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Ryan Harbuck: Turning Tragedy into Triumph Through Writing & Advocacy

I often say that I would never change a thing about my life, and that's true.


When I was sixteen, I was in a car accident where I was paralyzed from the sternum down. I had flown out of the vehicle, a car full of kids coming back from a school dance, and landed so far away that the paramedics couldn't find me. Needless to say, my spinal cord injury was only one of my problems that night.


But those injuries, that accident, it put the whole wide world into perspective for me. It changed me. It made the value of life so much greater, and I am so thankful for that.


Flash forward to today, nearly 28 years later, and I am a mom of two wonderfully active and courageous boys and a wife to a loving husband. I have spent years as a swim coach, teacher, and mentor, but am currently putting all the extra energy I can into being a writer.


I published my memoir two years ago and caught a serious writing bug. Realizing that disability representation in literature is lacking, I have devoted myself to writing everything I can with wheelchair user protagonists. Currently, I am under contract with a publisher for two picture books based on my memoir and am looking for a publisher for a third book, a middle grade chapter novel geared for children eight to twelve years old. I write these stories for wheelchair users like myself to find someone to connect to in books, but I also write them to desensitize the general public on the stigmas of wheelchairs and all disabilities alike.


I couldn't be more proud of this quest, and I'm so blessed to have lived beyond lying on the pavement to achieve all the moments I've been lucky enough to have done since.


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