The Disability Field Guide with Tracee Garner

This is a special bonus episode in celebration of Disability Awareness Month. My special guest and I talk about her disability field guide and her multifaceted writing as a whole.
Tracee Lydia Garner started out as a poet. Years before entertaining full length novels, poetry allowed her to express feelings about having a disability or life in general and the obstacles and barriers that exist as she tries to make a space in the world.
Her poetry has won honorable mentions and has appeared in her campus's literary magazine. In 2001 Tracee took up longer, more dramatic fiction. Her desire to write something longer was first piqued though a story entitled Tides, a romantic love story "still in progress". The website owners invited others to contribute to the story and Tracee decided to give it a try by writing her own spin and how she felt the story should continue. After writing chapters 8 and 9, and later chapters 11 and 12, and having both her contributions posted, Tracee felt as if writing was "it".
After writing and submitting the complete story to Tides, she received no information about whether it was a good story ending, neither was it posted, she turned to creating her own stories from start to finish. In 2001 after several attempts at her academics, Tracee entered her story, FAMILY AFFAIRS into the contest and won, changing her passion pursuits and her life. After winning the grand-prize award, receiving an advance, a book contract, a trip to New York to accept her award and most importantly having her work published by BET Books, she sent two more books and managed a book deal with the house. Since then Tracee has gone on to write at least 18 books, with more on the way. She’s a public and motivational speaker, adjunct profession, course creator, and a loves writing more than anything. While her heart will always be in fiction, the genre that changed her life, this year, Tracee penned a book giving people with disabilities, and parents of children with special needs anecdotal advice for their life journey. In Disability: A Field Guide, she’ talks about all of her barriers, hurdles and overcoming challenges faced in finding gainful employment, dealing with the lack of quality, competent caregiving personnel, deciding to drive and the pains of needing to fund and learn expensive adaptive driving equipment for her vehicle and dealing with discrimination, limitations others place on her abilities and emergency planning and so much more.
As a public speaker Tracee has facilitated workshops, conferences and other events with the likes of Martin Luther King, III, former secretary of labor, Alexis Herman, former Assistant Secretary for the Office of Special Education, Judy Heumann, and been a guest for the radio show On A Roll, with late founder and host Greg Smith, a live weekly syndicated commercial radio talk show on life and disability.
Tracee’s approach to life and her presentations are filled with lots of humor, fun, real and practical talk that helps people confront their barriers in their own lives, and define a level of success that’s right for them. Additionally she gives parents of special need children, the push, fortitude and encouragement to create an ideal life focused on what their child can do, rather than what they can’t!
Connect with Tracee at the following links:
http://www.traceegarner.com
http://www.traceegarner.com/blog
https://bit.ly/3aOhCxe
https://twitter.com/teegarner
https://www.instagram.com/teegarner