Book Review: Nerve by Sarah Fawn Montgomery

Reviewed by Andrea Marks-Joseph

Innovative, inspired writing is just around the corner with this revolutionary writing practice rooted in inclusive care.

Reading this disabled writers’ guide feels like meeting a living, breathing book. It’s written with such care and understanding that you feel as though you’ve gained a kind, wise mentor in the reading process; disabled readers will feel seen and loved with this book. 

Author Sarah Fawn Montgomery shares her experiences and knowledge with fierce gentleness and earned wisdom that shows the reader how much she cares, how deeply she understands the life-changing magic of unlearning and recalibrating. 

“If disabled writers adhere to ableist writing advice, many of us will be unable to write at all, our stories destined to be written by others or altogether silenced.” 

In Nerve, the author confronts the impossibility of adhering to existing writerly standards such as the “write 1,000 words everyday” adage or the image of the writer you have in your head: sitting at a desk, curled over a laptop, typing pages and pages as it pours out of them. 

Sarah Fawn Montgomery provides constructive alternatives that allow the disabled writer to build an accessible writing practice into their life. She asks us to incorporate the living, the gathering inspiration, the research, and the resting into our idea of what the writing is. And she recommends scheduling that into your lives with the importance of a doctor’s appointment. This way, what previously felt like failing at writing, is now a necessary activity to check off your to-do list: One hour of resting your body, doing your wrist stretches, or going for a slow walk around the neighborhood. Check! All part of the process. Because your wellbeing is more important than the word count you reach.   

The author wrote this book by dictation, “in fifteen and twenty-minute intervals over many days spread across many weeks and months” as she can no longer write or type by hand. Throughout this book, we learn that so much is possible if you prioritize your body’s needs, and we are introduced to the idea that hurting ourselves to create is a damage to the legacy of disabled writers who will live to write our names in history books. 

“If disabled writers try to follow ableist writing advice, we risk injury. Worse still, we risk erasure. We hurt our bodies. We hurt our minds. We hurt our spirits because this is what internalized ableism does to disabled creators who believe they must endure pain to be valued.”

Sarah Fawn Montgomery shares her liberating outrage at the way the writing community and the publishing world has been constructed to make disabled writers feel devalued, dismissed, and as if the only stories we are capable of are ones that draw shame or pity from our readers. 

The author offers practical, eye-opening advice on unlearning common writing concepts throughout this book. She provides examples of introductions to editors you’d like to pitch and invites the reader to let go of academic rules for genres and structures when writing. 

There’s negotiation and business advice too: How to decide on publications worth pitching, based on the current level of published disabled stories; how to push back when your publisher creates a book tour schedule that will leave you in pain recovery for months; how to suggest virtual tour stops instead; and how to calculate which marketing strategy is worth it for you—mentally, physically, and monetarily. 

Sarah Fawn Montgomery makes this a safe place for writers to feel and release their anger at any experience with an editor who wanted their work to be turned into an inspiration for the audience or who discredited their medical history with disbelief. This book is for and by disabled people. You’ll be seen and heard and held here. But there is also tremendous value here for anyone who works with writers, to make sure your methodology is not ableist, and allows your writers to be fully themselves. 

My disabilities affect me in similar ways to the authors’. Like the author, I have learned how to work in short bursts of concentration, to make notes everywhere I can, and to be patient with myself. I make sure that my environment allows my writing life to continue safely and comfortably. 

In line with Sarah Fawn Montgomery’s advice in Nerve, I write from the comfort of my home, sometimes in bed, and have weeks between deadlines to read books for review. I write in comfortable positions with pillows that ease pressure on my joints. I   have compression gloves and heated blankets, icepacks, and stretches that help prevent injuries I have suffered before. I have made a life from my writing; it’s how I earn my living (though it’s worth noting, the author frequently reminds the reader that you’re just as much a writer if it’s not a source of income, or if you write only for yourself!), but, when I meet a younger or newly disabled writer, it can be difficult to explain or remember all the accommodations I have made on the road to get to this point, especially when I feel a pressure and a desire to help them as much as I can. More than that, it’s difficult to look back at the many mindset shifts that had to happen over years to allow myself to reach this position of relative peace in my disabled life.

I know my limit, and I know why it’s important not to cross it. Over the years, I adjusted my dreams to meet my body’s needs, which took years of reconnecting with myself and being patient in disappointing moments. How do you explain all that to someone you want to save from the agonies you fell into along the way? Well, it will no be longer a worry. Now I have this book. 

If I left the house more than I do at the moment, attended a regular writers group, or if I was still well enough to volunteer at my local library, I would keep copies of this book in my handbag. It’s truly a valuable and helpful resource. Nerve brings years of disabled reflection and revolutionary change to a concise, easy-to-read format, overflowing with love and helpful advice. 

Author Sarah Fawn Montgomery acknowledges the audacity—“the nerve”—of the editors and publications who casually discriminate against disabled writers in their submissions guidelines, and then she asks us to “consider the nerve it takes to keep writing, to recover from ableist education, and to remake your writing practice entirely…”

At the end of the book, the author offers some writing prompts that would be emotional, liberating, powerful exercises for any disabled writer to take on. Even if readers don’t try a prompt, reading them will help shift your mindset on the kind of stories we can write—and how we can take them on in unexpected ways.

Nerve would be a valuable and cherished gift for any disabled writer, and even those who may not yet see themselves as disabled. (Disabled people know that everyone currently abled is simply not yet disabled.) For example, someone who loves to write but is getting older and may need permission to change their routine in ways that are supportive of their limited capacity for writing sprints or to accommodate for the beginnings of arthritis symptoms in the winter months.

I will keep this book as a companion—something wise to hold onto that is filled with accessible, easy-to-comprehend advice and could reach me in the fog of being overwhelmed by the day, my exhaustion, or the wider stress of my body failing to meet my expectations. This is a book that will calm nerves and provide practical solutions; it’s something worth returning to so you can ensure longevity for that thing you love to do.

Perhaps most of all, Nerve is a must-read for editors who want their publications to be inclusive, no matter the size or scope of your readership. It’s for writing teachers who want to ease the burden on students who may not even know they need accommodations, and it’s for librarians to offer a resource to disabled patrons.

Sarah Fawn Montgomery will help you keep your living and writing flowing, at no cost to your body or spirit. This book is the friend and mentor disabled writers need.

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