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, inclusion, 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. This is a cost-free group; readers are not required to have a library card to participate. To ensure accessibility for all, each book is available in print, digital, and audiobook formats.
CEN/Boardroom at Kalamazoo Public Library, located at 315 S. Rose St, Kalamazoo, MI 49007.
February’s book selection is Disability Intimacy, by Alice Wong.
About: The much-anticipated follow up to the groundbreaking anthology Disability Visibility: another revolutionary collection of first-person writing on the joys and challenges of the modern disability experience, and intimacy in all its myriad forms.
What is intimacy? More than sex, more than romantic love, the pieces in this stunning and illuminating new anthology offer broader and more inclusive definitions of what it can mean to be intimate with another person. Explorations of caregiving, community, access, and friendship offer us alternative ways of thinking about the connections we form with others—a vital reimagining in an era when forced physical distance is at times a necessary norm.
But don’t worry: there’s still sex to consider—and the numerous ways sexual liberation intersects with disability justice. Plunge between these pages and you’ll also find disabled sexual discovery, disabled love stories, and disabled joy. These twenty-five stunning original pieces—plus other modern classics on the subject, all carefully curated by acclaimed activist Alice Wong—include essays, photo essays, poetry, drama, and erotica: a full spectrum of the dreams, fantasies, and deeply personal realities of a wide range of beautiful bodies and minds. Disability Intimacy will free your thinking, invigorate your spirit, and delight your desires.
Follow this link for a Plain Language version of Disability Intimacy.
Accommodations can be provided upon request to (269) 553-7944 or follow this link to email Jade W. at Kalamazoo Public Library.
517 E. Crosstown Parkway
Kalamazoo, MI 49001
269-345-1516
200 W. Van Buren Street
Battle Creek, MI 49017
269-345-1516
2900 Lakeview Avenue
St. Joseph, MI 49085
269-985-0111
