The future of Inklusion: new versions and a new team member

Hello from Ink towers!

It’s been a wee while since we updated you on our progress and we’re grateful for your patience. If you've signed up to our mailing list, the fully designed print version of the guide will be landing on your doorstep very soon and we can’t wait to share it with you! It looks pretty kickass. The PDF, Easy Read, BSL & audio, and Braille versions will be following imminently and all will be clearly linked on our website. We'd love it if you could share the news! If every person who reads this shares it with just one other person, we've doubled the reach of the guide.

For now, we want to tell you about our exciting plans for Inklusion’s future. We’ve come a long way—but there’s still much that needs to change. We’ve spent over two years fostering support for Inklusion, proving that people want better access and that organisations are willing to provide it, by listening to the needs of the disabled community. Whilst we are stepping down to focus on our creative work and wellbeing, this is just the beginning for Inklusion.

We’ve been hatching exciting plans with one of our Ink consultants, a passionate access advocate: Elspeth Wilson, who will be coming on board to take over the management of the Inklusion Guide and to champion further industry change from the Ink platform.

Image description:

Quote from Elspeth Wilson with an illustrated portrait of them and ink splashes: “I’m honoured to carry on the fantastic work that Ever and Julie have led with Inklusion, because there is still so much work to be done: such as ensuring that the talent and voices of disabled writers are nurtured, valued, prioritised and properly supported. It’s vital that disabled audiences and authors continue to have their needs recognised; and that access is placed at the heart of all literary events. Inklusion can continue to drive positive change by building on conversations with stakeholders around these issues.

Looking towards the future with Inklusion, it’s particularly urgent we see targeted development schemes for disabled writers, which ensure that disabled stories are uplifted by agents and publishers. I’m also very keen to grow and diversify the Inklusion team to ensure continued organisational capacity and to ensure that we are taking an intersectional approach to accessibility within the literary world.”

This work is essential: not only did you ask us to revise the guide in a couple of years, many of you have been asking to book consultations and training, and there have already been some very promising discussions around other avenues where Inklusion can drive positive change such as industry transparency, fair pay for authors, author support, and funded retreats—it’s a long list.

Elspeth will be applying for funding to fund this role permanently, but that in itself is a three-month process. We want to be responsive to what people are asking for and to keep the essential work of Inklusion going, so we’re appealing to your generosity to fund Elspeth’s initial time in managing Inklusion and working on this application.

We need to raise £6,800 to pay Elspeth fairly for three months. This covers not just Elspeth’s fair pay but our own, in training them and ensuring the handover is as smooth as possible. Once funding is in place, Elspeth will be settled into the role, ready to help you with any consultations, and to continue Inklusion’s vital work to making our industry accessible to disabled people.

Image descrition: ‘The maths: £3,600 — 1 day per week for three months for Elspeth, £2,000 — 1 day per week for two weeks for Julie and Ever, £1,200 — 2 paid blog posts per month for 3 months, supporting disabled writers, £6,800 — Total.’

Funding us at this time of exciting change will help us us cement Inklusion as a force of positive disruption in this industry we all love.

We hope to secure funding quickly, with the aim that Elspeth can start in early March to continue this momentum, so we’d really appreciate if you can let us know as soon as possible if you can sponsor us. Please email us at hello@inklusionguide.org.

We also kindly ask if you'd share this with anyone you think might want to sponsor us for this final important step.

Let’s not go back to normal!
Ever & Julie