Name: Elsa Sjunneson
Genre: Speculative Fiction, Non-Fiction
Notable Works: Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism
Website: snarkbat.com
ID taken from author’s website: Elsa gazes down through her purple and gold vintage spectacles, wearing pink lipstick, a leather vest, silk shirt, and pearls. It’s unclear if she’s holding a sword or a white cane, but does it matter? /end
About the Author:
Writer, editor, media critic, game designer, disability rights activist- Sjunneson is an active voice in disability and literature spheres, working with the likes of Uncanny Magazine and the New York Disability Pride Parade.
Born with congenital rubella syndrome, Sjunneson deals with hearing loss, cataracts in both eyes and a heart defect, and, as a result, wears bilateral hearing aids and a prosthetic eye. Her writing and speaking work largely focuses upon disability representation within the media and popular culture, as well as her own experiences with disability.
She was the first blind person to win a Hugo Award.
Sjunneson also does work as an educator and public speaker, and has spoken at such venues as the University of Chicago, The Henry Art Gallery, and the Department of Humanities at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Between 2011-2016, she founded and wrote for the blog Feminist Sonar.
Some of her work may also be published under the name Elsa Sjunneson-Henry.
Awards:
- Aurora Award for Best Related Work 2019
- British Fantasy Award for Best Magazine/Periodical 2019
- D. Franklin Defying Doomsday Award
- Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine 2019
- Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer 2021
List of Works:
Books:
Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism
Publisher: Tiller Press, Simon & Schuster
Published: 2021
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Sword of the White Horse
Publisher: Aconyte
Published: 2022
Marvel’s Jessica Jones: Playin with Fire *
Publisher: Serial Box
Published: 2022
*Co-written with Zoe Quinn, Lauren Beukes, Vita Ayala, and Sam Beckbessinger.
Audiobook. Narrated by Fryda Wolff.
Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century * **
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2022
*Edited by Alice Wong
**Essay title: How to Make a Paper Crane from Rage
Short Fiction
“The Found Recollections of Revalor’s Last Oracle.” The Sunday Morning Transport, November 2022.
“Ocean’s 6.” Mermaids Monthly, July 2021.
“By Claw, By Hand, By Silent Speech” by Elsa Sjunneson-Henry and Merc Fenn Wolfmoor. Uncanny Magazine, July 2018.
“Seeking Truth.” Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling (Apex Publications), December 12 2016.
“A Place Out of Time.” Fireside Magazine, July 2016.
“Edge of the Universe.” Ghost in the Cogs (Broken Eye Books), October 2015.
Non-Fiction
“The Haunting of Her Body.” Uncanny Magazine Issue 50, January 2023.
“Wax Sealed With a Kiss.” Uncanny Magazine Issue 45, March 2022.
“Working for Exposure: The Dangerous Costs of Memoir Writing.” Wordgathering: Disability Futures in the Arts, December 2021.
“Calling Helen Keller a fraud for her ‘unbelievable’ accomplishments is ableist.” Metro UK, January 2021.
Aids Monument story on the Word Wall: find by clicking on “FAMILY” “LOVE” or “STIGMA”.
“The Emotional Beats of Becoming a Guide Dog Handler.” Fireside Quarterly, November 2019.
“Constructing Blindness.” Essay series for Tor.com, March 2019 – Present.
“How to Make a Paper Crane.” Uncanny Magazine, January 2019.
“Disabled Enough.” Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction, Uncanny Magazine, September 2018.
“Burlesque and the Lens of Rewriting.” Uncanny Magazine, May 2018.
“A Book That Imagines a Future With Octopus Legs, Time Travel, and a Lucky Peach.” Barnes & Noble Sci Fi Blog, March 2018.
“Power Structures Are Meant to Be Broken” Fireside Magazine, March 2018.
“I Belong Where the People Are: Disability & The Shape of Water.” Tor.com, January 2018.
“I Built My Own Godd*m Castle.” Tor.com, July 2017.
“Blind Reading is in Braille or Large Print.” Fireside Magazine, May 2017.
“My Artificial Eye.” The Boston Globe, April 2017.
“Act Up, Rise Up.” Uncanny Magazine, March 2017.
“So, You Wanna Write a Blind Character?” Terribleminds, April 2016.
“Dungeons, Dragons and Disabilities.” Wizards of the Coast: Dragon+ Issue 6, February 2016.
“Feminist Sonar.” Blog 2011-2016.
Script Work
Blood Forest, Realm, 2022. – Script Consultant
The Capitol Crawl, Pandemic Playhouse, 2021. – Writer
Game Design
The Fate Accessibility Toolkit, Evil Hat Productions, 2019. – Creative Director, Lead Developer, and Writer.
Changeling 20th Anniversary Players Guide, Onyx Path Publishing, 2018. – Contributing Writer.
Wraith 20th Anniversary Edition, Onyx Path Publishing, 2018. – Contributing Writer.
Blue Rose, Green Ronin, 2017. – Contributing Writer.
Threadbare, Stephanie Bryant, 2016. – Contributing Writer.
Dead Scare, Exploding Rogue, 2016. – Developer and Writer.
Dracula Dossier, Pelgrane Press, 2015. – Contributing Writer.
Editing Experience
Follow this link to learn more about the author’s editing experience.
Archivist Comments:
I would like to extend a massive thank you to Elsa for allowing me to feature her on the archive. I’ve had a great deal of fun researching her work, and I do hope that’ll continue in the future.
The Disability Book Archive 
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