Not short of something to say: Disabled models

Contact details

As well as being a freelance writer I am also a qualified counsellor and I work for a low cost counselling service in Exeter and for the NHS Gender Clinic also in Exeter.

Simultaneously, I work as a Disability Member of the First Tier Tribunal, Social Entitlement Chamber sitting on disability benefit tribunals on an ad hoc basis.

As a writer I specialise in writing about disability and health.

My articles have been published in the Guardian, Times, OUCH! [BBC disability website], Disability Now, Broadcast, Lifestyle [Motability magazine], The Practising Midwife, 'Junior, Pregnancy & Baby', Writers' News, Able, Getting There [Transport for London magazine], Junior, Community Care, DPPi [Disability, Pregnancy & Parenthood International]. I have also had articles commissioned by Daily Mail.

For more information about me and for examples of my writing please see below.

If you would like me to write an article for your publication, about any aspect of disability, please do get in touch:

emma@emmabowler.co.uk

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Disabled models

Had another blog published on the Broadcast website yesterday:

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/opinion_and_blogs/2008/03/blog_beautifying_disability.html

This one was in response to the new BBC3 mission to find a disabled fashion model. It's not actually an original idea in that disabled models do already exist; some even get jobs beyond modelling unfashionable plastic rainproof capes, colostomy bags, mobility gadgets and stairlifts but they are not exactly the norm.

The one thing this series could do is generate publicity and through that raise the question of why disabled models are not used more often in the mainstream fashion arena and in advertising generally?

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On becoming a writer

After over 10 years as a BBC TV programme maker working on disability, documentary, entertainment and children's programmes I left to have 2 children.

Having decided that the full on lifestyle of programme making and being a parent wasn't for me I decided to utilise the skills, experience and knowledge gleaned from my BBC career to became a freelance writer.

Because of my personal experience of disability I chose to specialise by writing about all aspects of disability – from parenting to sport, clothes shopping to legislation, what’s in the news to specific aspects of particular impairments.

All too often the media portrayal of disabled people and disability issues doesn’t quite hit the mark, the tone is off, the language is wrong; the overall effect leaves the public none the wiser.

As a disabled writer my aim is to be positive, informative and accurate, that doesn’t have to mean dry and boring – a bit of humour can go a long way!