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Unbroken

By: Marieke Nijkamp
Narrated by: Allison Hiroto, Adi Cabral, Serena Rasoul, Katie Anvil Rich, Bree Klauser, Jenna Bainbridge, Marcella Cox, Julia Weldon, Lily Emil Lammers
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Publisher's summary

This anthology explores disability in fictional tales told from the viewpoint of disabled characters, written by disabled creators. With stories in various genres about first loves, friendship, war, travel, and more, Unbroken will offer today's teen listeners a glimpse into the lives of disabled people in the past, present, and future.

The contributing authors are award winners, best sellers, and newcomers including Kody Keplinger, Kristine Wyllys, Francisco X. Stork, William Alexander, Corinne Duyvis, Marieke Nijkamp, Dhonielle Clayton, Heidi Heilig, Katherine Locke, Karuna Riazi, Kayla Whaley, Keah Brown, and Fox Benwell. Each author identifies as disabled along a physical, mental, or neurodiverse axis—and their characters reflect this diversity.

©2018 Marieke Nijkamp (P)2022 Audible, Inc.
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About the Performer

William Alexander is a National Book Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of unrealisms for young readers. His novels include Goblin Secrets, Ghoulish Song, Ambassador, Nomad, A Properly Unhaunted Place, and A Festival of Ghosts. He studied theater and folklore at Oberlin, English at the University of Vermont, and creative writing at the Clarion Workshop, and now teaches at the Vermont College of Fine Arts program in Writing for Children and Young Adults.

About the Performer

Fox Benwell is a perpetual student, a writer ( The Last Leaves Falling; Kaleidoscope Song, and contributions in Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens; Proud; Out Now), an adventurer and wannabe-knight. He lives in Oxford with his future husband and their kids, baking, dog walking and building bonfires. He thinks up stories in the library shed at the bottom of the garden. When he’s not busy with all of that, he teaches, runs D&D campaigns for young people, and is working on a PhD on disability representation in current YA fiction. He is neurodivergent, chronically ill, and chronically tired of terrible tropes.

About the Performer

Keah Brown is a journalist, author, studying actress and screenwriter. She is the recipient of Ulta Beauty’s Muse 100 award, Which is a celebration of 100 inspirational voices around beauty, she is one of The Root’s 100 most influential African Americans of 2018. Keah is the creator of the viral hashtag, #DisabledAndCute. Her work has appeared in Town & Country Magazine, Teen Vogue, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire UK, and The New York Times, among other publications. Her Debut essay collection, The Pretty One is out now. Her debut picture book, Sam’s Super Seats will be out Fall 2022 via Kokila books.

About the Performer

Dhonielle Clayton is a New York Times Bestselling author. She’s written a myriad of books such as The Belles series, The Mirror: Shattered Midnight, and The Marvellers. She’s the co-author of Blackout and Whiteout, and the Tiny Pretty Things duology, a Netflix original series. She hails from the Washington, D.C. suburbs on the Maryland side. She taught secondary school for several years, and is a former elementary and middle school librarian. She is COO of the non-profit We Need Diverse Books. She’s an avid traveler, and always on the hunt for magic and mischief. You can find her on social media @brownbookworm.

About the Performer

Corinne Duyvis is the critically acclaimed author of the YA sci-fi/fantasy novels Otherbound, which Kirkus called "a stunning debut" On the Edge of Gone, which Publishers Weekly called "a riveting apocalyptic thriller with substantial depth" and The Art of Saving the World, which Publishers Weekly called a "provocative, genre-bending look at exploring identity." Her next YA novel is #VIRAL, scheduled for 2024. She is also the author of the original Marvel prose novel Guardians of the Galaxy: Collect Them All. Corinne is a co-founder and editor of Disability in Kidlit as well as the originator of the #ownvoices hashtag. Disabled protagonists feature in practically all of her work.

About the Performer

Heidi Heilig is the author of several books including The Girl From Everywhere, a historical fantasy series involving piracy, time travel, and 19th century Hawaii, and For A Muse of Fire, a YA fantasy featuring a bipolar shadow player who can see the spirits of the dead. Heidi is bipolar herself, though when she travels theough time, it is only in the usual "forward" direction.

About the Performer

Kody Keplinger is a New York Times and USA Today best selling author of young adult and middle grade fiction, including The DUFF (Designated Ugly Fat Friend), That's Not What Happened, and Lila and Hadley. She has been legally blind since birth and is a proud guide dog handler. When she isn't writing, Kody's usually playing Dungeons & Dragons, playing with dramatic makeup looks, or exploring New York with her German shepherd co-pilot, Corey.

About the Performer

Katherine Locke lives and writes in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with their feline overlords and their addiction to chai lattes. They are the author of The Girl with the Red Balloon, a 2018 Sydney Taylor Honor Book and 2018 Carolyn W. Field Honor Book, as well as The Spy with the Red Balloon, and This Rebel Heart. They are the co-editor and contributor to This is Our Rainbow: 16 Stories of Her, Him, Them and Us, which had three starred reviews and made Kirkus Review’s Best Middle Grade of 2021 list and ALA's Rainbow List, as well as It's A Whole Spiel: Love, Latkes and Other Jewish Stories. They also contributed to Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens and Out Now: Queer We Go Again. They are the author of picture books Bedtime for Superheroes, What Are Your Words? A Book About Pronouns, an ALA Top Ten Rainbow book, and Being Friends with Dragons. They can be found online at KatherineLockeBooks.com and @bibliogato on Twitter and Instagram.

About the Performer

Marieke Nijkamp is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of novels, graphic novels, and comics, including This Is Where It Ends, At The End Of Everything, Critical Role: Vox Machina – Kith & Kin, Hawkeye: Kate Bishop, and The Oracle Code. She edited the anthology Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens. Marieke is a storyteller, dreamer, globe-trotter, and geek. Before pursuing her lifelong passion for writing, she majored in philosophy and medieval history. She loves to go on adventures, roll dice, and daydream. She lives and writes in Small Town, The Netherlands.

About the Performer

Karuna Riazi is a born and raised New Yorker. She holds a BA in English Literature from Hofstra University, is an MFA candidate in Hamline University’s Masters of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults, and is an online diversity advocate and educator. She is the author of The Gauntlet and The Battle (S&S/Salaam Reads), as well as an adaptation of The Jungle Book for the Ghostwriter series (Sesame Workshop/Sourcebooks Wonderland) and the upcoming A Bit of Earth (HarperCollins/Greenwillow).

About the Performer

Francisco X. Stork came to El Paso, Texas from Mexico when he was nine-years old. He has an M.A from Harvard University and a J.D from Columbia Law School. He worked as an attorney for an affordable-housing state agency while writing six of his nine novels. Marcelo in the Real World is the recipient of the Schneider Award. The Last Summer of the Death Warriors received the Elizabeth Walden Award. The Memory of Light received the Tomás Rivera Award. His novel Disappeared is the 2018 recipient of the Best Young Adult Award from the Texas Institute of Letters and a Walter Dean Myers Award Honor Book. Illegal, the sequel to Disappeared, received the In the Margins Book Award, given for stories inclusive of youth living a marginalized existence, the 2020 Best Young Adult Book from the Texas Institute of Letters and the International Latino Book Award. His most recent novel On the Hook has received three starred reviews.

About the Performer

Kayla Whaley is a fiction and nonfiction writer living outside Atlanta, Georgia. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies including Unbroken, Vampires Never Get Old, Game On, and Allies, as well as in publications like Bustle, Catapult, and Michigan Quarterly Review. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Tampa, and is a graduate of the Clarion Writers' Workshop. She was a senior editor at Disability in Kidlit from 2014-2018.

About the Performer

Kristine Wyllys is a hopeless romantic and an impossible dreamer with wild hair and trashy sunglasses. Born in a town full of college kids and dying automotive plants outside of Detroit, she spent a decade wandering through southern mountains and western deserts before landing a stone’s throw away from the Greatest Great Lake. A poet at heart, Kristine is author of New and Young Adult Contemporary Romance that bites like a junkyard dog. She's got a thing for words, run-on sentences, twangy music, Diet Mountain Dew in a can, and geeky shows. She's never met a smartphone she couldn't destroy, a pup she didn't fall in love with, or a pair of pants she didn't resent having to wear. When she's not playing pretend with characters born in her head, you can find Kristine traipsing the Northern Michigan woods and beaches with her two giant manchildren, a canine entourage, and the boy she fell in love with at fifteen.

About the Performer

Jenna Bainbridge is a wheelchair-using actor, singer, and disability rights advocate. Originally from Denver, Jenna got her start working with Phamaly Theatre Company, a professional theatre that solely casts actors with disabilities. She then went on to get a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from The Lamont School of Music. To date she has performed in shows around the world from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, to The Public Theatre in NYC, and even as far as The Big-i in Osaka, Japan. Some favorite projects include: Original Cast member in the World Premier of Suffs at the Public Theatre, playing Richard III and Joan of Arc in Bring Down the House parts 1 and 2, Belle in Beauty and the Beast, and Penny in Hairspray. Jenna often works with her husband consulting theatres and universities on how to become more accessible and inclusive. Jenna now lives in NYC and enjoys cuddling with her dog, PigCat, and crocheting tiny animals.

About the Performer

Adi Cabralis a classically trained actor, dialect coach, and intimacy director holding their MFA in theater performance from Arizona State University. Their work has been shared on stage at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities (Colorado), the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis (Missouri), New Repertory Theatre (Massachusetts), the Stella Adler Studio of Acting (New York), Mildred's Umbrella Theatre Company (Texas), The New Hazlett Theater (Pennsylvania), The Hangar Theatre Company (New York), Central Square Theatre (Massachusetts), Latino Theater Company (California), and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Scotland, UK). Adi is a certified teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework and Knight-Thompson Speechwork. As a professor of theater, voice, and movement, their research focuses on inclusive practices for training LGBTQ+ identified actors.

About the Performer

Marcella Cox currently residing in New York City, hailing from North Carolina. Some of her credits include Autolycus in The Winter's Tale at Shakespeare’s Globe; Shepherd in The Winter's Tale Radio Play; Old Lady With Dog in Dead End all at Rutgers Theatre Company. Violet at Playmakers Repertoire/UNC Chapel Hill and Mirandy & Brother Wind at the Raleigh Little Theatre. She is a graduate of Mason Gross School of The Arts at Rutgers University.

About the Performer

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Ali splits her time between New York and Los Angeles, working in theater, television, and film. She is currently filming The Diplomat for Netflix. She can be seen as ‘Suzanne Wu’ in Raising Dion on Netflix and ‘Jo’ in The Other Two on HBO Max. Additional credits include 'Sarina' on the FOX series, neXt, and 'Lynn' in the feature film Lucky Grandma. Ali also played 'Josie Cho' on the VH1 series The Breaks, in addition to recurring roles on The Path, Orange is the New Black, Billions, Supernatural, Odd Mom Out, and Black Box.
Other film and television credits include: Liberal Arts, The Girl in the Book, Anya, Louie, Nurse Jackie, Benders, Blue Bloods, White Collar, Law & Order: SVU, Zero Hour, Ugly Betty, and Social Distance.
Some of her stage credits include: Letters of Suresh at Second Stage Theater, The Heidi Chronicles on Broadway, opposite Elisabeth Moss and Jason Biggs, and The Great Leap at Atlantic Theater Company opposite BD Wong.
She received her training from Yale and Calarts.

About the Performer

Bree Klauser (She/They) is a New York native Actress, Singer, Voiceover Artist, and Comedian who happens to have been born Legally Blind. Bree earned a BFA in acting from Brooklyn College. In August 2020, Bree made their Audible debut narrating the role of Emma Gable in the Audible Original Series Phreaks alongside a celebrity featuring: Carrie Coone, Christian Slater, Ben McKenzie, and Justice Smith. On-screen, Bree portrayed the character Matal in season 1 of the Apple TV + series SEE with Alfre Woodard and Jason Momoa. Additionally, they appeared in the award-winning comedy short film Social Fitness by Anna Pakman, featured at numerous international film festivals, and the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Recently, Bree continues to authentically represent the disabled community in the media in a series of ads for MasterCard, both on camera and behind the mic. They are a proud member of SAG-AFTRA.

About the Performer

Lily Emil Lammers is an autistic bigender voice actor known for his role as Ash in the Nintendo mobile game Fire Emblem Heroes. Their pronouns are she/he/they. Lily studied theater at Mills College, a historically women's college in Oakland, as well as at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Narrating stage directions in "A Play in Many Parts" felt like coming full circle from her classes in a bookstore-turned-theater. Similarly "A Curse, A Kindness" was almost too perfect a fit for them as an autistic lesbian who happens to love Pokémon and Ace Attorney. Lily Emil feels beyond lucky to participate in a project celebrating and exploring what it means to be a queer and disabled teen. While this is his first audiobook(YAY!), you can also hear him in games such as SMITE and Genshin Impact and anime like HunterXHunter and Welcome to Demon School. Outside of acting, if there is such a thing, Emil loves learning new languages, listening to old radio dramas, and practicing lightsaber combat.

About the Performer

Serena Rasoul is a Muslim, Arab-American actress and writer. She started her training taking classes in the Department of Drama at the University of Virginia. After graduating, she continued her studies at the Theater Lab, School for Dramatic Arts in Washington DC. She recently founded Muslim American Casting—a casting agency that casts and advocates for Muslim and Middle Eastern and North African (MENA aka SWANA) talent in the TV/Film and Commercial industries. She has been featured in Variety, The Washington Post, and Backstage, as well as several podcasts.
Serena served on the Advisory Group for the Pillars Fund initiative, Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion: Recommendations for Film Industry Professionals. This initiative was part of the USC Annenberg study on Muslim inclusion in film called Missing and Maligned: The Reality of Muslims in Popular Global Movies. She also sits on the Board of the non-profit organization called M Film Lab, which works to develop scripts from the community into short films. She holds a Masters from the George Washington University and two Bachelors degrees from the University of Virginia.

About the Performer

Katie Anvil Rich has performed throughout the U.S. and internationally on stage and screen. She was recently one of 10 actors chosen to participate in 2021’s Walt Disney Discovers Talent Showcase –in their 20th anniversary year. She has voiced a number of projects including Cynthia Leitich Smith’s acclaimed novel, Sisters of the Neversea, as well as lending her voice to a number of Netflix projects. A member of the Native Voices’ Artist’s ensemble, Katie performs in a number of original works by Indigenous playwrights –some favorite roles include (Native) Pride and Prejudice (Eliza), River of Blood (A’Ongote), and Crickets (Janey). Katie holds her MFA in Acting from Harvard University and the Moscow Art Theatre.She is a proud descendant of both the Chickasaw and Cherokee Nations.

About the Performer

Julia Weldon is a SAG-AFTRA actor, voice actor and indie-pop musician with over 25 years of professional experience. With a career that began in a lead role opposite Meryl Streep and Liam Neeson ( Before & After), Weldon has worked on feature films, commercials, TV ( High Maintenance, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU),and Off-Broadway ( Family Week by Beth Henley). As a musician, they have toured and performed for audiences across the country, playing original music from the albums Light Is a Ghost and Comatose Hope. Weldon’s music has been featured in The Village Voice, NYLON, Billboard, Buzzfeed, Newsweek, Mashable, Bitch Magazine, Autostraddle, The Advocate, Deli Mag, and The Washington Post.

What listeners say about Unbroken

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No bad stories detected

some were better than others but every story had at least 1 interesting aspect or unique facet. I especially liked the ones featuring magic and supernatural. I want to see this as a graphic novel collection featuring artists with disabilities

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Unbroken

This book is amazing all the different stories you can really connect to, and it kept me on my toes to continue reading 

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A must read for any disabled teen

I have a disability and it was so healing to hear stories starring my community when there are barely any around. Each story was unique and well written and it’s a miracle that this book is free to listen to (at the time of this review)!

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A noble effort often drowned in a sea of words

"Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens" (2018, 2022) features, as the title declares, thirteen fictional stories about disabled teens. It’s a noble effort that includes more than just physical disabilities. However, the stories are hit or miss. The tales in which the disability is clearly stated early are superior to the ones in which the disability is obscured by a sea of words—and there are too many of the latter. The various narrators are effective. Not recommended.

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1 person found this helpful