A big thank you to everyone who joined our third “Disability & Climate: In Conversation with…” session. We were joined by poet and nonfiction writer, Dr Polly Atkin, to reflect on the risks of vulnerabilising disabled people in response to the climate crisis, and the importance of involving disabled people in every stage of climate discussions.
Polly Atkin (FRSL) is a poet and nonfiction writer. She has published three poetry pamphlets and two collections – Basic Nest Architecture (Seren: 2017) and Much With Body (Seren: 2021). Her nonfiction includes Recovering Dorothy: The Hidden Life of Dorothy Wordsworth (Saraband: 2021), a Barbellion-longlisted biography of Dorothy’s later life and illness, and a memoir exploring place, belonging and disability, Some Of Us Just Fall: On Nature and Not Getting Better (Sceptre: 2023).
Polly has taught English and Creative Writing at QMUL, Lancaster University, and the Universities of Strathclyde and Cumbria. In 2019 she co-founded the Open Mountain initiative at Kendal Mountain Festival, which seeks to recentre voices currently at the margins of outdoor, mountain and nature writing. In 2022 she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She works as a freelancer from her home in Grasmere, in the English Lake District.
We would also like to thank the Leverhulme Trust for making this session possible.