About Us
Nerve to Write is a space for disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent writers to build the literary community we have long been denied. Often excluded from literary spaces who have the nerve to insist our stories do not matter or to require us to adhere to ableist standards in order to gain acceptance, we face the active erasure of our work. This erasure—which mimics the daily aggression of an ableist world—strikes a painful nerve that damages our stories and spirits.
Nerve to Write is a journal for those who have wondered how the ableist writing world has the nerve to deny our work access. This is a journal for writers who have wondered why editors have the nerve to say they have read too many stories about illness, to insist neurodivergent writers are making up or exaggerating the details of their lived experiences, to ask disabled writers to end on recovery. This is a journal for writers who wonder why most of the pieces about disability that appear in journals are written by abled family members or physicians.
This is a space dedicated to the rich expression and innovation of disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent writers. Here writers do not have to write for abled readers or translate their experiences for audiences who may not understand—or even believe—them. This is a space where disabled stories do not need to be cheerful or inspirational but can instead exhibit anger, sadness, sharp humor, and exquisite joy. Here writers do not need to shield readers from their suffering just as they do not need to perform their trauma. And this is a space that welcomes writing that directly addresses the disability experience but also writing that has nothing to do with disability at all, for this is not our only plot and purpose.
Sometimes the only thing more painful than disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent lives is trying to navigate ableist expectations, so we invite you to discover the nerve it takes to reject ableist literary spaces in favor of creating an inclusive space of our own. We invite you to reject the traditions that make you wonder if it is possible to keep creating and to find your nerve to write!
Meet The Team
Sarah Fawn Montgomery
Editor-in-Chief
Sarah Fawn Montgomery is the author of the craft text Nerve: Unlearning Workshop Ableism to Develop Your Disabled Writing Practice and Quite Mad: An American Pharma Memoir, which The Atlantic says, “Exemplifies a nuanced approach to life with mental illness” and The Paris Review describes as “The wakeup call we need.” She is also the author of the essay collection Halfway from Home, winner of a Nautilus Book Award for lyric prose, the flash collection Abbreviate, and three poetry chapbooks. She is an Associate Professor at Bridgewater State University, where she teaches creative writing and disability studies.
Mialise Carney
Assistant Editor
Mialise Carney is a writer whose stories and essays have appeared in swamp pink, Booth, Washington Square Review, and other places. She is a PhD student in creative writing and literature at the University of Cincinnati, where she reads for The Cincinnati Review and teaches writing.
Daniel David Froid
Assistant Editor
Daniel David Froid is the author of My Home Is Not There, a chapbook published by Bottlecap Press. His stories appear in Lightspeed, Nightmare, Black Warrior Review, Post Road, and elsewhere. He lives in Arizona.
