{"id":15,"date":"2016-01-31T19:05:35","date_gmt":"2016-01-31T19:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joannamarsden.com\/?page_id=15"},"modified":"2026-03-29T19:32:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T18:32:42","slug":"writing-editorial-services","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/joannamarsden.com\/index.php\/writing-editorial-services\/","title":{"rendered":"Co-authoring & editing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A

Never Know Your Place: Memoir of a Rulebreaker<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Photo

O’Brien Press Launch of ‘Never Know Your Place Memoir of A Rulebreaker’ by Martin Naughton with Joanna Marsden & activist James Cawley. Photo: Fennell Photography<\/p><\/div>\n

\"TULCA

TULCA Festival publication\/journal featuring an excerpt from Never Know Your Place<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Never Know Your Place<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u2018Martin Naughton was a protector, a leader, a gamechanger. In reading this narration of his life, tears filled my eyes.\u2019<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
(<\/strong>Dr Rosaleen McDonagh, playwright, rights activist & author of Unsettled<\/em>.)<\/strong><\/h6>\n

I co-wrote the memoir of activist Martin Naughton, widely considered to be 20th century Ireland’s most significant disabled activist. Never Know Your Place: Memoir of a Rulebreaker<\/em> (O\u2019Brien Press) was published in March 2024.<\/p>\n

The story of Never Know Your Place<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1960s Ireland there was a special place for disabled children: behind the walls of an institution, cut off from the rest of society. At just nine years old, Martin Naughton was one of these children. Along with his younger sister Barbara he was sent to a Dublin institution, far away from his Irish-speaking home in Spiddal.<\/p>\n

But Martin wouldn\u2019t be sidelined. With the help of some unexpected characters \u2013 and an unlikely encounter with his Celtic Football heroes \u2013 he began to change the way a generation of young disabled people saw themselves.<\/p>\n

This is the story of a boy who not only won his own independence, but also led the fight for freedom for all disabled people.<\/p>\n

An excerpt from Never Know Your Place<\/em> featured in the publication of the TULCA Visual Arts Festival in Galway (November 2023).<\/p>\n

Editing Spokeout<\/em> magazine & mentoring disabled writers<\/h2>\n

For over ten\"\" years, I edited SpokeOut<\/em> magazine, a quarterly health and lifestyle magazine published by Ireland’s largest physical disability charity, IWA (Irish Wheelchair Association), in partnership with Dyflin Media, and later Tower Media, and distributed to over 20,000 readers with disabilities.<\/p>\n

As editor, I got to meet and interview many interesting people, who often shared their personal stories with the aim of encouraging other people adapting to life with a disability. Another part of my role was to mentor young writers with disabilities, who gained writing experience through the magazine. I drew on this experience more recently to run a Memoir Writing Workshop for Disabled Writers for DLR Arts in the Lexicon Library (Oct 2025).<\/p>\n

On several occasions the magazine was shortlisted for ‘Customer\/Member Magazine of the Year’ at the Magazines Ireland Awards, and I was also nominated as ‘Editor of the Year’.<\/p>\n

A back catalogue is available from the Irish Wheelchair Association, so please contact them if you are looking for something from the archive.<\/p>\n

Extraordinary Lives <\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n
A commissioned collection of interviews on disability social history<\/strong><\/h5>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In 2011, I was commissioned to write Extraordinary Lives, a\u00a0<\/em>148-page book of interviews with 15 disabled people whose personal stories reflect the way in which life for disabled people has changed in Ireland. Beginning in 1960, an era in which many people with disabilities lived \u2018behind closed doors\u2019 in family homes or institutions, the book tells the story of the emergence of the independent living movement and Paralympic sport. The book was launched by Myles Dungan, and writing in The Irish Times<\/em>, Sylvia Thompson said it offered \u201chuge insight into the changes in the personal and public lives of those with a physical disability in the past 50 years.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-15","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/joannamarsden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/joannamarsden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/joannamarsden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joannamarsden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joannamarsden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":56,"href":"http:\/\/joannamarsden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/15\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":809,"href":"http:\/\/joannamarsden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/15\/revisions\/809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/joannamarsden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}