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I recently got a lot of artists’ and organizations’ year-end updates highlighting their amazing work. I wanted to start off 2020 sharing a roundup of the top three that feel extra near and dear to me. If you’re not already subscribed to their blogs, podcasts, and other work, join anytime!

Alice Wong and Disability Visibility Podcast! Check out the full 2019 Year in Review on the DVP website. When Alice started the Disability Visibility Project, it was gonna be a year-long story-gathering project. I was thrilled to record with my friend and Portland artist Lavaun Benavidez-Heaster for DVP and StoryCorps in 2015. Check out an edited, super-fun version of that recording (audio and transcript). And then, I thought I was done after I did a short interview with Aimee Elber. But I’m terrifically honored to be, for a couple years now, an audio editor on the Disability Visibility Podcast and the house transcriptionist. Every episode is audio and transcript, and I highly recommend you check it out. Alice brings on the most fascinating people.

Crutches and Spice has expanded the blog to include a transcribed podcast. (Insert an infinite number of happy crying emojis here.) Imani Barbarin is one of the writers who I click on the instant she pops into my feed. She writes from the perspective of a black woman with CP, and I’m finding myself at a complete loss for how to write the next sentence because it’s just a string of superlatives going through my head. Get over there to her sites!

I’m not on social media very often. I don’t even fully know how to use sites like Twitter. Is Twitter a site? A platform? A state of mind? A couple years ago, I found a transcribed podcast called Reid My Mind Radio on Facebook. In awe with the first episode I listened to, I wrote to the creator, Thomas Reid, on Twitter, and suddenly it went from media to social. Turns out, Thomas and I had gotten the same scholarship to the Third Coast International Audio Festival called New Voices, but in different years. From our first phone call, we vowed to be a cohort and support each other’s work. I couldn’t believe my good fortune to then be a guest on his outstanding show to talk about Audio Description. And next week (squee), you’ll find Thomas as a guest on my own! Thomas’s 2019 Rap Up episode is the best. Since the YouTube video version doesn’t have captions, please check out his transcript here.The video shows a series of photos of Thomas, his daughter, Raven, and a bunch of guests from 2019 in the podcast. A sweet, mellow beat plays in the background.

Please start with these three creators (if you haven’t already). Follow the links and people and content they talk and write about, and you’ll find an extraordinary wealth of stories, information, news, culture, politics, and art coming out of proud, fierce disability community that is always multi-dimensional, always deeply interesting, and always fresh.