DYS-PLA

The DYS-PLA festival celebrates dyslexic story makers as part of National Dyslexic Awareness Week in November.

In 2007, the concept of the festival was born. The idea of celebrating the works of dyslexic story-makers appealed to me, as I am dyslexic and have always felt my dyslexia forms a thorn in my writing. It is not only about the spelling mistakes, it is about the word blindness. Sometimes I cannot see the mistake, the missing word, or the forgotten letter. Even when I read the text back to myself, I read it from the memory of what I have written, not what is actually on the page.

The festival was born as an exploration of the differences between dyslexic and non-dyslexic writers. I was, and still am, curious to see if dyslexic story-makers contribute anything new to structure, plot, character, or if we try to conform our story to a linear tale.

In the past, the festival took on several different objectives. Festivals DYS(the)LEXI 2007, Dyssing Monadys, 2008/9, and DYS-PLA 2010/11.  I feel we have “arrived” at the brand festival name and enjoy the play on words “display”–which I feel still has room to develop.