'So that's the tale' - a collection of short prose pieces about illness and caring
What is it about?
Disability isn’t about being brave, it’s about being organised’ (Ian Dury, cited in Reach disability awareness leaflet, Chorley, 2013). This sequence of vignettes explores a family’s experiences of living with multiple sclerosis. The stories are fictionalized, but drawn from my own family, and are part of a wider project exploring varying roles in caring and disability and the relational identities between carers, those cared for and others around them. In my writing, I use the short story to explore the smaller moments in characters’ lives, avoiding common disability tropes, such as heroism, bravery and stories that foreground characters overcoming their disability. Instead, my vignettes aim to reveal both the challenges and difficulties when living with chronic illness, but also moments of hope and humour.
Why is it important?
There are not many stories about caring and illness. My stories hope to show real life experiences of multiple sclerosis, conveying both the joy and the pain for both carers and the person with MS. There is no overarching narrative to these pieces of flash fiction and vignettes, but showing that small moments can be important