Crip Time & Fractured Realities: Embracing Nonlinearity Through Creative Writing

The experience and perception of time differs across cultures and communities. For some BIPOC cultures, time is not a linear concept; present, past, and future are interlinked or occur simultaneously. This is also the case for many folks within the Mad/Neurodivergent/ Disabled communities. Many spoonies (including the facilitator of this session) operate on crip time. We tend to distort and bend the clock to make it accommodate our bodies and/or minds, rather than forcing ourselves to conform to rigid, able-bodied and neurotypical standards.

Additionally, trauma (which, unfortunately, many Mad/ND/Disabled folks experience due to systemic barriers, precarious finances, and medical/institutional/personal abuse) can distort the perception of time as it is often experienced through fragmented memory loops. For many racialized folks, collective intergenerational trauma (e.g. slavery, forced migration, war, genocide, colonization) is experienced non-linearly.

How do we tell our stories in a way that reflects our perception of time? This workshop will introduce participants to the rich history of non-linear storytelling and will guide participants through creative prompts that will inspire their own non-linear narratives. Eurocentric Western literary traditions often privilege linear narratives with chronological “beginning-middle-end” structures. Within this context, non-linear storytelling becomes a decolonial act, one that disrupts imposed forms and reclaims indigenous and ancestral temporalities. By breaking these traditions, we can speak with our ancestors, heal intergenerational wounds, and imagine liberated futures.

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