stop believing lies, find our strengths, and learn new ways to fight.
Disability Network and Kalamazoo Public Library staff sharing about the #DWord Book Club on the Morning Mix with Fox 17.
