By Christopher Vaughan
I wrote my memoir alone for seven years. I wrote at my desk. I wrote at the kitchen table. I wrote in bed. After my son Noah was born, I then began writing in between naps. However, I never wrote personal stories in a group setting before Kathy Curto’s Memoir Intensive class through the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College.
It was inspiring to experience the support of a writing collective directed by an empathetic and endlessly insightful teacher after crafting my story in isolation for almost a decade. I was grateful to spend my Thursdays discussing memoir and workshopping pages at the library on Wrexham Road on campus. I even had the opportunity to read a portion of my memoir in class. The book is about the journey to embrace my cerebral palsy after hiding the disability in adolescence as I navigated a chaotic family life with my sister who raised me while our mom struggled with mental illness. Happy tears nearly rolled down my face a couple paragraphs in but I held them back. I had three more chapters to go. I felt free reading the last sentence aloud surrounded by compassionate writers.
It was encouraging to share successes and challenges with those fellow writers. Kathy helped us navigate the dense emotional landscape of memoir. We examined the mechanics of memoir writing, research and our favorite authors. It was the first time I had a chance to talk through my writing process which begins with one hand, since I have cerebral palsy of the right side. My right hand is usually clenched shut and beside me when my left fingers press on the keyboard. It’s slower for me than many people but I write every day despite pain in my left arm from overuse. Sentences begin to stack. They’re rearranged and rewritten and deleted and rewritten again. Sometimes I’m left with far less than my daily word count goal. Occasionally, I’d only had a few new sentences to recite that were written during Kathy’s class time but I’ve since constructed entire essays out of those fragments. Creating next to other memoir writers was new to me and I’m grateful for this practice. It was motivating.
Like many writers, I was anxious to tell my story. I shaped my work independently for so long it became tricky to know when the manuscript was finished. Other than family, most people didn’t know about my disability when I started writing the book. However, I had the opportunity to write about my disability for The New York Times as I prepared for parenthood in 2021. Overnight, my best friends and the rest of the world knew my story as I figured out how to bottle feed my son with one hand. The response to my personal essay offered a boost to compel me to complete the memoir. I’m now looking for a literary agent to help me publish the book. Fingers crossed, right?
Starting the project, I was unsure if I had the strength to write an entire memoir with one hand despite working as a journalist for the local paper, The Journal News, and typing out breaking news as fast as possible with a reaching left hand. However, more than 77,000 words later, my memoir is finally done and I’ve found purpose in telling my story as a disabled person.
I’m ready to share the rest of my story. It only took thirty years. I recently visited the high school I attended freshman and sophomore years to talk to students about disability and empathy. Next month I’m presenting at a children's hospital where I received care as a kid. These are things I couldn’t imagine as a teenager with my right hand hidden in a sweatshirt sleeve afraid someone would ask me to shake their hand. I still freeze when someone pushes their palm toward me, then, after a few seconds I offer my left and mention that I’m disabled. I’m currently writing more about being disabled parent and I recently published a piece for The Journal News that was picked up by USA Today on what I’ve learned talking to my two-year-old about my cerebral palsy.
I’m a proud disabled writer. I understand there might be ample barriers to tell a personal story and sometimes physical pain pauses work too. However, finding an understanding writing group and an instructor like Kathy Curto helped on days when getting past a single sentence seemed impossible.
Ready to write your story? Check out our upcoming classes here and sign up for the newsletter for our Fall Classes announcement in July! We have lots of great memoir classes on deck, including Kathy Curto’s Tap The Senses, Write The Scene.