The Squeaky Wheel is fully operated by a talented group of creative disabled people. If you’re interested in joining our team, please reach out to us through our contact form.
Steven Verdile
Editor-in-Chief
Steven is a multidisciplinary creative with Spinal Muscular Atrophy. He lives in New York City with his girlfriend, spending his mornings drinking iced coffee and his evenings binging television. An advocate for authentic representation in media, he created The Squeaky Wheel to amplify disabled voices and bring humor to the nuances of living with a disability.
Nimmy Dumm
Chief Copy Editor
Nimmy is a copyeditor in Colorado living with retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited retinal disease that causes low vision. She loves animals (all of them), words, and comedy.
Woonie
Staff Writer
Lover of salty licorice, gummy bears and the outdoors. Originally from Malaysia, college in Iowa and currently living in California. Writer, runner, traveler, volunteer who happens to have Retinitis Pigmentosa. A human being hoping to change the world through words, stories and laughter.
Leslie Moon
Staff Writer
Leslie Moon runs The Writer's Bloc on YouTube, is a Script Editor and a Video Producer. He lives with Chronic Pain Syndrome & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and is based in the U.K.
Alexia Kemerling
Staff Writer
Alexia is a Hard of Hearing writer from Ohio. She pretends to be good at lip reading, but is actually just an expert at bullsh*tting. She is a strong advocate for disability rights and for eating breakfast foods at all hours of the day.
Kathleen Downes
Staff Writer
Kathleen Downes (she/her) is a licensed social worker, board certified patient advocate, blogger, and disability activist from suburban New York. Her work is scheduled to appear in the forthcoming anthology The Ending Hasn’t Happened Yet, a collection focusing on the intersection of disability and trauma from Sable Books.
Nate Woogen
Staff Writer
Nate is standup comedian and improviser from Chicago. He lives with mild ataxic cerebral palsy and completed the Second City Writing Program. He loves wordplay, horror movies, musicals and operas.
Kevin Schaefer
Staff Writer
Kevin (he/him) is a writer, podcaster, and lifelong lover of all things pop culture. He's seen Hamilton on Broadway and has been to Disney World too many times to count. He has SMA Type 2 and is currently co-writing a graphic novel.
Zephyr Ash Ostrowski
Staff Writer
Zephyr is a queer autistic film critic and curator as well as a small-time horror writer. Her tastes range from Cronenberg to Cats (2019) and they're proud of it. If given the opportunity, they'd love to write for the Criterion Collection or Rifftrax.
Jerome Palliser
Staff Writer
Jerome lives in Chicago and loves history and birds. His goal is to visit every National Park, and never leaves home without his charcuterie board of invisible disabilities.
Mia Ocean
Staff Writer
Mia lives with multiple sclerosis, two cuddly pit bulls, and her amazing partner. She was born and raised in Florida and apologies in advance for everything inappropriate she does.
Julia Lee Harter
Staff Writer
Julia Lee Harter is a Texas based neurodivergent and chronically ill writer, journalist and lover of all things cozy. She’s currently working on a young adult romance novel about loving a body that doesn’t always love you back.
Amanda Russell
Staff Writer
Amanda Russel (she/her) writes, illustrates, and works in the nonprofit world. She likes coffee, cats, cooking, baking, drag, and music. She is a complete paraplegic due to transverse myelitis caused by a lupus flare, and uses a manual wheelchair fulltime.
Kate Ryan
Staff Writer
Kate Ryan is a queer writer, disability advocate, Unitarian Universalist, atheist, social justice non-warrior who is remarkably busy for someone without a paid job. She lives in the liberal bastion of Massachusetts, and has multiple disabilities including autism and chronic pain. She enjoys baking, reading, being outside, being in water, dogs, and showing people pictures of her niblings.
We also would like to express thanks to our former staff, our new contributing writers, and our illustrator Frutilily