Written for the Horror Writer’s Association “Holistic Horrors”, November 2025.
First published in the HWA members newsletter.
Accessibility is not dirty word. But given how some people are unable to comprehend it, unwilling to consider it, or are even downright dismissive of it, it might as well be.
As a disabled writer and reader of horror, I’ve seen many examples of how disabled characters are often coded as evil. Their physical or mental differences from the norm are portrayed as the monstrous Other. The disfigured loner is a torturer of innocent teens. The autistic mute a disturbed serial killer. The troubled young man with split personalities is a calculated and cold-blooded kidnapper.
What kind of supports might have changed their downward trajectories? Could compassion have prevented them going “bad”? Who knows? But to a person with multiple disabilities, the way those characters are (mis)treated cuts deep.
It’s easy to ostracise those who are different from us. To drive them over the edge with indifference or contempt, when they’re already struggling to survive in an unkind world.
People—all people—have needs: things that support us to live good, enriching lives. Disabled people, through no fault of their own, frequently have additional needs. And those needs, when not met, might not drive us to commit murder, but can still make us feel intense pain, anger and frustration.
None of us are guaranteed a full life where we remain able-bodied throughout. Age and accidents are inevitable. Disability, like death, comes for us all in the end. Perhaps we might fall more than we used to. Or not hear as well as we did. Our eyesight might fade along with our memory. The words on the tips of our tongues not a moment ago disappear from our minds as we speak, and socialising becomes physically and mentally exhausting. And yet, we do not become the monsters in our life stories. We merely realise our needs have grown.
It is my belief that when accessibility is given due consideration and attention, when we “build the ramp first before the stairs”, everyone benefits. Providing solutions to problems before they arise is the best way to ensure everyone has the opportunities they deserve. Writing can be a lonely endeavour even without being Othered or excluded by our peers, and disabled writers are too often excluded from events that might further their careers or help them build community. If a convention or panel is not accessible, many disabled professionals simply won’t attend. And when they aren’t there, it’s assumed it’s by choice. Accessibility is often (maybe deliberately?) left out of conversations about event planning. Why make provisions for those who won’t come anyway? Why bother to build the ramp?
It’s a self-perpetuating spiral of exclusion. And it must stop.
Often, it’s not even about making grand gestures or huge changes. Enable automatic captions in virtual panels. Hold conventions in venues on one level without stairs. Make resources in accessible and multiple formats. Ensure websites are well-designed and easy to use. Encourage the wearing of facemasks and uphold a strict policy of “don’t attend if you’re sick”. Above all, find out what our individual needs are and support us. Just because you might not see us, doesn’t mean we’re not here.
Disabled writers have a lot to offer the genre. We write often from lived experience and know intimately the real horrors of the world. We know the monsters don’t lurk in the dark or under beds, they hide in plain sight as they deny us autonomy and slam the doors of opportunity in our face.
So let us in. Let us be involved. Tear down the barriers that deny disabled people access. And the horror community will grow much stronger, together.