Letters from the Future
Imagine… The year is 2050, and across the world, disabled people finally have the same access and opportunities as everyone else.
Our advocacy campaigns have been totally successful, and people with disabilities have an equal place in society.
You know, science fiction.
Send us a letter to show us what this future looks like:
- We will publish our five favourite entries.
- We will pay £100 for published entries.
- The deadline is 1st November 2025.
Make submissions through this Google form.
Disability Debrief is a weekly newsletter that puts a disability lens on world news. This is our first open call for writing from our community. We want to showcase writing from more contributors, and to imagine together how the world could be different.
This call is made possible by reader support. If you'd like to help us commission further original writing, please support us.
Contents:
Prompt: the year is 2050
Disability rights are real. You live in an accessible home, you can use public transport, and your last job interview focused on your skills, not your disability. People with disabilities are doing their thing, according to their interests, rather than how we are stereotyped.
Tell us about that future and what it feels like to be in 2050.
What can you see, smell, hear and taste? What can you do? How did we get there? Were there any negative consequences along the way? Are disability rights enjoyed equally by all disabled people?
What to know
- Send us a short piece of writing interpreting the prompt (500 words or less). Feel free to use prose or poetry.
- Every submission will be acknowledged, even if we cannot provide individual feedback.
- Entrants shortlisted for publication should expect to be involved in an editing process.
- Our five favourite entries will be published in an upcoming anthology edition of Disability Debrief, and paid £100 each.
- Favourites will be selected by Peter Torres Fremlin and Celestine Fraser.
Notes on submissions:
- Write your submission as a letter – for example open with “Dear Debriefers” and close with a sign-off.
- We don't recommend that you use generative AI to write the piece, as those tools usually flatten writing and take away its originality. But you might surprise us. Either way, we ask that you're transparent about it.
What we're looking for
- We are looking for authenticity and originality.
- We don't mind if English isn't your first language. We can help with editing the final version.
- This call is open to people with and without disabilities. After all, who knows your disability status by 2050.
- Writing that grounds us – tell us about specifics, and concrete details. Do take a look at recent Debrief essays to get an idea of our style, as well as more on our disability lens.
- A global perspective on the future. When we pick our favourites we'll prioritise diversity of geography, and especially entries from the Global South.
Making a submission
Make submissions through this Google form by the end-of-day on 1st November 2025.
The form doesn't save work in progress, so we recommend that you prepare your piece in a separate document.
For any questions, or in the case of accessibility needs, please contact Celestine, celestine@disabilitydebrief.org.