'Be fearless': Deaf Sask. author, playwright wants to dispel assumptions about disabled people in fiction

Adam Pottle does not stick to one type of writing. 

The British Columbia-born, Saskatoon-based artist's pursuits include children's book author, post-secondary educator, playwright, memoirist, and leader among Deaf and disabled cultural communities. To date, his published catalogue includes a memoir, multiple novels, a book of poetry and two plays.

Switching styles like this is a key part of his creative process.

"I have a very, very short attention span, and as a result, I have a tendency to do what I call genre-hopping. So I go from memoir, to children's books, to plays, to horror fiction, and go back and forth like that," Pottle told CBC.

"It helps expand my toolbox, and it helps to make me to a better writer."

Pottle, who currently teaches communications at Saskatchewan Polytechnic, started writing in his mid teens. He began producing what he calls imitations of writers like Stephen King.

Although his experiences as a Deaf person have become central to his work over the years, things didn't start out that way.

"I never considered writing about disability. It wasn't on my mind at that time, and I think that came as a result of internalized ableism," he said.

"I was trying to avoid addressing that whole thing, because if I were to address it, then I would have to … think about my relationship with my family, my relationship with the world. And it wasn't something I was prepared to do as a 16-year-old."

During his master's program at the University of Northern British Columbia, he started delving into leaders in disability theory such Rosemarie Garland Thompson, Sharon Snyder and David T. Mitchell. Pottle said reading these writers and others in the disabled writing community opened him up. 

"These books just completely blew open my world," he said.

"I began to see the value in my own perspective. It was as though somebody had recognized that there was a machine in my head that had been laying dormant for a long time, and it just clicked that machine on."

A worldwide first

On Aug. 22, Pottle will celebrate the publication earlier this year of his most recent theatrical work, The Black Drum, with an event at Saskatoon's McNally Robinson Booksellers. It will feature a conversation with Persephone Theatre's artistic director Heather Cant and will also be streamed via YouTube. 

The Black Drum is published by Playwrights Canada Press and is the first all-Deaf musical to have been written, performed and published.

Pottle said creating The Black Drum, which was first produced in Toronto, was harder than he anticipated.

"I had no idea what the hell a Deaf musical was because it had never been done before, but it seemed like an exciting opportunity. And so, blissfully unaware of the amount of work and the amount of frustration I would incur over the next few years, I agreed to do it," he said.

"I took The Black Drum probably through at least nine or 10 drafts before it was eventually performed in 2019."

The play, which is performed via American Sign Language (ASL) and signed music, is described as, "An epic fantasy about grief and healing [that] questions the concept of music we are conditioned to believe, suggesting that music is not just something you hear, it is something you see and feel."

Cant, who will be co-hosting the McNally event, said highlighting Deaf and disabled artists helps bring the barriers they face to light.

"We have limitations on our venues and many other things that make it very difficult for artists with disabilities to participate and to be able to to be an active contributor on a regular basis, not just on a specialized basis, but on a regular basis in Canadian theater," Cant said.

She added that artists like Pottle help move the needle toward a more accessible theatre world.

"I think that the grandiose vision that Adam had with his collaborators in making The Black Drum happen are the kind of shows that people need to see to be able to begin to envision a new way forward," she said.

"Otherwise we just keep doing what we've always done, which does exclude a lot of people."

The Black Drum was not the first time Pottle wrote for the stage. Ultrasound, a play that confronts eugenics and the concept of who is normal, was produced in 2016. Pottle has also worked with Saskatchewan companies like Sum Theatre in the past.

Some projects have taken more of a toll than others. Pottle compared his writing process for Voice, a memoir published in 2019 by the University of Regina Press, to performing surgery, as he cut away and unpacked the ableism he'd internalized.

"In all of my writing, whether it's memoir, whether it's fiction, drama, I'm finding that I'm much more open, because writing the memoir was basically like performing a vivisection on myself. It was, at times, painful, but it was also necessary."

Pottle's first foray into children's books also had its fair share of discomfort. After the final revisions came back from the publisher with images depicting a racial stereotype and a changed ending, neither of which he approved, Pottle ended up urging readers not to buy his book, drawing media attention.

"I went on Twitter and I told people, 'I know that this book is going to be released with my name on it,' but I asked them, 'Please don't buy it, because it doesn't reflect the story that I wanted. It doesn't reflect the way that I see the world, which is that everybody should be included,'" Pottle said.

"Apparently it was such an unusual thing for an author to tell people not to buy his book that it just became a big thing."

Pottle got to release another children's book, Butterfly on the Wind, in March of this year. He said it was a much better experience, with good communication throughout the process and a Deaf illustrator coming on board. 

Moving forward, he is focusing on horror fiction. He wants to dispel long-held assumptions about disabled people in the genre, as demonstrated by famous characters like Freddie Kruger and Michael Myers.

"Horror has a chequered history with disability and I very much want to try to subvert some of the tropes that we see in that genre, where disabled people are either… a disfigured villain or they're a victim," Pottle said.

"They're never the hero. They're never somebody who is a fully fleshed-out three-dimensional character. And that's something that I want to continue exploring."

The road forward

Cant said she hopes that the McNally event will inform audiences about how theatrical norms can be subverted.

"People have a very specific idea of what a musical is and they also have specific ideas, whether they're knowledgeable about it or not, about what being Deaf is," she said.

"That intersection doesn't seem to naturally come together, I think, as a common thought process. But they do, they do come together in a really beautiful way."

These days, Pottle is writing his first drafts longhand, in a blue spiral notebook with a simple pen. He said writing this was brings an intimacy to his writing. 

He shared some advice for Deaf and disabled artists working on their craft.

"Don't hold back. Be fearless. Be completely open. Don't be afraid to show your entire self."

Then there's the guidance so vital to his practice that he has it scrawled on a sticky note in his line of sight at his desk.

"Don't be afraid to be weird."