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Last night, America fell in love with 13-year-old Brayden Harrington, who talked about bonding with Joe Biden over their shared experience of #stuttering. In the coming months, you're likely to hear a lot about people who #stutter. I'd like you to hear from us directly. (1/15)
Start with @JohnGHendy's article in @TheAtlantic about Biden's stutter and his own. It's a meditation on vulnerability and denial, and the stories we tell to polish our imperfect edges. http://tinyurl.com/bidenhendy (2/15)
In 2019 @DarceySteinke wrote a powerful @nytimes essay on how her stutter makes her a better writer. "Stuttering is a violent incantation that can break open normal conversation. What happens in that breach is up to the stutterer and her listener." https://nyti.ms/2Eno5i6 (3/15)
When I read @theygotemma, it makes my brain pop. Like her @VICE article about pushing back against the scrutiny women's voices receive (think vocal fry)—and demanding patience and respect instead. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/paeywn/stutter-more-with-feeling. (4/15)
Please read everything @ijbailey writes, and listen to everything he says. Start with the raw and room-silencing address he gave before the @niemanfdn: https://nieman.harvard.edu/sites/80th-anniversary-reunion-weekend/transcript-issac-bailey/. Then read his book "My Brother Moochie." (5/15)
I wrote this essay for @thebafflermag about how stuttering has usually been viewed through a narrow medical lens. "Some of us, though, have been trying to flip the paradigm, to reframe stuttering as a trait that confers transformative powers." https://thebaffler.com/salvos/stammer-time-yeoman (6/15)
I wept when I first read "Honest Speech," a poem by Erin Schick ( @Berniewatson). I won't say more, lest I blunt its power. Read or, better yet, listen here: https://voicemailpoems.org/2019/08/22/honest-speech/. (7/15)
"Honest Speech" kicks off an anthology called Stammering Pride and Prejudice (edited by @Patrick1992C et al.). The book is a treasure, with provocative and liberating ways to rethink stuttering. U.S. residents can order a copy from https://www.stutteringtherapyresources.com/products/stammering-pride-prejudice. (8/15)
A number of powerful documentaries have been made by people who stutter. I recommend Jeff Shames' deeply personal "Spit It Out," which also addresses addiction and family dysfunction. Stream it for $5 at @newdayfilms. (Use coupon code SIO14DAY.)
https://www.newday.com/film/spit-it-out (9/15)
https://www.newday.com/film/spit-it-out (9/15)
I also recommend Michael Turner's documentary "The Way We Talk," which is both a generational story and the chronicle of a journey toward healing. Stream it for $3.99 at https://vimeo.com/ondemand/thewaywetalk. (10/15)
I've described @ninagcomedian's memoir, "Stutterer, Interrupted," as "deliciously profane and skin-wide-open self-revealing." Back when the elementary-school bullies taunted me, I wish I could have pulled Nina out of a hat. https://www.stuttererinterrupted.com/book (11/15)
Actor @JacquelynJoyce covers a lot of ground on her YouTube channel ( https://www.youtube.com/user/JacquelynJoyce). When she addresses stuttering, she looks you in the eye and speaks TRUTH. Check out her episode on stuttering during a pandemic. (12/15)
Marty Jezer, who died in 2005, was an antiwar activist and Abbie Hoffman's biographer. He was smart and kind and loved to upend gender propriety by knitting on the NYC subway. His 1997 book "Stuttering: A Life Bound Up In Words" was pioneering. Find it if you can. (13/15)
I'll end with the work of @JeromeEllis, whom you might have heard about on @ThisAmerLife. First, this video visually represents his 2020 @poetry__project performance on the tyranny of time: https://www.poetryproject.org/publications/house-party/house-party-5/transcripted-jerome-ellis. (14/15)
Also from @JeromeEllis, two prayers to his stutter. They seem a fitting a way to end this thread. From @theoffingmag: https://theoffingmag.com/micro/prayers-to-my-stutter-1-and-3/ (15/15)
One more! @KPrestonwriter's book "Out with It: How Stuttering Helped Me Find My Voice," which started as a journalistic road trip and ended up considerably more personal. https://bookshop.org/books/out-with-it-how-stuttering-helped-me-find-my-voice/9781451676594 (16/15; there goes my numbering system)
Y'all, my feeds and inboxes are filling up and I am grateful for the responses. So I will keep adding links through the day or longer. (17/15)
First, as @alnellus noted, @david_mitchell's Black Swan Green is a masterpiece and features a stuttering protagonist the same age as Brayden Harrison: https://nyti.ms/2FOgHxb . Also, David's speech at the 2013 World Congress of People who Stutter: . (18/15)
Spring Kwok describes the moment of stuttering out in the world: "I know it’s O.K. because it’s the same laugh time and time again. It is not malicious; it’s nervous and awkward and reminds me of a horrible first date." https://narratively.com/talk-stutter-steal-voice/ (19/15)
. @nathanheller on The King's Speech: "At its most influential, language is so little dependent on spontaneous speech that even someone permanently stymied on that front—a stutterer—can eke out a message that commands a nation." https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/02/the-king-s-speech-raises-more-questions-about-stuttering-than-it-answers.html H/T @jodyrosen (20/15)
This Ted Talk by artist @safwat Saleem, about challenging the notion of normal, is funny and visually beautiful and poignant. And it features a talking sheep. https://www.ted.com/talks/safwat_saleem_why_i_keep_speaking_up_even_when_people_mock_my_accent H/T @latifnasser (21/15)
This short film based on the poetry of Canada's Jordan Scott: https://vimeo.com/7384677 . Excuse me; I am a bit of a mess after watching it. H/T @mdanielmartin (22/15)
