by Ilenia Iengo, The Disabled Ecologies Lab.
The Disabled Ecologies Lab is excited to announce the call for submissions for our Disabled Ecologies Almanac!
This idea emerged from a 2025 spring retreat for people living, thinking, and organizing at the intersection of disability and the environment. We are now calling all disabled/mad ecologists, poets, storytellers, writers, artists, organizers, companion species, farmers, freaks, stewards, medicine-makers, educators, dreamers, sip-and-puffers, and bed activists to send submissions for our inaugural issue.
Almanacs are annual calendars containing important astronomical data, tide tables, and, more recently, have been expanded to include anything from recipes, planting advice, and place-based reflections. The ancient Greek and Egyptian origins of Almanacs were more rooted in astrology and prophecy, and we are curious to revisit these prophetic oracle roots through disabled bodyminds’ knowledges of the seasons. All 2D submission formats are invited, including but not limited to recipes, poems, essays, nature observations, drawings, short stories, comics, disability hacks, selfies, DIY manuals, and notes from your window. Living in times of genocide, dispossession, and growing fascism, we hope to center a politics of resistance to systems and institutions that disable bodies and lands. We are eager to include your toolsets, dreams, manifestos, and spells for more livable and caring worlds.
Our first year’s theme will be Crip Time. We are exploring what this means for the porous relationship between disabled bodyminds and impaired landscapes across the seasons, while rejecting capitalist demands for efficiency and productivity that adhere to norms of linear time. We will be breaking the almanac into five sections loosely based on the seasons (as we encounter them in California, or as you are familiar with them wherever you are based). Keep in mind, when crafting your submission, that “season” is open to interpretation in both its literal and metaphorical senses, ranging from internal emotional landscapes to external material worlds. Seasons stretch, overlap, and change across geographies, cultures, climate weirdings, and conceptualizations of time. We offer the seasons we are most familiar with below, along with our associations with them, as starting points from which you may explore or depart:
Spring: growth, dreaming, energy, and allergies.
Summer: pleasure, timelessness, magic, and heat flares.
Fall: community, connection, congestion, and letting go.
Winter: introspection, grief, coziness, and chronic pain.
Fifth Season: non-linear fragments, climate weirdings, seasons beyond “seasons.”
Submission requirements:
- 1-2 pages or less (if you have an idea for something that is longer, contact us about it)
- Submit as a Google Doc, Word document, JPG, PNG, or PDF
- Rolling submissions until October 15th, 2026
- Submit to this form: bit.ly/4uc8ohT
- Email [email protected] with questions
Header image art by Alder Wheeler
