Michael Northen facilitates the Inglis House Poetry Workshop and edits the annual Inglis House poetry contest chapbook series and Wordgathering, A Journal of Disability and Poetry. As an educator for over 40 years, he has taught adults with physical disabilities, women on public assistance, prisoners, and rural and inner city children. Much of the material in the essay in this anthology is taken from his doctoral dissertation, Disability Literature: Its Origin, Current State and Potential Application to School Curriculum.