Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | C | Citizens Centre Report Magazine

Out of physical weakness: inner strength.

Article Excerpt
By: Myriam L'Abbee

Heidi Janz, a "crip," refers to healthy people as "TABs"--temporarily abled bodies. Death and disability are very familiar to this 36-year-old university lecturer and playwright, who has spent her life belted to a wheelchair. A lack of oxygen to her brain during birth left Ms. Janz afflicted with cerebral palsy. Her limbs are partially paralyzed, her speech severely slurred, her frame racked with muscle spasms. Despite these obstacles, she defended her doctoral dissertation in literature at the University of Alberta last month.

Her writing celebrates the trials and triumphs of the severely handicapped. Returned To Sender, a play performed at her hometown's Fringe Festival two years ago, refers specifically to the Tracy Latimer case. This Saskatchewan youngster, also a cerebral palsy victim, was murdered by her father Robert in 1993, who claimed it was an act of mercy. In the play, the heroine Amanda Tyler is deliberately poisoned with painkillers by her father John. "My work provides a perspective that never gets heard in the media--the view of the disabled person," says Ms. Janz.

Amanda is a strong-spirited girl who...