Always Looking Up

In this week’s episode I sat down with Ryan Haddad. Ryan is an actor and playwright. His autobiographical plays include Dark Disabled Stories , Hi, Are You Single? , Good Time Charlie , and Hold Me in the Water . Ryan received the Drama Desk’s 2023 Sam Norkin Off-Broadway Award, Vineyard Theatre’s 2021 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, and a 2020 Disability Futures Fellowship. We discuss how Dark, Di...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Chamiah Dewey. Chamiah is a UK-based fashion designer and founder of the label Chamiah Dewey Fashion, the UK’s first-ever clothing brand dedicated to catering to the fashion needs of individuals under 4’11”. As New York Fashion Week is just around the corner we discuss what motivated her to design clothing for little people, how she is expanding her brand to...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Rachel Charlton-Dailey. Rachel is an award-winning disabled editor, journalist, and activist. She is a disability rights columnist for The Daily Mirror where she guest edited the series Disabled Britain: Doing it for Ourselves and is the  founding editor of The Unwritten, a publication for disabled people to share their authentic experiences. We discuss...

In this week’s episode I welcomed back Aubrey Smalls. Aubrey is an actor and filmmaker with dwarfism. We discuss the importance in learning and understanding dwarfism history, how the representation of dwarfism in media influences and perpetuates society’s treatment of people with dwarfism in the real world, question how the non-disabled and disabled communities see people with dwarfism, his upcom...

In this week’s episode I welcomed back Jenna Bainbridge. Jenna is an actor, singer, and disability rights activist. She is the co-founder of ConsultAbility, a consulting firm that provides advice and expertise on accessibility in theatre, focusing on creating a safe and inclusive environment for disabled actors and technicians. We discuss the disability representation in the Barbie movie (or lack...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Sophie Morgan. Sophie is an award-winning TV presenter, one of the first female TV presenters in the world with a physical disability, producer, writer, disability rights advocate and artist. At present, she is currently spearheading the global disability rights campaign Rights On Flights and embarking on a ride across America which we’ll discuss later on in...

In this week’s episode I sat down with George Kashap. George is a little person and someone I have been friends with for nearly a decade if not longer. We examine the requirement, as little people, to constantly adapt, what it meant to say we were a little person in our childhood and teenage years vs. now as adults, the help and harm labels can cause and much, much more. Follow George: Instagram:...

In this episode I sat down with Emily Hanks. Emily is a content creator and host of the podcasts She Speaks Bravo, where she talks about all things Bravo from Housewives to Vanderpump Rules and everything in between, and She Speaks It All, where she talks about great television from other networks. This conversation was a fun one centered around one of our favorite shows Project Runway, now in its...

In this week's episode I sat down with V Spehar. V is a TikToker, podcast host, and political advocate. On their TikTok channel, Under The Desk News, V gives a brief, in-depth recap of each day’s most notable headlines. On their podcast V Interesting with V Spehar they highlight the most interesting part of stories that often get lost in the news cycle and explore the complex Big Issues that matte...

In this week's episode I sat down with Dacey Triplett. Dacey is a little person, blogger, and one of my new best friends that I made at LPA’s National Conference in Austin. We discuss finding and creating our circle of friends (and why these friendships are so special), the highlights of conference from DAAA, pool days, dances at night and every moment in between, what it means when we say that be...

In this week's episode it is just me and the microphone as I sit in my thoughts and feelings and reflect on the Little People of America national conference that just took place in Austin. She explains what national conference is, what it is like to be there, in the moment, and what it feels like to leave. Of course there is laughter and tears. Follow Me: Instagram:  @jill_ilana , @alwayslook...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Miriam Haart. Miriam is one of the stars of the Netflix reality TV show My Unorthodox Life and is a founder, speaker, content creator, engineer, and host of the podcast Faking It . We discuss the difference between women’s empowerment and women’s equality, what it is like to live in a world that was not designed for us (and not just in the physical sense), th...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Lillie Heigl. Lillie is an education policy analyst, focusing on disability, at New America, a new kind of think and action tank: a civic platform that connects a research institute, technology lab, solutions network, media hub and public forum. We discuss what it means to her to be disability adjacent, her work in disability advocacy, what it means for her t...

To start I would like to issue a trigger warning. In this episode we talk about bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault. If these are triggers for you please feel free to skip this episode. For context, this conversation was recorded on Thursday, June 15, 2023. I sat down with Aubrey Smalls. Aubrey is an actor and filmmaker with dwarfism. This episode was recorded a day after Little People...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Dr. Sami Schalk. Dr. Schalk is an Associate Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her interdisciplinary research focuses broadly on disability, race, and gender in contemporary American literature and culture. She is the author of the books Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fi...

Welcome to Season 2! In this week’s episode I sat down with Prasanna Ranganathan. Prasanna is a documentary producer, human rights lawyer, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) consultant, accessibility advisor, speaker, author, correspondent, writer and arts columnist. After talking about our mutual love of all things Broadway we discussed the audacity to thrive and to be disabled, th...

In this week’s episode, the 100th episode, I sat down with Sinéad Burke. Sinéad is an Irish author, academic and disability activist. She is the Founder of Tilting The Lens, a disability-led consultancy that advises major global brands, guiding them in their move from awareness to action by creating more accessible practices, policies, products and services, places and promotions. We discuss her c...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Dr. Rose Perry. Rose, a self-described sociologist turned social innovator, is an applied research scientist with a Ph. D. in neuroscience & physiology. She is the founder and executive director of Social Creatures, a nonprofit social innovation and research organization on a mission to ensure that any individual can socially connect with others, and co-found...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Haleigh Rosa. Haleigh is a disability model, advocate, and founder of the foreveryone.foundation. Haleigh has collaborated with iconic brands including Off-White, Tommy Hilfiger and SKIMS, having appeared in a campaign launching the brand’s debut adaptive collection that recently went viral when conservative political commentator Candace Owens expressed her o...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Oliver Scheier. Oliver, among many other things including fashion model and artist, is a human with a disability and he loves it. After sharing his story and talking about how the desire to wear jeans like everybody else led to the founding of the non-profit Runway of Dreams, we discuss what it means to him, as a disabled person, to walk the runways, how the...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Blaze Foster. Blaze is a Team USA Para-Powerlifting Athlete who has competed around the world and is training to compete at the Paralympic Games. We discuss how he got into the sport of powerlifting, what it means to be a person with dwarfism in the disabled community, why being a dwarf is not just being short and much more. Follow Blaze: Instagram: @blazelif...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Katy Sullivan. Katy is a Paralympian, one of the first bilateral amputees to compete in the Games in ambulatory track, US record holder, and an actress of stage and screen. Katy was most recently on Broadway in the play Cost Of Living which examines two pairs of relationships between disabled and able persons. We discuss the differences between performing at...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Nitika Chopra. Nitika is a chronic illness advocate, content creator and entrepreneur who has been featured in Vogue India, Forbes, Allure, and Newsweek, and founder of Chronicon, an inclusive community-building event focused on those living with chronic illness. We discuss the power and responsibility of being a content creator in the chronic illness and dis...

This week there is no new episode. Last month we lost Judy Heumann. Judy was a lifelong disability rights activist, international leader in the disability community, and someone I always have and always will look up to. It’s not often that you get the opportunity to speak with your hero, but almost exactly a year ago, to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the 504 Sit Ins, I was able to do just that...

In this week’s episode I welcomed back Jenna Bainbridge. Jenna is an actor, singer, disability rights advocate and ambulatory wheelchair user. She is the co-founder of ConsultAbility, a consulting firm that provides advice and expertise on accessibility in theatre, focusing on creating a safe and inclusive environment for disabled actors and technicians. We discuss the word “cripple” and how it is...