As a disabled writer with spinal damage that has lead to scoliosis, nerve death, missing discs, sciatic pain and arthritis I have begun to explore the idea of the body in my writing. Sometimes you don’t realise that something is underpinning your work until you step back and evaluate it. We have had a body problem in our society for longer than we wish to even acknowledge. The body is linked with the divine and some bodies are more divine than others depending on fashions of the time.

I wonder why there is a deep seated disgust around disability, I consider whether this has to do with the idea of the divine. If the body was created in God’s image, then God has a disability and that could be seen as blasphemous, as often a disability is linked with weakness, a failing of the body and mind. I know this…