What do a sly, sexy, sharply political collection of poems and a graphic novel depicting flat-chested rabbits and elementary school blues have in common? The Felix Awards. This year, Extreme Kids & Crew celebrates Ilya Kaminsky for Deaf Republic and Cece Bell for El Deafo. The Felix Award Committee selected Kaminsky and Bell because their brilliant work is informed by their experience of deafness. Despite--or perhaps because of--their different takes on this experience, both artists illustrate how expansive and unbounded disability art can be.
While we understand that many people in the deaf community do not consider deafness a disability, we at Extreme Kids & Crew believe that disability, very broadly defined, is something we all share. The sooner we accept our own oddities, pains, flaws, gaps, and terrors, the sooner we can access the understanding, insight, community, creativity, humor, and forgiveness these very same things can bring. We celebrate art that brings this to light.
To introduce you to our 2020 Felix Award honorees, the novelist and Extreme Kids parent Emily Schultz has conducted interviews with both of them. (I can’t recommend Deaf Republic highly enough. If you haven’t yet read it, now would be a good time. We’ll be discussing it at the Extreme Kids zoom book group in June.)
A special thanks to the Felix Awards Committee: Brenda Shaughnessy, Craig Teicher, Jerron Herman, Maysoon Zayid, Rebecca Alson-Milkman, Eliza Factor and Amy Herzog.
Read: Ilya Kaminsky’s Q&A
Read: Cece Bell’s Q&A
