Lindsey Carmichael
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utarcher.bsky.social
Lindsey Carmichael
@utarcher.bsky.social
410 followers 550 following 430 posts
Writer & Paralympic medalist. FD/MAS. She/her.

♿🏳️‍🌈

https://www.lindseycarmichael.com

📷 PFP credit to Ace Jones Taylor.
🧵 Cover credit to HGEmbroideryArt.
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utarcher.bsky.social
Looking at this billboard and listening to The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde. She's struggling w "the urge, the need, to work again... To be of use, even symbolically."

I'm thinking of ableism. How "when slowing down isn't an option," we need to throw out each and every system that says it isn't.
Photo of a billboard against a cloudy sky, rain streaking my windshield. A 20-something Asian woman holds books in an urban background, looking capable and in control. The text reads, "St. David's CareNow Urgent Care. Trusted care close by. For when slowing down isn't an option."
February 14, 2026 at 7:15 PM
utarcher.bsky.social
All 135 pgs of Against Technoableism are relevant, but esp Chapter 6 arguing we'll see MORE disability for @ least 6 reasons. "Space is already disabling for humans. Just as the built environment on Earth is not suited for disabled bodies, space as an environment is not suited to ANY human bodies."
Photo of page 118 of the hardback copy of Against Technoableism by Ashley Shew. There's a paragraph about how post-Polio disability and how COVID is a mass disabling event. The text relevant to this post: "The future is disabled, cosmically. Even with hopeful futures like space travel and adventure, we can expect the production of disability. Space is already disabling for humans. Just as the built environment on Earth is not suited for disabled bodies, space as an environment is not suited to any human bodies. Every astronaut comes back from the low gravity of space with damage to their bones and eyes and the longer they are off Earth's surface, the worse the damage. Some things can be restored over time, but some changes are long-lasting. These realities are absent from futurist..." Photo of pg 119. Text continues, "writing about technology, which is framed as simply magicking away the disabling effects of space travel. This is why technofuturists' discussions of "The End of Disability" are so silly. Disability isn't ending; we're going to see more and newer forms of disability in the future. This doesn't mean that all medical projects aimed at treating disease and disability are unpromising. I certainly hope we will come up with better diagnosis and treatment for conditions like asthma and Lyme disease. But disability is multi-faceted and a much larger category than can be covered by any simple case. No nondisabled person without experiential knowledge of disability and engagement with the disability community should be making claims or decisions about the future of disability and disabled people. We need to prepare for the disabled future, becoming more comfortable with other people's disabilities, accepting the fact that we ourselves will eventually be disabled (if we aren't already), learning to recognize and root out ableism—these are all moves toward building a better future for everyone. Because the future is disabled, working toward and planning for a future without disability, without disabled people, is a ridiculous prospect."
February 13, 2026 at 7:19 PM
utarcher.bsky.social
"To survive in the mouth of this dragon we call america, we have had to learn this first and most vital lesson—that we were never meant to survive... That visibility which makes us most vulnerable is that which also is the source of our greatest strength."

—Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals
Photo of the paperback of The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde, who is shown in a black and white photo that has been colorized to emphasize her purple floral shirt, her missing breast. She has been collaged onto a yellow-blue floral background and bears a halo of red and black dots around her face. Pg 14 of The Cancer Journals. Text: "What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? Perhaps for some of you here today, I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am... a Black woman warrior poet doing my work, come to ask you, are you doing yours? And of course, I am afraid—you can hear it in my voice—because the transformation of silence into language and action is an act of self-revelation and that always seems fraught with danger. But my daughter, when I told her of our topic and my difficulty with it, said, "Tell them about how you're never really a whole person if you remain silent, because there's always that one little piece inside of you that wants to be spoken out, and if you keep ignoring it, it gets madder and madder and hotter and hotter, and if you don't speak it out one day it will just up and punch you in the mouth." In the cause of silence, each one of us draws the face of her own fear—fear of contempt, of censure, or some judgment, or recognition, of challenge, of annihilation. But most of all, I think, we fear the very visibility without which we also cannot truly live. Within this country where racial difference creates a constant, if unspoken, distortion of vision, Black women have on one hand always been highly visible, and so, on the other hand, have been rendered invisible through the depersonalization of racism. Even within the women's movement, we have had to fight and still do, for that very visibility which also renders us most vulnerable, our Blackness. For to survive in the mouth of this dragon we call america, we have had to learn this first and most vital lesson—that we were never meant to survive. Not as human beings. And neither were most of you here today, Black or not. And that visibility which makes us most vulnerable is that which also is the source of our greatest strength."
February 12, 2026 at 11:59 PM
utarcher.bsky.social
Give me an iconic #StarTrek image.
Melora Pazlar (Daphne Ashbrook) in her role as the first Elaysian Starfleet officer, calibrating the control of her swank motorized wheelchair as she visits Deep Space Nine. Her shoulders, arms, and legs are braced with looping metal. (She had the poise to suggest she's probably heading off somewhere to give an officer training on the social model of disability.) Her asshole doctor Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) hovers in the background, on the verge of suggesting that her best medical option is to give up her Elaysian identity to better conform to the DS9 architecture (and his ableist standards), or, let's be honest, he's probably gonna pressure her into going on another date with him even though he's her doctor. For her part, Melora looks confident in her choices, identity, and mobility aids, and doesn't have time for his shit.
February 3, 2026 at 5:40 AM
utarcher.bsky.social
Your collection is so good! I still have your poem taped inside my pill organizer, where I will get a reminder every month that filling one up for myself or for others is an act of great love. 💜
Photo of me holding open my monthly pill organizer where I have taped a copy of Leticia Urieta's poem "What greater love than refilling a pill organizer?" from her collection Offerings to a Tumbled Temple. I'm not currently able to provide alt text for the entire poem, but please DM if you want that and I can type it up when I have more capacity!
January 24, 2026 at 12:46 AM
utarcher.bsky.social
There's a 16-yr old in my mind trying so hard to remember the full quote from one of the gender-bending scenes of Shakespeare in Love. The one on the Thames where Will unwittingly describes his crush's bosom to the same person disguised in male drag.

Anyway, those are some lovely loaves!
January 6, 2026 at 6:23 PM
utarcher.bsky.social
But I only made it to pg 21 of Positive Obsession before I learned that Butler used to buy extra copies of Zenna Henderson's Pilgrimage to give away just so she'd have someone to talk to about it with. (What a mood!) So obviously @ 1am last night I downloaded an 827 pg Zenna Henderson compendium. 2/
Photo of me holding open my copy of Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler by Susana M. Morris. Text reads: "She read all the "golden age" science fiction classics, from Robert Heinlein to John Brunner to Theodore Sturgeon, and later fell in love with Frank Herbert's Dune, but works by women writers particularly resonated with her. She would read all of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series. Ursula K. Le Guin's work was another favorite. But young Estelle was a zealot for Zenna Henderso—so much so she would buy cheap copies of Pilgrimage from the Salvation Army and pass them out to people because she wanted someone to discuss the book with. Estelle found a kindred spirit in Henderson's writing. Pilgrimage is part of a series of novels about a group of telepathic humanoid aliens and featured strong women characters. By the time Estelle read this story she had already been working on proto-versions of the Patternist series, which also centers on telepathic humans and their struggles."
January 6, 2026 at 5:58 PM
utarcher.bsky.social
CW medical trauma, surgery, ableism

Campbell's poem, "This Hospital Is Not Big Enough for the Two of Us" captures what it's like to return to the hospital as an adult w C-PTSD and to be asked to abandon the oldest and most vulnerable parts of myself. Sacrifice my humanity to be pleasant to survive.
Photo of a page of prose poetry by Jen Campbell in the collection Please Do Not Touch This Exhibit. Title: This Hospital Is Not Big Enough for the Two of Us. Poem text: 1 The hospital is not a place for nostalgia. The woman is advised it probably would be wise to leave her younger self outside. They hand her a knife, ask her if she knows how to use it, say it's quite expensive and - 'judging by the state of [her] hands' they hope she'll try very hard not to drop it. If she doesn't feel comfortable making the separation, they can always do it for her. Not a problem. Just ask. And if it isn't too crass, can she leave the severed child in the car park? It's fine, they find they don't usually mind; most of them enjoy the weather and the people watching. Not to worry. Could you hurry? We don't want to get caught in the rain -
December 28, 2025 at 10:17 PM
utarcher.bsky.social
In considering my fawn responses in a medical setting, I keep thinking about these two poems from the excellent Please Do Not Touch This Exhibit by @jenvcampbell.bsky.social.

When you can't fight or flee from the ableism or indifference of a doctor, your options are freezing and fawning. Obedience.
Photo of a page of poetry by Jen Campbell in the collection Please Do Not Touch This Exhibit. The text of this poem is crammed into a narrow column awkwardly to the right side of the page. Title: Poem as Bad Doctor. Poem text: Please imagine that this poem is not talking to you but is instead talking to the person sitting next to you, who happens to be present but is not actually the subject of this poem. Scuttle to the right, then merge into the margins and wait to be told when this poem, this poem that is not your poem, this body of text, is going to end. And when the words cease, please wait to be told how you're supposed to take them. How on earth you're supposed to swallow them down.
December 28, 2025 at 10:10 PM
utarcher.bsky.social
post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't nirvana, soundgarden, pearl jam, or alice in chains.

(I could listen endlessly to 1200 Curfews, a 1995 live album by @indigogirlsmusic.bsky.social. The concert banter feels like a hug from an old friend and "Virginia Woolf" always invokes hopeful tears.)
Album cover showing a black and white photo of the stage scaffolding of a concert venue, at night after the crowds have gone home. Text is scrawled in red handwriting, Indigo Girls, 1200 Curfews
December 28, 2025 at 5:55 AM
utarcher.bsky.social
Taped a copy of this new poem by @leticiaasu.bsky.social inside my monthly pill organizer. A hug for my future self. 🥰

This poetry collection is phenomenal & would make a wonderful gift for the disabled & chronically ill folks of #BookSky. Just requested copies at my library for a book club!
Photo of the cover of Leticia Urieta's chapbook Offerings To A Tumbled Temple. The top half of the cover is in vivid blue paint radiating outwards from a bird figure, brown wings outstretched. The lower half shows the curves of a human figure in earth tones. It gives the effect of a body that might also be a riverbank against blue rippling waters, or a body that might be a mountain range with a bird soaring into the sky. Artwork by Yael Aldana, chapbook published 2025 by Purple Ink Press. Photo of a page of poetry. Title: What greater love than refilling a pill organizer? by Leticia Urieta from the chapbook Offerings To A Tumbled Temple 2025, Purple Ink Press. Tip each long pill down the hill of my hand to be deposited in each miniscule box some to be picked up between two fingers with tenderness lest they fall on the bedsheets or on the floor (they will and I will pick them up, say "five second rule," dust my breath across their surface and we will never speak of how you are anointed by my breath) What relief, to know what you need to swallow for each day, even for each hour, the pills no longer sequestered in their bottles affixed to names, side effects when you get to a certain age you grow accustomed to letting others worry for you about "why so many, and what for?" I have done this refilling for many elders the act inconsequentia but vital though I will leave and someone else will have to take down the plastic casements and do this prayer all over again the pills a rosary we say every day, running our thumbs across their glistening surfaces, reminding me of beads I kept in plastic boxes as a child all shining, some metal and even precious glass to twine on thin strings as gifts for my friends Now, I have my own box of weekly relief, choosing a Sunday, how appropriate, to fill each day with remedies my tried and true My box is not yet elaborate but it is purple, a light royal color for a kindness from my past self beginning again with each empty box
December 5, 2025 at 2:49 AM
utarcher.bsky.social
"The future is accessible." -Annie Segarra

Updating cover art w this amazing #embroidery artwork. Shared w permission, credit to HGEmbroideryArt! www.etsy.com/shop/HGEmbro... 🏳️‍🌈🧵

Based on a photo of me dancing in a wheelchair from my 2018 #HealingVisibly photo-essay project. #TheFutureIsAccessible
An embroidery hoop with white fabric showing a complex artwork of a person in a manual wheelchair lifting a walker above her head, and kicking a leg up above their chair's leg rest. The person's hair is long and galaxy-colored. The embroidered text reads "The future is accessible," which is a quote from Annie Segarra. Artwork copyright HGEmbroideryArt, DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT PERMISSION!
September 11, 2025 at 10:45 PM
utarcher.bsky.social
What a pick-me-up for a rough day of con-drop after #WorldCon! @libro.fm just popped up with a wondrous notification allowing me to download my pre-order of Lessons in Magic and Disaster by the legendary @charliejane.bsky.social! Esp after the Feminist Futurism Salon, I am SO excited!
Screenshot of the Libro FM app showing the purple and yellow cover of the audiobook Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders, narrated by Lisa Flanagan, Marisa Calin, and Sena Bryer.
August 19, 2025 at 4:35 AM
utarcher.bsky.social
"Sometimes I get reminded that media exists that isn't gay at all, and it really saddens me." @hanalee.bsky.social #WorldCon
A four panel meme with a photo of a fluffy white dog being tossed up into the air by a human. First panel says "so lomg human." Second panel shows the dog further away as if flying up into the sky and says "i have achieved my goal." Third panel the dog is far away and it says in rainbow text "everyone gay." The final panel is an empty sky because the dog has ascended.
August 17, 2025 at 1:13 AM
utarcher.bsky.social
My favorite part of what Becky Chambers said in the "Genre in Conversation with Itself" panel at @seattlein2025.org #WorldCon, which I really needed to hear.

A response to the question, "how do you deal with the emotional impact of someone responding to your works?"

Cameo by George R. R. Martin.
Discord screenshot of transcription of 242 words of Becky Chambers and George R. R. Martin speaking on a panel at Seattle WorldCon. Becky Chambers: This is so much easier said than done. But it's not personal, right? I'm not my work. My work is something I made in a very contained period of my life. And so… whatever someone's response to that is, is really not my business. Right? I… I did not feel this way when I first started out. Part of it is just time, and growing that thick skin. Unfortunately, thick skin is not something that you can develop overnight. But it is just a matter of constantly grabbing yourself by the scruff and being like, "hey, is this conversation that's happening actually a space that you should be in?" Right? Because most of the time when people are talking about my work it's not a place I need to be. And they're… because they're not talking about me. They're talking about their own feelings about the work. They're talking about their own personal conversation with it. And it's usually a conversation with something I made 10 years ago. I'm not that person anymore. I'm doing my own thing now, right? It takes practice. I'm not always good at it. But… it does get easier with time. George RR Martin: But don't you love the things that you wrote 10 years ago? I mean, they're your children, and someone's saying your firstborn children is ugly. Becky Chambers: Oh, I love them. I love them to bits, but I would edit. [laughs]
August 15, 2025 at 11:03 PM
utarcher.bsky.social
Becky Chambers & @isabel.kim said so many wise things today about the cooperative nature of the dialogue inherent within the SFF genre.

Two excerpts that resonated with me as both a writer and reader, from the #WorldCon panel "A Genre in Conversation with Itself" with @scalzi.com Olav Rokne & GRRM.
Discord screenshot of 355-word convo w/ Isabel J Kim, Becky Chambers, and John Scalzi. Isabel J Kim: One thing I've been thinking about a lot is that you don't respond to something you don't care about. Regardless of whether you love it or hate it, you do kind of give a shit about it. This is something you care about, this is something you want to expand on. It's like, if someone really hated something, or if something didn't matter, then it would just disappear from the canon, it would never be responded to. Yeah, I don't know, I got a lot of people being like, “do you like or hate Ursula K. Le Guin?” after I wrote a response piece. And I was very much like, “Of course I like her work.” I wouldn't spend my brain and my brain power on responding to something I didn't care about. Becky Chambers: That's exactly what I was thinking about through this whole back and forth. I think, love it or hate it, I mean, fuck the binary, right? [audience cheers] It's… Does a conversation have to be adversarial? It's not a debate. Right? It's a conversation. There are different viewpoints, there are different takes. Some of them are gonna land with some people, some are gonna land with others, right? That's just how art works. I personally don't see… when I write things that are… you know, “ooh, I really love that, but what if we did this?” I don't see that as, “I'm correct, and I am going to have the only correct take there is!” No, I'm putting my spin on it. Because I love it. Or because I was like, mm, I loved that little kernel. But what if we did this instead? I don't think there's… it's not a competition, as far as I'm concerned, and I know I'm a great big marshmallow, but… For me, it's collaborative. Even if I don't know the people, even if these are people I've never met, I am collaborating with all of the authors who came before me and after me. John Scalzi: So you're saying the genre is free-form jazz? Becky Chambers: Yes. And I play saxophone. (No, I don't.)
August 15, 2025 at 10:53 PM
utarcher.bsky.social
My story "Marit the Resolute" is a portal fantasy about belonging, trust, & traveling while disabled.

Traveling Light: Tales of the Magical Gates is available in eBook & paperback!

📘 Bookshop: bookshop.org/p/books/trav...

📗 B&N: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/traveling-...

📙Amazon: a.co/d/3n3loft
Book cover showing a stone archway, green grass, and the tattooed hands of someone with light brown skin who has fallen through the portal. Text shows Traveling Light: Tales of the Magical Gates, Presented by Worldbuilding for Masochists, and the names of the twelve authors.
July 30, 2025 at 10:19 PM
utarcher.bsky.social
Hi! I'm a nerdy queer writer w/ work in the anthology Traveling Light from Hugo-finalist podcast @worldbuildcast.bsky.social. A 2x Paralympian, I set a world record in 2004 & won a bronze medal in 2008. So far I'm the only US woman to win an Olympic or Paralympic archery medal in singles since 1996.
Lindsey is sitting with her arms folded on a table with a grey tablecloth, a microphone and packet of typed notes in front of her. She's wearing a blue face mask with a blue sweater and has medium-length wavy brown-silver hair. In the foreground you can see a portable air purifier and a paperback titled Traveling Light: Tales of the Magical Gates, with twelve authors listed on the cover, herself included. She looks very happy.
July 30, 2025 at 10:06 PM
utarcher.bsky.social
It took me two hours of executive dysfunction (and roughly 20 non-consecutive pages of The Illiad, of all things) to track down my response. Which also came from Insta. When a writer friend sent this to me, it made me laugh-choke on my tea 😂

CW for death/morbid humor, I guess?
Screenshot of a social media post by maria sherman @mariasherm. Text says "being a writer is cool because it's like always having homework & then you die"
July 10, 2025 at 4:15 AM
utarcher.bsky.social
Today marks 48 years since the end of the 504 Sit-In!

Did you know disabled people have accessibility in the US largely because some brave people held the longest nonviolent occupation of a federal building in US history?

I was in my 30s before I learned the history that made my life possible.
A black and white photo of legendary activist Judy Heumann speaking into a microphone at an outdoor event. She's sitting in a wheelchair and is wearing octagonal glasses and a winter coat with a button that says SIGN 504.
April 29, 2025 at 7:26 PM
utarcher.bsky.social
If you see this, post your pride flags!

(And optional crafts you made of those flags.)

Don't forget the alt text!
Omnisexual pride flag in five bands of pinks and blues. Omnisexuality is defined as the sexual attraction to people of all sexes and gender identities, wherein gender plays a role in one's attraction. An embroidery hoop with geometric shapes I stitched in five bands of color for the omnisexual pride flag. The hoop itself is painted pink, and the original design credit goes to Wolfratsen. Polyamory pride flag with a yellow heart on a white triangle and bands of blue, purple, and pink. Disability pride flag with a charcoal grey background and diagonal stripes of five colors symbolizing cutting across inaccessible barriers. The red band is for physical disabilities, gold for neurodivergence, white for undiagnosed and hidden disabilities, blue for mental disabilities and mental illness, green for sensory disabilities. The charcoal represents mourning for ableist violence, and honoring those lost to disability and illness. It was originally designed by Ann Magill, a disabled activist, and later revised with community input to improve visual accessibility.
February 28, 2025 at 5:54 AM
utarcher.bsky.social
"To refuse to participate in the shaping of our future is to give it up. Do not be misled into passivity either by false security (they don't mean me) or by despair (there's nothing we can do). Each of us must find our work and do it."

Audre Lorde, 1982 speech at Harvard, "Learning from the 60s"
The quote transposed over a photo collage of Audre Lorde, a Black woman with short natural hair in a purple floral top, set against an ornate background of flowers and a circle of dots radiating from Lorde's face. The artwork is from the 2020 edition book cover of Lorde's short 1980 essay collection The Cancer Journals.
February 13, 2025 at 10:36 PM
utarcher.bsky.social
Listening to Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Shaping Worlds by @adriennemareebrown.bsky.social today, and this quote from Detroit organizer Morgan Mann Willis stood out to me.
Screenshot of an ebook that reads: “I believe in the honesty of trees. I, like many organizers, have spent a lot of time processing the notion that anything worth its outcome involves everyone’s priorities, desires, visions and perspectives in every phase and around every decision. I look at the anatomy of trees as one of nature’s examples of successful organizing that realizes that our power is in our ability to both be fiercely centered and grounded but also infinitely reaching towards our unique sources of energy, light, and growth. Each tree’s elements are reliant on one another but totally unique in form and function. There is no competition or pressure to be the root or the trunk or the buds that bloom. Each tree is a universe, a master delegator, a puzzle and a puzzle piece. They have encouraged me to not worry so much about making everyone ‘feel important’ and to focus on how to create systems and support efforts where everyone is important and clear on how their work is unique, crucial and totally interconnected.” —Morgan Mann Willis
February 2, 2025 at 11:08 PM
utarcher.bsky.social
Today I discovered this unexpected marigold amid the annual letting-go of wintertime gardening.

What are some unlooked-for joys keeping you going through the exhaustion of recent events?
A yellow marigold flower in a green mass of leaves, nestled into a container full of dead and dried pepper and okra plants.
February 2, 2025 at 10:45 PM
utarcher.bsky.social
Anyway I am forever grateful and full of admiration for Becky Chambers. I'm sad she's not on social media but I am also glad she knows herself and her limits. Mad respect.

Here's the AMA I quoted.

www.reddit.com/r/books/s/8K...
Screenshot of the AMA. DM for full text. Summary is: What's some advice for aspiring authors? 1. You are not defined by how productive you are, or whether you get published or if your work is any good. Tell anybody who romanticizes burnout to f*** off. Writing is just a cool thing that you can choose to do. It's not what makes you worthwhile. You already are, without doing anything more. 2. Experiment constantly. Give yourself new puzzles to solve. Figure out your preferences and strengths, never stop exploring those things. 3. Research the practical side of writing professionally to have a clear idea of what you're working towards. There's no wrong answer. 4. Sometimes this job sucks. It's okay to go eat some other art for a while. Find something that lights stuff fire in. You, grab it with both hands as hard as you can, and start running again. It always comes back. Screenshot of the rest of the AMA. DM for full text. Summary is: 5. Some stories don't work, and that's okay. Don't ever throw anything out. Always be open to recycling. 6. If you love your story, somebody else will too. Believe in it.
January 30, 2025 at 6:13 AM