Kept Out is Kept Down: Writing Retreats and the Indefensible Retreat of Canlit

But first, let’s acknowledge the dream. For many writers, being invited to a live-in writing retreat crowns the bucket list. It’s an opportunity to reflect, re-energize, and rejoice in nature. To learn and share. To leave behind the grind and the people who cause it. To escape on a working holiday with like-minded travellers. To celebrate the nurturing solitude and the electric company of other writers. To be recognized and pampered. To build community and your resume. To build the network that can make a career.After my second book, after a decade of publication in fiction and non-fiction, as a disabled, senior writer who alternately uses a walker, wheelchair, and mobility scooter, how many live-in writing retreats are accessible to me? After thirty soul-destroying hours researching retreats right across the country, here’s the answer: Zero. Zilch. Nada. None.

Retreat Name	Retreat website states it is wheelchair accessible	Website has any accessibility info of any kind, if only a contact email	Photos of residence and workspace are barrier free	Photos of any visibly disabled facilitators or attendees	Makes any mention of any plan to improve accessibility
1. Hollyhock, BC	no	no	no	no	no
2. Firefly, ON	no	no	no	no	no
3. Loretto Maryholme, ON	no	no	no	no	no
4. Pele Island Book House, ON	no	no	no	no	no
5. Sage Hill, SK	no	no	no	no	no
6. Doris McCarthy Centre, ON	no	no	no	no	no
7. Porphyry Island, ON	no	no	no	no	no
8. Pulp Lit, BC	no	no	no	no	no
9. Writers Adventure Camp, BC	no	no	no	no	no
10. Ochre House, ND	no	no	no	no	no
11. Victoria Summer Writers, BC	no	no	no	no	no
12. Wallace Stegner House, SK	no	no	no	no	no
13. Spark Box Studio, ON	no	no	no	no	no
14. Haig Brown House, BC	no	no	no	no	no
15. Artscape Gibraltar Pt, ON	no	no	no	no	no
16. Al Purdy A-Frame, ON	no	no	no	no	no
17. Kalamalka Press WIR, BC	no	no	no	no	no
18. Berton House, YK	no	yes	no	no	no
19. Joy Kagawa House, BC	no	yes	no	no	yes
20. Banff Centre (approximately 12 writing retreats per year), AB	no	yes	no	no	no

In the 2019 census, disabled people are 22% of Canada. So, what words do I give this chart? Heartbreaking. Hurtful. Insulting. Bigoted. Discriminatory. Disgusting. Smug. Shameful. Daily. Typical. Incessant. Systemic. Exactly what I expected and entirely indefensible. If you hear nothing else I’m saying, please hear this: Kept out is kept down.These dream-punching retreats and residencies are sponsored, partnered and funded from every heavyweight corner of CanLit: the Canada Council, provincial and city arts councils, book awards, writers’ guilds, the Writers’ Trust, publishers, bookstores, libraries, banks, literary magazines, heritage organizations, universities, and my writing colleagues. Smugly proud and guilt-free, all of abled CanLit unites to fund and celebrate the inaccessible retreats that keep seniors and disabled people like me out.If you’re a younger, abled member of CanLit, you may be looking for some “hope” — also known as wriggle room. Before we give any credit where it isn’t due, let’s look at Berton House, Joy Kogawa House, and Banff Centre, the only three retreats to make any mention at all of accessibility.All three promise nothing and actively deter my application.Kogawa House openly lists all the physical barriers that confirm I can’t attend, as if advertising itself as inaccessible is commendable. For the last four years, their website states they are “undertaking plans” to improve accessibility. Run by the Writers’ Trust, completely oblivious to the fact that the disabled community reviles the word special, under “Special Access and Medical Requirements,” Berton House states: “Special access requirements will not affect a writer’s application or chance of being selected, though we acknowledge a writer’s ability to accept a residency offer may be affected if their needs can’t be met.” It goes on to describe the six steps into the house on the isolated edge of a city with inaccessible dirt roads and wooden sidewalks without curb ramps.The world-renowned Banff Centre has the only website with an Accessibility tab, but is equally deterrent and cagey: “If you have mobility or other accessibility requirements, please inform Participant Resources as soon as possible upon your acceptance into a program…Once your information is received, we will be in contact to discuss how (and if) we are able to support the accommodations required.” It states “some” bedrooms have “wheelchair access,” but never say if rooms have wheelchair accessible washrooms, or if work and meeting spaces are accessible. Because they know many of them are not.All three websites fall short of supplying all the information I need. I will have to phone and beg. How many times in the last twenty-four hours have you had to phone up a business, restaurant, movie theatre, or arts event, to ask if they will pretty please let you in? Are you willing to do that every day of your life, knowing most places will say no? Welcome to my world. “Access-possibly-available-but-only-after-polite-inquiry” is not access. It does make sure there is no written record of inaccessibility.Agreeing to seek abled permission only ensures my continued oppression. No thanks.All disabled people know this: any event that is wheelchair accessible proudly advertises itself as such. If there is no accessibility information, that’s because the event is inaccessible but knows better to put it in writing. In short, these well-funded, prestigious retreats are no better than those with no information. They’re “woke” enough to know inaccessibility is wrong, so they write advertising copy that ensures none of us needing accessibility feel welcome. It’s the code of abled privilege. They effectively say, sure, disabled writers can go to all the work of applying, then they’ll kindly let us know “how (and if)” they deign to “accommodate” us. What they really mean is this: we’re quite happy keeping you out.Shut up and stay out.But I knew all of this before I began this survey.I forced myself to perform thirty weeping hours of labour documenting my own insult, exclusion and erasure. Why? Because abled CanLit doesn’t value or believe the collective lived experience of my disabled community. It wants to reduce inaccessibility to my individual, personal problem. I needed to document this total erasure to prove to abled CanLit what senior and disabled writers already know: the inaccessibility of writing retreats is only one tiny example of the systemic ageism and ableism in the arts.How do we work together to change that?       In far fewer hours, with less cost to my mental health, I could have written an artful personal essay describing my individual struggle with retreat inaccessibility. But I didn’t want to give this space to sadness and loss. I don’t want to poetically plumb my feelings, hoping younger, abled readers might kindly empathize. I’m not asking for kindness or empathy. Quite the opposite, I reject them entirely.Anyone who asks for empathy and kindness from me needs to know that these words have a problematic history in both of my communities. Senior women are old enough to remember our 1950s girlhoods, a time when centering the feelings of others, when being forced to be nice-girl kind and polite, were weaponized against us to make us compliant and silenced. Putting heart over head, valuing the feelings of others before valuing ourselves, became a self-perpetuating sexist trap women set for each other. It toned us down. Made us afraid to be direct, loud, or demanding. Afraid to offend even the offensive. It reinforced power inequities and urged us to substitute the venting of “feels” for action.

“Young, abled writers benefit from the erasure of disabled and senior writers the way men benefit from the erasure of women, the way white people benefit from the erasure of BIPOC. They get to control the narrative.”

My disabled community has long rejected the very notion that we must seek, value, or labour to earn, any kind of empathy or kindness from abled people. It only reinforces the lie that our human rights should be the product of abled charity. Emotions do not produce disability justice. Two years ago, in January 2018, I wrote a companion article to this one and CanLit responded with an outpouring of kindness and empathy. Commissioned by All Lit Up, then republished in the FOLD 2018 program, it contained a similar survey documenting that the total number of wheelchair accessible independent bookstores in all of Toronto is, you guessed it, zero. Today, some stores like Another Story hold some events off-site in accessible locations. But most organizers continue to hold events at inaccessible bookstores and inaccessible artsy venues for one simple reason: because the kind and empathetic readers and writers of abled CanLit still feel fully entitled to walk over my back to attend them.So much for abled kindness and empathy. They’re useless. They change nothing.Instead, we all need to openly challenge abled privilege. Young, abled writers benefit from the erasure of disabled and senior writers the way men benefit from the erasure of women, the way white people benefit from the erasure of BIPOC. They get to control the narrative. The abled 78 percent of the population get to seize 100 percent of space, resources, employment, fame, and funding for themselves. Then they get to pretend they are not actively keeping us down, subservient, in our place, beneath them.

“Star-struck and grateful, desperate to belong, I climbed stairs and hiked the woods. I felt guilty, but said nothing, because it was 1987. Because I was too ashamed to identify as disabled. Because I had no allies.”

Refusing to change, abled people get to tell themselves ableism is unchangeable. I know exactly why abled writers continue to go to abled-only retreats and events and pretend they are not participating in the erasure of disabled people. Back in 1987, I did the same thing. When I walked unassisted, when I was in the disabled closet, I attended what was then called the Banff Writers Colony. Star-struck and grateful, desperate to belong, I climbed stairs and hiked the woods. I felt guilty but said nothing, because it was 1987. Because I was too ashamed to identify as disabled. Because I had no allies. I noticed my group was mostly male, all abled and all white, but so sincerely believed writing retreats were a such scarce prize, I was quite happy to be any kind of collaborator to get one.Today, in 2020, the openly advertised ban of any other marginalized group would produce open revolt. No other marginalized group would ever be told: we’re keeping you out because it’s more important to preserve the beauty of old buildings. Why doesn’t “woke” CanLit see the extraordinary hypocrisy of letting inaccessible old buildings enact the Ford-Kenney-Scheer exclusionary right-wing agenda, when they actively fight Ford-Kenney-Scheer on every other issue? Why does the banning of my disabled and senior communities produce nothing but a collective CanLit shrug?Because they are quite happy to be any kind of collaborators to keep their prizes.And because colonial capitalism is a wily beast. It offers crafty tethering rewards.Firstly, it tells abled people they’re the boss, that their charitable empathy and kindness is optional, that accessibility is theirs to grant (or not) as they see fit. Secondly, it tells these abled bosses that disabled people aren’t equal citizens with equal human rights, but “special” burdens. The ableist colonial capitalism that frames us as lesser beings, as childlike, as begging for abled charity to survive, reinforces the great lie: that young, abled, white bodies are superior bodies.Plainly put, it’s racist, ageist, ableist social Darwinism.It’s also the gateway to eugenics. Given the pressing climate crisis, expecting empathy and kindness from disabled and senior communities isn’t just a decadent and privileged waste of the little time left us. It’s flat out wrong. Unless we are heard and included, now, as recent forest fires and floods confirm, disabled people and seniors, especially racialized and poor disabled people and seniors, will be the first to die. The survival of my disabled and senior communities should never be dependent on how kind and empathetic we manage to make young, abled people feel.But reaching true diversity in the arts does depend on what we all do. Now. Today.Together, let’s move beyond performative emoji allyship into active solidarity:1. The arts community must learn the preferred language of the disabled community. There is no such thing as “fully accessible,” “semi-accessible, or “accessible except for the washroom.” For arts events “wheelchair accessible” means a barrier-free entrance and venue, with e-doors, an accessible washroom with grab bars, and soap, sink, towel or blower that can all be accessed independently by a wheelchair user. A “wheelchair accessible” retreat must add barrier-free grounds, workspaces and bedrooms with accessible plugs, light switches and roll-in showers.2. Accessibility is everyone’s job. Upon seeing any retreat or arts event without accessibility information, everyone should ask for it to be posted. No one should like, share, or retweet any event that isn’t at least wheelchair accessible.3. Just as they would never attend a retreat or event that banned any other marginalized group, abled artists must check their privilege by publicly refusing to work at or attend inaccessible arts events. Everyone should demand that all inaccessible events relocate in accessible venues.4. All artists should push for an ever-expanding practice of accessibility, including but not limited to: ASL, CART, quiet rooms, scent-free policies, large print and braille handouts, relaxed conferencing, and provisions for service animals.5. No inaccessible arts event, no one attending an inaccessible arts event, should get a penny of funding. The Canada Council, all arts councils, and all corporate and private donors must stop funding inaccessible arts events. They already know why. Inaccessible events violate labour legislation, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canada’s recently-signed UN Disability Protocol, and their own funding guidelines which forbid “discrimination on the basis of ability.”   6. A coalition of disabled artists should bring a class lawsuit under the Charter of Rights and then file a complaint under the UN Disability Protocol, demanding that in restitution for our decades of systemic exclusion, all arts retreats must accept only disabled applicants for the next five years. That is still only some 2,500 spaces, nowhere near the full restitution for decades of exclusion.7. As of 2025, when Ontario is supposed to be “barrier-free,” in alignment with the new Accessible Canada Act, every arts event inviting and/or hiring artists must maintain a fair, representative minimum of 22% of disabled participants or lose all governmental funding.If you find these demands too extreme, if you dismiss them as too expensive, too utopian, congratulations, you’ve been successfully brainwashed by the colonial capitalism that wants you to believe that, like the poor, ableism and ageism will always be with us.Here’s the uncomfortable truth: no group of abled people under sixty is diverse.Here’s the good news: everyone benefits from the inclusion of seniors and disabled people.The fair, representative inclusion of seniors and disabled people in our numbers would actually raise the representation of all marginalized groups, because we come from all marginalized groups. When marginalized writers support the inclusion of senior and disabled members of their own communities, when young and old demand the inclusion of each other, we begin to approach true diversity. Then, in all the spaces and places of the arts, we can embrace the best practice of disability justice. We can unite to ensure that nobody and no body be left behind.* * *Dorothy Ellen Palmer is a disabled senior writer, accessibility advocate, retired English/Drama teacher, improv coach, and OSSTF union activist. Her work appears in Refuse, Reader’s Digest, This Magazine, Nothing Without Us, Wordgathering, Alt-Minds, Canthius, All Lit Up, Herizons, Little Fiction Big Truths, 49th Shelf, and Open Book. Her novel, When Fenelon Falls (Coach House, 2010), features a disabled protagonist in the Woodstock-Moonwalk summer of 1969. Her disability memoir, Falling for Myself, has just appeared with Wolsak and Wynn.