Canary columnist Rachel Charlton-Dailey has got big news- she’s written a book

Today I get to write about my favourite topic – myself, Rachel Charlton-Dailey, of course. As you may have already seen on Twitter, I’m delighted to share some exciting news with you all. As I’ve been hinting for a while now, I’m currently in the middle of writing my latest book – Ramping Up Rights.

This one plays right into two of my favourite things – my passion for disability rights and most importantly gassing to legends on Zoom.

I’m hoping it’ll be something close to a lot of your hearts too.

Ramping Up Rights: An Unfinished History of Disability Activism

My publisher Hurst calls the book:

“A vivid history of the 100-year battle for British disability rights, spotlighting enraging injustices and inspiring campaigns, past and present: this fight isn’t over.”

Last May, I was beyond overjoyed to host a conversation with disability rights legend Barbara Lisicki. But it was whilst Barbara was talking that I realised something that made me quite uncomfortable. Despite devoting my work to disability rights now, I knew very little about the history of disability rights.

But I soon realised this wasn’t all my fault. There’s a huge gap in knowledge of disability rights history and one that is sorely needed to be filled.

After chatting with my incredible agent, I realised there wasn’t one book that encompassed the different ways disabled people have fought and continue to fight for our rights in the UK.

Sure there were books that talked about disability specifically and books that talked about specific fights, but there was nothing that covered our vast history.

But I’ll be honest with you, I’ve had a lot of imposter syndrome around writing this book. Am I, a fairly new activist, the right person to write this? While that may be true, I’m a journalist first and foremost, and one who’s passionate about highlighting how the government and society treats disabled people.

Of course, I don’t know everything about this topic, but I’m very lucky that I know a lot of people who were there and continue to be there. So this book is basically me wanting to learn more, calling up my incredible friends, and letting you in on what we talked about (well not all of it!).

I’ll be guiding you through the very colourful history of how our rights were won, what we fought for, those we lost, and what we continue to fight for.

It’s all our stories

Ramping Up Rights isn’t my story, it’s all of ours.

It’s the story of the Blind March of 1920, punks chaining themselves to buses, disabled people expressing our pain and fears through art, and those who make waves for us online. It’s the story of how governments and society tried to silence and even kill us, and how disabled people have reclaimed and continue to reclaim our power.

Whilst this is a history book, it’s also documenting what’s happening now, because we need a spotlight on that too. The ongoing fights to live our lives as we should be able to.

My hope is that by looking at where we’ve been, and how our rights were won, more can be encouraged and emboldened to join our fight to ensure disabled people have a future too.

If you’d like to support me and the book, you can preorder it via the link below. Preorders are super important for new authors but especially so for a book like this, when disabled voices are so quickly cast aside.

Ramping Up Rights is out in July 2025 with Hurst and is available to preorder now from everywhere you buy books.

Featured image via Rachel Charlton-Dailey/Hurst