Hello - and welcome to this anniversary edition of The View From Down Here!
It’s exactly a year to the day since I went freelance and sent the very first issue of this newsletter. And what a year it’s been. It’s been brilliant, scary and exhilarating; full of unexpected opportunities.
One of the things I perhaps didn’t expect was for disability advocacy to become my full-time beat. But I am so immensely glad it has, and also chuffed that the media industry has got to the stage where this is possible. That’s a huge change from when I started in journalism as a teenager, when I was repeatedly advised to report on, well, anything else. Many editors now recognise that these stories are important and it is an absolute privilege to be trusted to tell them.
Here’s a few of the highlights from my first year of doing this full-time:
Fifteen (15!) pieces in the Guardian, including the piece I am most proud of, highlighting the sexual harassment of disabled women
Working with the lovely team at Tortoise to bring disability coverage to a new audience - with incredible opportunities to highlight issues I really care about
Fulfilling a nerdy dream to be published in Red Box
Writing a long personal essay for the FT Weekend Magazine (no big deal) which became an ode to my community
Becoming a Sociability ambassador and working with the best team around
Speaking at countless events, including News UK’s Disability and Journalism Forum
Getting to know so many utterly brilliant disabled people
Oh, and bagging myself a lovely agent, a fantastic editor and an actual honest-to-god book deal for my upcoming memoir!
Being able to shout about disability issues and my own experiences has been so empowering, but by far and away the best thing about my job is interviewing other disabled people and helping them tell their stories. Their generosity and honesty have absolutely blown me away, and every time someone says how nice it is to be talking to a disabled journalist I want to have a little sob. Thank you to everyone who’s spoken to me.
Then, of course, there’s this newsletter - my own little corner of the internet and my writing baby. When I joined Substack, I set out to see what would happen, with a vague goal to break even with 70 paying subscribers within a year. To have reached over 100 in that time is amazing and I am so grateful to everyone who has supported me.
The View From Down Here is where we’ve really got to grips with the unseen reality of disability. Together, we’ve explored what it’s really like to have a speech impediment, what it means to live beyond conventionality, and my complex journey to disability pride. I’ve poured myself into all these pieces and I hope they’ve provided a new and valuable perspective on disability for you.
We’ve also spent a lot of time looking at how to be an ally. After all, there’s no point talking about ableism if we’re not going to do anything about it. To that end, we looked at the basic tenets of disability advocacy and tackled the thorny topic of language. It’s been so great seeing so many people engage with anti-ableism.
I am really proud of all of this work and I love doing it. Nevertheless, if I am going to keep this newsletter going and expand it in all the ways I would like, I am going to need a little more support. Producing this newsletter takes a huge amount of time and a great deal of expertise, and at the moment I am not making any profit at all. Too often, disabled people are expected to do anti-ableism work without making any money - an unsustainable model which is holding progress back.
So, if you are one of the 800 or so people on the free list and you believe that the anti-ableism work we do here is important, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber if you can. It will help me bring you new and exciting interviews, community features like Q&As, better anti-ableism resources and much more, while also allowing me to, you know, pay for stuff. The more you put in, the more you get out - and it’s only £5 a month for the full version.
That being said, I fully understand that money is tight for everyone right now, and I want this newsletter to remain as accessible as possible. So, if you’re on the free list, you’ll continue to receive the good stuff. All I ask is that you recommend The View From Down Here to anyone who might enjoy it!
Learning how to write, sustain and market a weekly newsletter has been the biggest challenge of my first year as a freelancer (one suspects that next year’s will be learning how to write a book!). I’d like to think I’m getting better at it but, to be honest, it’s hard to tell. So I would really, really love to hear from you about what you’ve most enjoyed from the first year of The View From Down Here and what you’d like to see in the second one. It’d really help me make this newsletter even better for you.
A year ago, I had no idea if the gamble of quitting my job was going to pay off. I knew I wanted to write but I didn’t really know where or how or what. I knew I wanted to advocate but I didn’t know if I was the person to do so. I jumped while desperately trying not to look down. But 52 weeks later, I can safely say that leap was the right thing to do.
I’ve never been happier. I’m also mentally and physically healthier. The sense of purpose this work gives me is incredible, and I’m so excited to keep doing it. I’ve done things I always dreamed of and things I never even imagined. And it’s only just begun.
I hope you’ll join me in seeing what happens next.
See you soon,
Lucy
Congratulations, Lucy. So happy it's all coming together.
Many congratulations on a wonderful year - and what a list of achievements! Hope the year to come is as rewarding - Georgina P x