Use the excerpt from “Meet the Deaf Poets Society, a Digital Journal for Writers with Disabilities” to answer the question.

What is a central idea of this section?

Making literary spaces more inclusive

This work also needs to include efforts on the part of mainstream publishers—who often host live readings, panels and workshops that build writers’ careers—to be more accessible, Katz said.

“A lot of literary events are not accessible. A lot of the time we’re not even there. We don’t show up,” Katz said. “Not because we’re not around—we definitely are. It’s that a lot of physical spaces don’t acknowledge us, or don’t think ahead of time about, ‘Oh, there might be people with disabilities who want to attend.’ ”

For many deaf people, ASL interpretation is essential to their ability to participate in an event, Katz said. Live-streaming more events, with captions, would allow more people with fatigue-related disabilities to attend from home, Johnson said.

Other questions that Johnson brought up: are events wheelchair-accessible? Is it scent-free, to accommodate people with chemical sensitivity? Is your building accessible by the standards of the Americans With Disabilities Act? Rather than a large, milling crowd, will the event have one-on-one options for people with social-related disabilities?

Some of these questions are easier to resolve than others—but starting to consider live events in this way could greatly expand the range of people who are able to attend and add their own perspective to the literary community, Katz said.

“Thinking about these things ahead of time makes your own job easier and more inclusive,” Katz said. “It’s not that hard. It just takes a little forethought.”

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Responses

New technologies can make literary events accessible to more people.
New technologies can make literary events accessible to more people.

All buildings need to follow the standards of the Americans With Disabilities Act.
All buildings need to follow the standards of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Literary spaces need to be made more inclusive.
Literary spaces need to be made more inclusive.

Literary events include live poetry readings, live-streamed events, panels, and workshops.