KNEE BRACE PRESS

A place for stories about chronic illness, disability, mental health, and neurodivergence.

chronic illness

  • A white woman with short hair wears round glasses and a black sweater. She gazes at the camera. The photo is in black and white.

    Vertigo

    By

    In her poem Vertigo, author and poet Amba Elieff captures the dizzying horror that is having your world flipped upside-down mid step and what it means to push through it like nothing happened.

  • A Black person with white-rimmed glasses smiles widely with their eyes closed. They are holding their book, DEAR PHILOMENA by Mugabi Byenkya, and are surrounded by a circle of light.

    Seizure #774

    By

    If a loved one infringed on one of your most private moments for their own curiosity, how would you respond? That’s what author and poet Mugabi Byenkya writes about in their poem, Seizure #774, which takes place during a seizure.

  • A white woman with short hair wears round glasses and a black sweater. She gazes at the camera. The photo is in black and white.

    An interview with Amba Elieff

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    Amba Elieff spent most of her life a closet poet. Now, she’s put her work out there for all to see in her debut collection, Maiden, Mother, Crone. We spoke with Elieff about sacred spaces, womanhood, and what it means to be in community with other through her work.

  • A white woman with short hair wears round glasses and a black sweater. She gazes at the camera. The photo is in black and white.

    Spoon Tattoo

    By

    Researchers at the University of Massachusetts found that nearly ninety-six percent of chronic medical conditions can be considered “invisible illnesses.” Poet Amba Elieff details her own experiences with chronic illness via one small tattoo.

  • Searching for Bunker Norms

    By

    It’s the end of the world. Then again, we Spoonies have always been able to adapt. While the non-disabled, richest one percent were hidden underground in bunkers during the catastrophe, a network spearheaded by a disabled woman had secretly gathered to protect the most disregarded of the population.

  • A person with long, dark hair smiles as she looks off to the left. She wears a pink shirt with pink, purple, and blue flowers on it.

    Food: A Relationship

    By

    In her essay, Knee Brace Press EIC Nicole Zelniker chronicles her relationship with food through the lens of OCD, anorexia, and Crohn’s disease. The essay is an ode to recovery as well as community in the form of “badass, body positive friends.”

  • Ode to Chronic Illness

    By

    “Music is my liberation/the medicine to my soul/the bridge between two realms in which/I coexist.” Poet and author Clara Olivo is back with a poem about music, chronic pain, and resilience.

  • To Thrive in Darkness

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    “We were friendly with the dark.” So begins Jamieson Wolf’s To Thrive in Darkness, a short story where the characters live in a fictional labyrinth, but the narrator’s experiences with disability are strikingly similar to Wolf’s own experiences with multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy.

  • A black and white photo depicts a person with a small smile. They are crossing their arms over a black button up with small white dogs. Their hair is short and they wear round glasses.

    Ache Awake

    By

    Sojourner “Hughes” Davidson’s poem, Ache Awake, deals with the speaker’s chronic pain, migraines, and insomnia. A DMV-based poet writing about the mind and the body, Davidson has previously published two poems in the Guilford College lit mag, The Greenleaf Review.