Elsa Sjunneson on her DeafBlindness: "Being disabled isn’t a burden. The idea of not being welcome is the burden."

Today’s guest is author Elsa Sjunneson. She writes and edits speculative fiction. Two years ago, Elsa won a Hugo Award. That’s the most prestigious award in science fiction.?

Now Elsa has published a memoir. It's beautiful prose that attempts to capture her experience coming of age as a DeafBlind woman. It will make you question everything you assume about what it means to live with a disability. Her book is called Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism.

Elsa has been Deafblind since birth. That tends to conjure up one image for a lot of non-disabled people. Early on in her school life, a creepy classmate wrote an essay comparing her to Helen Keller. It was a bad essay, and a terrible comparison. Elsa’s experience of her blindness and her deafness is her own. She is outspoken, adventurous, and extremely capable. And she has been that way her entire life. Elsa doesn’t want non-disabled people to pretend disability doesn’t exist. She wants disabled people to be welcome in the world, and to be received with warmth and accommodation instead of fear and rejection.

You can listen to the episode here, or click directly on the sound file below. Then please share your thoughts in the comments! A transcript of the episode is available here, and captions will be available here as well.

???Office Hours:?

This week on Hello Monday Office Hours, we’re going to try a little something. Whether you’re disabled or non-disabled, between now and Wednesday at 3pm ET, I’d love you to notice a bit of accessibility technology that makes your life easier. Then come to Office Hours and share it.

We’ll go live like we always do at 3p ET on Wednesday and we will discuss. To join the conversation, meet us on the LinkedIn News page, or send us an email at [email protected] and we’ll send you the link.