KNEE BRACE PRESS

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

grief

  • A person with long, brown hair, bangs, and black rimmed glasses hides half their face behind a black and brown cat with blue eyes.

    Untitled #1

    By

    “And yet sometimes, I feel cold./There’s a deep void in my chest/No matter how much I try, it remains bare.” In this poem, AM Rodriguez details what it’s like to struggle with depression and grief, even when the rest of the world appears full of light.

  • 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.

    An interview with Mugabi Byenkya

    By

    Memoirist and magical realism author Mugabi Byenkya writes for themselves. Or, more accurately, the angsty, confused, Black, Ugandan-Rwandan-Nigerian, disabled, queer, polygender, and neurodivergent little human they used to be and still are.

  • A woman with blue eyes, dark-rimmed glasses, and dark pink lipstick smiles with her mouth closed. Her hair is dark with gray in it and she wears a white and black striped shirt and a black jacket. The background is blue.

    An interview with Tiffany Midge

    By

    In her book of essays, Bury My Heart At Chuck E. Cheese’s, author Tiffany Midge uses humor as an act of resistance and reclamation. While humor categories in traditional publishing are dominated by white authors, it’s high time Midge take her place as one of the funniest names in satire.

  • A white person, with long, dark hair and glasses smiles at the camera. The background is all thin threes and blue skies.

    An interview with E.M. Anderson

    By

    No one understands why eighty-three-year-old Edna Fisher is the Chosen One, but Edna, armed with only gumption and knitting needles, leaps at the chance to leave the nursing home. We spoke with author E.M. Anderson about The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher, mental health and invisible illness representation, and American white pelicans.

  • An interview with Bridgette Dutta Portman

    By

    Olive Joshi has messed up big time. When she falls through a portal into her own abandoned story, Olive finds double suns scorching the earth, a brutal prince seeking power, and her heroine missing. We spoke with author Bridgette Dutta Portman about The Coseema Saga, the third book of which is out now.

  • An interview with Camri Kohler

    By

    When twenty-three-year-old surly (and slightly tipsy) Frankie finds her hag of a grandmother dead on the sofa, her best friend Ben introduces her to the magical underbelly of Aspen Ridge, Utah. We spoke to debut author Camri Kohler about her horrifying urban fantasy novel, Peachy.

  • A person with long, brown hair, bangs, and black rimmed glasses hides half their face behind a black and brown cat with blue eyes.

    Ghosts

    By

    “I think about ghosts and love./I think about haunted houses and empty spaces.” So begins AM Rodriguez’s ethereal poem, Ghosts, about the grief that haunts us, the longing we can’t escape, and a morbid curiosity the speaker can’t shake.

  • The picture shows the cover of The Recall Paradox by Julian R. Vaca. The text on the top says, "In this war, memories are weapons."

    Book Excerpt: The Recall Paradox

    By

    Author Julian R. Vaca is back with the sequel to his YA dystopian debut, The Memory Index, in which alliances are made, memories disappear, and no one is who they seem to be. The Recall Paradox is out April 11, 2023.

  • A white person with yellow-rimmed glasses and long, blonde hair. Their shirt reads, "THE FUTURE IS NONBINARY."

    free.

    By

    Grief is a funny thing. It can be heart wrenching, devastating, or even performative. Jess Bareslow’s poem, free., details how hyperaware they were of how they needed to act after their father’s death.

  • To Thrive in Darkness

    By

    “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.