Amanda Leduc


Amanda Leduc is a Canadian writer. She is known primarily for her 2020 book, Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space.

Career

Leduc's first novel, The Miracles of Ordinary Men, was published in 2013 by ECW Press. The novel alternates perspectives between Sam, a man who has recently begun sprouting wings, and Lilah.
Leduc is the Communications and Development Coordinator for the Festival of Literary Diversity.
In 2020, Leduc's non-fiction book, Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space was published by Coach House Books. The book discusses representations of disability in fairy tales. Disfigured is part memoir and explores Leduc's personal experiences as a disabled person. Leduc was interested in challenging the idea that disability is "synonymous with an unhappy ending". She began writing it after walking in the forest in 2018 and considering how forests, the setting of many fairy tales, are often inherently inaccessible to disabled individuals.

Personal life

Leduc was born in British Columbia. She developed cerebral palsy as a young child as a consequence of an operation to remove a cyst from her brain. Leduc also has spastic hemiplegia. As a result of these conditions, Leduc walks with a slight limp.
Leduc currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario.

Works

In 2015, Leduc was awarded the Thomas Morton Memorial Prize in Fiction. Leduc's short story, "All This, and Heaven Too", was long-listed for the 2019 CBC short story prize.