We cannot escape the constant injunctions to move and improve our bodies in order to be healthier, live longer and be more productive. But what happens when that is interrupted, not possible, or when the body refuses? 

 

Writing is seen as a cerebral activity, one that can be undertaken by anybody. Yet writing is also a physical act. Dx: Diagnosis and Writing is interested in if and how a physical diagnosis affects the craft of writing, whether that be in terms of limitations imposed on energy, the need for assistive technology, or by opening up new ways of seeing, thinking and being in the world as an embodied writer. 

 

We are looking for reflections from writers who have experienced physical trauma, accidents, acute conditions and their long-term impact; writers that consider the impact on their work of any physical illness and disease from the common cold to a terminal condition. We also invite writers with disabilities and chronic illness to tell us about the relationship between their diagnosis and their writing, as well as writers with physical conditions or ailments that have not been formally diagnosed, and writers that are searching for or refusing diagnoses. 

 

Reflections can take a range of forms: writing, visuals or spoken word; essays, poems, or experimenta. We encourage new ways of expression and collaborations, and are open to requests for written or spoken interviews (please browse the website for examples of forms contributions may take).

 

All responses are welcome, but you may want to explore the following ideas:

 

• Writing in relation to the process, moment, and aftermath of a physical diagnosis.

• Writing in recovery, writing with chronic illness, writing with terminal illness. 

• Writing as overcoming pathologized bodily limitations. 

• Writing as challenging diagnosis and the medicalization of differently abled bodies. 

• Writing as a space for bodies marginalised by diagnoses.

• Physical diagnoses interrupting, inspiring or inciting writing.

• Physical diagnoses emerging in writing.

• Physical disease, illness and dis/different ability as expressed formally in writing.