Call for Submissions: Lives in the Balance

Lives in the Balance is a new literary project launched by the organizers of the online Disability March.

To highlight the ways that the looming repeal of the Affordable Care Act and cuts to Medicaid will devastate those with disabilities and/or chronic illnesses, we welcome submissions of essays, artwork, poetry, and photos about what your life is like, what you worry about, what you have been through to gain care and access. This series will highlight the experiences and perspectives of those people who will be directly affected by the repeal of ACA and/or cuts to Medicaid.

We know that many people have healthcare access struggles. This series is devoted to the experiences of those people who will be personally and directly affected by the repeal of ACA and/or cuts to Medicaid. Our aim is to focus on those stories in order to get them stories out into the world. For that reason, we will not focus on these accounts: stories of parents or spouses of those with disabilities; solidarity posts; those who have experience with temporarily disabilities; those who work with disabled people; those who will be affected by medical cuts but who do not deal with chronic illnesses and/or disabilities.

These can be straightforward descriptions, literary essays, reflections, or non-traditional/lyric essays. You can include poetry, images, and anything else you feel moved to include.

Guidelines:

Please send essays up to 3,000 words (a little longer is fine, and shorter is definitely fine) as a .doc or .docx attachment to:

disabilitymarchATgmailDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to . )

We will not publish every entry we receive—we apologize in advance for needing to be selective due to the aims and nature of this project. Our intent is to not do much if any editing to these.

Please include a photo, graphic, or a picture of original artwork in .jpg format with a description of the image.

If any of these guidelines present a barrier to access to this project, please email us at:

disabilitymarchATgmailDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to . )

to tell us how we can make changes.
Any questions? Email Sonya Huber at:

indigomissionATgmailDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to .)

We have a rolling deadline.
Thank you!
Sonya