While our organization operates with a small budget and no full-time staff, we are powered by a diverse group of the funniest and most talented disabled peeps across the globe. The Squeaky Wheel is a community, and we open our doors to all. If you’re interested in joining our team, either as a writer, volunteer or collaborator, please reach out to us through our contact form. To support the wonderful people that keep this wheel squeakin’, please visit our donate page.
Steven Verdile
Founder
Steven is a designer and humor writer with Spinal Muscular Atrophy. He lives in New York City, spending his mornings drinking iced coffee and his evenings binging television and going to see musicals. As an advocate for authentic representation in media, he created The Squeaky Wheel to amplify disabled voices, bring humor to the nuances of living with a disability, and express how comedy can be used as a force of social justice.
Editorial Board
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.
Julia Clausen
Editor
Julia is an autistic copyeditor, podcast producer, and data wizard. She lives in Seattle with several chronic illnesses and a cat.
Julia Lee Harter
Editor
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.
Lez Moon
Editor
Lez Moon is a non-binary screenwriter and script editor, they live in the UK tending to a family of co-morbidities that include ME/CFS, chronic pain, arthritis and neurodiversity.
Nate Woogen
Editor
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.
Spencer Hunley
Editor
Spencer (he/him) is an autistic professional living in Kansas City, Missouri, where he focuses on improving healthcare outcomes for neurodivergent individuals through advocacy and policy change. After performing stand-up for the first time in 2022, he fell in love with comedic writing, inflicting puns and terrible wordplay on his family and friends. He enjoys yoyoing, trying new hot sauces and exploring art created by disabled folks.
Zephyr Ash Grant
Editor
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.
Advisory Board
Anna Landre
Advisor
Anna Landre is an internationally-recognized disability justice activist and researcher. Her work focuses on the social, physical, and legal barriers that disabled people face around the world, and has earned invites to the Biden-Harris White House, Brazilian National Congress, and more. She was elected twice to serve as a Commissioner in the city of Washington, D.C., and was recently named to Teen Vogue’s 2020 edition of 21 Under 21. Anna is a Truman and Marshall Scholar currently based in London.
Michelle Asgarali
Advisor
Michelle Asgarali is a Canadian writer/producer with a documentary and TV development background. She was the first openly-disabled show-runner of a Canadian docu-series with Breaking Character, and is a producer of sketch-comedy series The Squeaky Wheel: Canada.
Steve Way
Advisor
Steve is a stand up comedian and actor born with Muscular Dystrophy and is an advocate for disability awareness. He performs stand up in the NJ/NY area, motivational speeches around the country, and is the co-creator and star of the web series Uplifting Dystrophy. He can be seen in the Hulu show Ramy.
Violet Ferguson
Advisor
Violet Ferguson is an emerging Canadian producer, social media manager, content creator, consultant, and disability advocate based near Toronto, Ontario. Over the past few years, she’s focused on sharing disability-led stories and supporting disabled voices through her filmmaking and advocacy work. She recently serves as the associate producer on the The Squeaky Wheel: Canada.
Wren Brooks
Advisor
Wren is a filmmaker, writer and co-creator of Spoon Zine, an intersectional, disability-focused arts/culture/politics zine decentered from the abled gaze. They live in Los Angeles.
Writers
Alexia Kemerling
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.
Cameron Stevens
Writer
Cameron is an autistic playwright and stage manager living in New York City. She would love to infodump on you about the anthropology of interconnected liberation movements, BoJack Horseman, and why dogs are superior to people.
Helisa Sartorelli
Illustrator
Helisa (also known as Frutilily) is an autistic woman, illustrator, designer, and linguist living in Brazil. She has an obsession with the Muppets and enjoys gaming, cooking, knitting, and drawing. She expresses herself best through illustrations because, "let's face it, I'm a disaster at social communication."
Jenny Cavallero
Writer
Jenny Cavallero (she/they) is a disabled writer and comedian in Washington, DC. She's had rheumatoid arthritis for their entire life (brag) and likes romance novels, talking about the best orthopedic cushions, and bagel sandwiches.
Jeremy Einbinder
Writer
Jeremy is a writer, disability advocate, and open mic comedian based in the Denver area. He is excited to continue fighting ableism through satire.
Jerome Palliser
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.
Kate Ryan
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.
Kathleen Downes
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.
Max Kerwien
Writer
Max Kerwien is a comedian, award-winning poet, and professional stunt double for The Muppets. He performs yearly in the Disabled Lists' comedy festival in Seattle and won “Pick of the Fringe” in the 2023 Hollywood Fringe Festival.
Mia Ocean
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.
Odessa Jackson
Writer
Odessa self-identifies as a weirdo and clairvoyent capable of thinking of every nightmare scenario that may or may not ever occur. She is also a librarian and just generally tired all of the time.
Stacy Ashworth
Writer
Stacy Ashworth is a Canadian tetraplegic in England. No one has the explanation for any of that. It could be the tepid weather or castles or MS or lupus - or other reasons entirely. She’s written several novels, some of which are respectable.
Sy Hoekstra
Writer
Sy writes humor and podcasts about his life as a blind man at DeepSy.net. He was a lawyer before deciding to be happy, and now he freelances in all kinds of things. He lives in NYC with his wife and daughter who are sighted but still cool.
Past Contributors
Miranda
Writer
Miranda is a rock climber, goldsmith, and nature enthusiast in the process of figuring out her new life as an incomplete paraplegic with a spinal cord injury. She lives in Ontario, Canada.
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Amanda Russel
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.
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Emeline Lakrout
Writer
Emeline is a blind person, young professional, recent college graduate, and guide dog handler. She is fascinated by the intersection of disability and business but also dedicated to understanding the wholistic disabled identity and following the general disability pride and justice movements.
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Kayla Kurin
Writer
Kayla is a chronically ill writer who loves finding warm bodies of water to swim in and wellness practices with cult like followings. She's part of Sick Bae, a sketch group for people with chronic illnesses and disabilities, and is based in Canada where she's hoarding the sweet, sweet universal healthcare.
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Kevin Schaefer
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.
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Melanie
Writer
Melanie is an author and poet who lives with ME/CFS. She enjoys writing stories that explore mental distress from a non-pathologizing, empowering perspective. When she's not writing, you can find her perusing a flea market or singing along to 90s feminist anthems. If you can't find her, she's probably taking a nap.
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Woonie
Writer
Woonie is a lover of salty licorice, gummy bears and the outdoors. Originally from Malaysia, she attended college in Iowa and is currently living in California. She is a writer, runner, traveler, volunteer who happens to have Retinitis Pigmentosa, and a human being hoping to change the world through words, stories and laughter.
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We also would like to express thanks to all of our contributing writers, readers and supporters.