‘A passionate call for an inclusive countryside’ Jack Cornish, author of The Lost Paths
About Bethany Handley
Bethany Handley is an award-winning writer, poet and disability activist from South Wales and has just returned from speaking at the Hay on Wye festival. Named one of the UK’s ten most influential disabled people in politics, law, and media by the Shaw Trust 2024, she campaigns for disability rights and better access to nature. An ambassador for Country Living’s Access for All, Wales Coast Path, and Ramblers Cymru, her debut poetry pamphlet Cling Film was published by Seren in 2025. Bethany co-edited Beyond / Tu Hwnt, a ground-breaking bilingual anthology of Welsh Deaf and disabled writers. Her work has been featured by BBC One, BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 4, the Poetry Foundation, Country Living, The Guardian and more.
About My Body is a Meadow
Since childhood, Bethany Handley has always felt most at home out in the wilds of the Welsh countryside. This all changed when Bethany became a full-time wheelchair user in her twenties and suddenly found herself padlocked out of the landscapes she belonged to.
Today, nearly one in four people are Disabled in the UK. Public rights of way are blocked in 32,000 places across England and Wales. My Body is a Meadow writes into this troubling landscape. Passionate and political, it delivers a galvanising call for us to rethink how we live among nature and each other. Lyrical and personal, Bethany Handley invites readers to wheel alongside her as she explores ableism, climate justice and what nature means to her.
On this journey, we discover the feral boar of the Forest of Dean and one of the first places in Britain to industrialise; how the metal and rubber of a wheelchair can become just as much a part of your body as skin and bone; why swifts rarely land and how maps tell a story of exclusion. Unearthing parallels between land ownership and privatised healthcare, loss of biodiversity and social marginalisation, My Body is a Meadow explores the lessons nature can teach us about inclusion and interdependence. This is a rallying cry for us to stop gatekeeping nature and work together to make it open to everyone.
