Meet the Authors
We Move Together is about sharing some of the gifts we have received by being lucky enough to be a part of disability culture and community as disabled people, disability studies scholars, and disability activists. As an author-illustrator team, we came together through our shared belief in the power of storytelling as well as a shared frustration about the lack of stories reflecting our own experiences of disability justice, culture, and community.
We first came up with the idea to create We Move Together because we wanted a book that we could read with our own children and friends that introduced readers to the joy of disability culture and community, as well as how to challenge ableism and fight for disability justice! One of the big themes in our book is the importance of working together and we really wanted to make a book collaboratively. Two of us (Anne and Kelly) are university professors who read, write, and teach about disability, so we started by writing a draft of the book’s text. Eduardo is a graphic artist – he started sketching out characters and different scenes. We talked a lot during this time, sharing experiences, exchanging ideas, and giving feedback. We found that the text really changed in response to those early illustrations and the illustrations were shaped and re-shaped by the text. So, while Eduardo is listed the illustrator and Anne and Kelly are listed as the authors, we really think of ourselves as an author-illustrator team!
Once we had a finished a full draft of the book’s text and illustrations, it was time to get some help from others. We are grateful to the many kids, friends, colleagues, educators, and activists from disability communities across Turtle Island/North America for their generative feedback on these early drafts. Their words of encouragement and assessment shaped the book once again.
Finally, our own kids played a special role in the book’s creation. They were the book’s earliest readers: their insights and observations helped us to understand what we needed to say and how. Some of our kids helped design outfits for some of the characters in the book, others even learned to digitally colour the illustrations to help out with the production process. All of the kids tested out the colouring sheets, printable games, and other activities in the Fun Stuff section of the website.
In short, this is a book about disability community that has grown out of disability community and was created in its midst! We hope you enjoy it.
– Kelly, Anne and Eduardo
Kelly Fritsch is a disabled writer, educator, and parent living in Ottawa with her mischievous cat, Loulou. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University and co-editor of Disability Injustice: Confronting Criminalization in Canada (2022, UBC Press) and Keywords for Radicals: The Contested Vocabulary of Late-Capitalist Struggle (2016, AK Press).
Anne McGuire is an associate professor in the program for Critical Studies in Equity and Solidarity at the University of Toronto, where she teaches courses in disability studies and disabled childhoods. She is the author of War on Autism: On the Cultural Logic of Normative Violence (2016, University of Michigan Press).
Eduardo Trejos is a Costa Rican multi-disciplinary artist. A lover of color, insatiable reader, and parent of three boys, he currently lives in Toronto where he works as a graphic designer.
