With an ever-expanding and expressive community, we knew it was well past time to build a platform championing disabled voices at the University of Melbourne. As the only autonomous department yet to have created their own publication we wanted to be the broadcaster for disabled experiences, the megaphone for disabled students to shout into, the ramp out of marginalisation and up to an equal stage for all. So, after years of not enough spoons, no elevator access, and being just past the horizon of possibility the UMSU Disabilities Department are thrilled to present our first ever autonomous publication. 

Our inbox was open to pieces of any theme by students and alumni who were disabled, carers, or support workers and open to any contributors with works on topics of disability. We decided against a specific theme for this inaugural issue, as we wanted to dissolve limitations not reinforce them, knowing our community are often defined by our constraints rather than our capability.  Our title The Ability Issue aims to re-frame the discussion of disabled experiences away from our inability and onto the failings of an ableist society and its expectations. Also, it’s a rather nice pun. 

Our team had no inkling of who or how many people in our community would take up our offer. We are all pushed to our limits or burnt out by current academic infrastructures, few barely have the energy or resources for subsistence let alone activism. Our voices are strained from our own defences, let alone advancement, let alone expression. But we were flooded with submissions. Students and alumni alike were elated to be heard, to be listened to, to have the freedom and the support to share their perspectives on a platform where their disability was not tolerated but celebrated. We every incredible person who submitted, for every one of their submissions, included or not. Yours are the voices we are amplifying. Yours are the stories we could not exist without. Yours is this magazine.  

Similarly, we thank all the wonderful co-editors, sub-editors, graphic designers, and web-designers for their commitment, their work, and their enthusiasm. This magazine would still be a far-flung aspiration without you all. The dream and reality of an accessible digital version with adjustable accommodations would not have come to fruition.  

1 in 6 Australians have a disability. It is time our media, our storytelling, and our representation match this. We hope these pages are a turn in that direction. 

Warmest, 

Eleanore, Madeleine, and the team