Date and Time: January 15, 2025 @ 7pm
Locations: Perfect Books at 258 Elgin St, Ottawa, ON K2P 1L9
Book launch and conversation with Adelle Purdham, author of I Don’t Do Disability and Other Lies I’ve Told Myself. Adelle is a writer and a mother of three children, one with Down syndrome.
Adelle’s Bio:
Adelle Purdham (she/her) is an educator, parent disability ally, and bestselling author of the memoir-in-essays I Don’t Do Disability And Other Lies I’ve Told Myself (Dundurn Press, 2024). She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from The University of King’s College. Her prose and poetry appear in literary journals, anthologies, magazines, newspapers and online. Adelle is Sessional Part-time faculty at Trent University where she teaches creative writing. She lives and writes in her hometown, Nogojiwanong (Peterborough), Ontario.
Book Description:
I Don’t Do Disability And Other Lies I’ve Told Myself is a raw and intimate portrait of family, love, life, relationships, and disability parenting through the eyes of a mother to a daughter with Down syndrome.
With the arrival of her daughter with Down syndrome, Adelle Purdham began unpacking a lifetime of her own ableism.
In a society where people with disabilities remain largely invisible, what does it mean to parent such a child? And simultaneously, what does it mean as a mother, a writer, and a woman to truly be seen?
The candid essays in I Don’t Do Disability and Other Lies I’ve Told Myself glimmer with humanity and passion, and explore ideas of motherhood, disability, and worth. Purdham delves into grief, rage, injustice, privilege, female friendship, marriage, and desire in a voice that is loudly empathetic, unapologetic, and true. While examining the dichotomies inside of herself, she leads us to consider the flaws in society, showing us the beauty, resilience, chaos, and wild within us all.
More about the book:
I DON’T DO DISABILITY was named a Fall Most Anticipated Memoir by Indigo and 49th Shelf, appeared in The Toronto Star’s Holiday gift-buying guide, was listed as a book to read by CBC on International Day of Persons with Disabilities, and recommended as a Best Nonfiction Book of 2024 by the editors of The Miramichi Reader.
