Pōneke-based writer, activist, and disability rights advocate, Henrietta Bollinger’s debut book Articulations is a collection of essays that speak to their experiences as a queer, disabled person in Aotearoa New Zealand. The book journeys through different personal insights; from first crushes and first periods to parliamentary reform and Disability Pride. Bollinger challenges the norms of our ableist society, asking us to consider better ways of being with each other and ourselves.
Watch our interview with Henrietta Bollinger where we chat about their advocacy work and the process of writing and publishing their first book with Tender Press.
We extend our thanks and appreciation to Henrietta for taking the time to answer our questions, and for providing insight into their writing and disability advocacy work. You can reserve a copy of Articulations below.
Articulations / Bollinger, Henrietta
Articulations is a timely, personal, and poignant appraisal of life in Aotearoa. Soundtracked by the Topp Twins, Anika Moa, Woody Guthrie and more, Bollinger’s essays take us on a journey from first crushes and first periods to parliamentary reform and Disability Pride. They challenge the norms of our ableist society, asking us to consider better ways of being with each other and ourselves. (Adapted from Publishers description)
Places I’ve taken my body : essays / Brown, Molly McCully
“In sixteen intimate essays, poet Molly McCully Brown explores living within and beyond the limits of a body-in her case, one shaped since birth by cerebral palsy, a permanent and often painful movement disorder. In spite of-indeed, in response to-physical constraints, Brown leads a peripatetic life: the essays comprise a vivid travelogue. Brown constellates the subjects that define her inside and out: a disabled and conspicuous body, a religious conversion, a missing twin, a life in poetry.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Sitting pretty : the view from my ordinary resilient disabled body / Taussig, Rebekah
“A memoir-in-essays, processing a lifetime of memories to paint a beautiful, nuanced portrait of a body that looks and moves differently than most. Writing about the rhythms and textures of what it means to live in a body that doesn’t fit. Reflecting on the complications of kindness and charity and the pervasiveness of ableism in media.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Disability visibility : first-person stories from the Twenty-first century
“A groundbreaking collection of first-person writing on the joys and challenges of the modern disability experience bringing together the voices of activists, authors, lawyers, politicians, artists, and everyday people whose daily lives are “an art . . . an ingenious way to live.” It celebrates and documents disability culture in the now. It looks to the future and past with hope and love.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Precarity : uncertain, insecure and unequal lives in Aotearoa, New Zealand
“The precariat are our fellow citizens – be they poor, elderly, disabled, homeless, estranged from their cultural communities, refugees, engaged in casual work – who lead lives of uncertainty, dependency, powerlessness, perilousness and insufficiency as an outcome of the gradual dismantling of the welfare state, the withering of union representation and as the victims of the changing nature of work. This book moves beyond the world of labour to identify other forms of precarity in NZ.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
This is what a disabled body looks like : a zine / Hartigan, Beth
“A zine by Beth Hartigan published in January 2022 as part of the Wellington Zinefest Disability Zine Project.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
