Penny Pepper's Blog
Penny Pepper has been a writer and activist within the disability arts movement for 20 years. She has written articles for dao, Arts Disability Culture Magazine, Disability Now and Ouch! She has also written short stories for DAO and is the author of Desires (2003), a controversially unique collection of explicit fiction focusing on disabled people, relationships and sex.
Penny Pepper on the dawn of her half century
It leaves me incredulous every passing day now, as the big event hurtles closer. That is, on 16 August I am 50. Oh my. It's as unreal as the recent diagnosis of Borderline Personality...Comments: 5
Penny Pepper is surviving and sunning
It's a very strange place I find myself in this week. An uncertain placing in the world. They, the faceless, have given me hints of another diagnosis - borderline personality disorder. I've...Comments: 2
21 June 2010
Penny Pepper urges people to go to the Islington Film Festival
I've been away. Not sure where. Wandering inside my head I suppose. Best to save details of that for another day. I'm trying to come to terms with 'major depressive illness'. That's the label now,...Comments: 0
Penny Pepper urges you see her next Wednesday at Rich Mix, Hackney, London
Super fast blog! I am manic, manic, manic, today and feeling like the whole world, or maybe dao world at least should come and see me do my spoken word stuff as a featured act, next Wedsnesday. It...Comments: 0
Penny Pepper is looking for an actor - super fast
This is an attempt at a fast blog, haha. I can be pithy when I want. Poetry and film demand that especially. Tight precision I mean. So right now I am fighting as per, and feeling like Drowning not...Comments: 1
28 March 2010
Penny Pepper is looking for some actors for a short film she is making.
At last I've written a film script and I'd really like to get some good actors for this 5 min short, which is for a competition. Naturally, this is an EXTREME micro, micro budget. It's me doing...Comments: 0
Penny Pepper is looking forward to sunny days and hopefulness
This is going to be a quick blog. I hope, I intend. I shrugged off the suit of blues, for a bit, as the sun appeared. The Up has to come, doesn't it?. I want to mention now that I am performing on...Comments: 4
Penny Pepper blogs a chaotic world, sudden crisis, and some creative struggle
Tonight I am doing an Open Mic slot with Jo on cello at the Apples and Snakes for women. I believe the lovely Liz Bentley is MC-ing too. Liz is a joy to watch and experience if you ever get the...Comments: 2
Sex and Drugs and Baby Punk Me: memories of Ian Dury
I've just left a comment on the editor's blog concerning the new Ian Dury film. and it made me feel a wave of nostalgia for Ian and my baby years as a punk. It was hard being a punk when so few...Comments: 4
Disabled labelled or not. With or without toothache.
Happy new year and all that. But without snow, please. Yes it's pretty. But, of course, not accessible. It makes me apathetic. I have so many projects on the go, and I feel frustrated many are stuck...Comments: 0
Bonfires, bugs and being creative
I look at my last blog and wonder if there's a conspiracy against me concerning time. It really is relative. Ok I don't know what that means exactly, but I have a twinge in my guts that it's related...Comments: 1
Penny Pepper reflects on Liberty 09 and the state of spoken word events
The Penny who needs Nine Lives to Do Everything I don't need the Nine Lives as do cats because I am reckless and have close shaves - well only a little - but because I always make a point, indeed a...Comments: 2
Penny Pepper talks about Liberty, Edinburgh and those many manic moments
I know I said there'd be more Edinburgh and there will be before this blog is done and dusted but you see Liberty rushes closer and I still haven't 100% decided on my set. But I am very excited, like...Comments: 0
Penny Pepper blogs her Edinburgh fringe experience
Oh bum. Big bums. Double big bums. I wrote a fantastic blog, I really did and guess what? I clicked back by mistake and it vanished. As I sit here crying and laughing simultaneously, there's a lesson...Comments: 1
24 June 2009
Busy and busy again
Oh how does time manage to do that thing of flying by so fast? Is it really over a month since my last blog? I am naughty but my reasons are sound. Since then, I've been to the Shape disability arts...Comments: 2
13 May 2009
Pains and Pleasures
I'm buzzing and giggling. 11 pm and I've dropped off Jo Cox, my cellist, who plays musical accompaniment to my spoken word. It went rather well and I have that sense of satisfaction spreading a warm...Comments: 0
Disability Film Festival in Wolverhampton ... amongst other things ...
One reason for my lack of blog has been a period of intense activity in all the multiplying strands of my life. Things have always rolled through peaks and troughs for me, and in the last few months...Comments: 0
8 March 2009
Fighting the Faceless Them: disabled people and powerlessness
I remain creative and really pleased with my progress on many projects. But over the last month all efforts and actions have more or less been consigned to the bin of wasted effort.I'm fighting Them....Comments: 1
5 February 2009
A short Stay in Switzerland
Julie Walters starred in a one-off drama on BBC One on 25 January, inspired by the true story of Dr Anne Turner, who in 2006 took her own life in a Zurich clinic having developed an incurable...Comments: 0
Spoken word
I hope our charming editor will allow me to plug my latest baby, which is my spoken word set. 'Pains and Pleasures' – An adaptable portmanteau of spoken word performance and readings by Penny...Comments: 0
7 January 2009
High
My lovely therapist is worried I am reeling into an extreme high. I am sometimes exhausted and need post-it notes to remind me when meal times are, but I can't say I hate it. I love it. The...Comments: 0
4 January 2009
Literary Agents
I cold called some literary agents. This is a very scary thing to do. The hope is that you can slip into a natural cheeky charm and they will remember who you are when your manuscript plops through...Comments: 0
1 January 2009
Fancy Nancy
I woke up really late (no, not a hang over) and forgot it was New Year's day. Anyone else have those moments? My cat was, as usual, trying to sleep on my head and had made a bed in my hair. But I...Comments: 0
Bus stories!
A cold and frosty morning, I've just got in after a trip on the bus. Oh my God. The world is strange and dark at the moment. The reaction of other passengers is starting to make me paranoid that...Comments: 0
24 November 2008
Special needs pets!
Did anyone see Special Needs Pets on Channel 4s Cutting Edge the other day? We can usually expect reasonable quality from Cutting Edge documentaries, but this had that snide sniggering quality that...Comments: 0