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At eight years old, Hannah Soyer had no choice but to undergo an intensive spinal fusion surgery, in order to keep her lungs from eventually collapsing. Fourteen years later, she chose another treatment for her neuromuscular condition: regular drug injections into her spinal fluid. But what does “choice” really mean, and how much weight do our choices hold?Named by Ms. magazine as one of their most anticipated feminist books of 2026, Dreams in Which I Am Almost Human confronts and communes with bodily autonomy, medical and sexual consent, traveling abroad in a wheelchair, caregiving and caretaking, appreciating the natural world, family history, bedtime stories, fantastical creatures, Irish poetry, and the limits and wonders of language and love. A bold collection of genre-bending essays, this memoir is an investigation into what our words and we are capable of, as we yearn to make sense of our relationships to ourselves, each other, and the worlds we inhabit.
Hannah Soyer is a queer disabled writer whose work explores the meaning we make through atypical embodiment, and how the arts—in particular storytelling—can be beautiful acts of survival, resistance, and community building.
She has written for nationally acclaimed publications such as The Sun Magazine, Bustle, and Cosmopolitan and is the editor of The Ending Hasn’t Happened Yet: An Anthology of Disability Poetics from Sable Books (2022). Her chapbook, For When the Shapes Keep Changing, won the 2021 Nonfiction OutWrite Chapbook Competition. Dreams in Which I’m Almost Human (Red Hen Press, 2026) is her debut full-length book.
Most importantly, Hannah also happens to be a cat and chocolate enthusiast.
Praise for Dreams in Which I’m Almost Human:
“Soyer’s beautiful debut is essential reading for anyone trying to understand how, why, and through what means we construct ourselves.” — Cyrus Dunham, author of A Year Without a Name
“Dreams in Which I’m Almost Human generously and whimsically offers a timely examination of life—rich, complicated life—in a vulnerable body.” — Rebekah Taussig, bestselling author of Sitting Pretty
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