The Global Disability News Network Podcast: Accessible. Collaborative. Multimedia.

New York Times editor and debut author Wendy Lu joins co-hosts Karina Sturm and Amy Zayed to talk about her middle-grade novel Casting April, a story about a 12-year-old girl with a tracheostomy tube who fights to prove she belongs in her school play. Wendy shares why she wrote the book she wished she'd had as a child, how publishing's challenges with the middle-grade market played into her path to Penguin Random House, and what it really means to write complex, nuanced characters with disabilities. The conversation ranges from the "disability gaze" in classrooms to the trauma parents carry, to what it's like building a career in disability journalism. 00:00 - Teaser00:49 - Welcome to TGDNN + Introducing Wendy Lu02:32 - What Casting April Is About04:30 - Why Disability Representation in Kids' Books Matters06:41 - The "Disability Gaze" and Classroom Experiences12:41 - Balancing Disability as a Theme Without Overshadowing the Story15:04 - The Road to Penguin Random House19:05 - On Writing Complex Characters -- Not Just Villains23:54 - Writing as a Coping Mechanism Since Childhood27:01 - How All Three Hosts Found Their Way Into Journalism30:52 - Overprotective Parents and Disability: A Universal Story36:37 - Real Medical Emergencies and What They Do to a Family44:24 - Career Highlights: Disabled Doctors and a Long Road to the TimesLinks:Full Transcript of Episode: https://globaldisabilitynews.org/i-wrote-the-disability-story-i-needed-as-a-child-nyt-editor-wendy-lu-on-her-novel-casting-april/Casting April by Wendy Lu (Penguin Random House / Knopf Books for Young Readers) https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/bo...Wendy Lu's official author website https://www.wendyluwrites.com/The Global Disability News Network (TGDNN) https://globaldisabilitynews.org/GADIM -- Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment https://gadim.org/National Center on Disability and Journalism (NCDJ) -- Arizona State University https://ncdj.org/"Disabled Doctors Were Called Too 'Weak' to be in Medicine" -- Wendy Lu's HuffPost story https://www.huffpost.com/entry/disabl...