About
I am in my early 40's and have been disabled/chronically ill since I was a baby. This include autoimmune disease, lung disease, eye disease and partial blindness, short stature, bone deformity and degeneration, depression and anxiety, and chronic pain. My journey has been about finding radical body acceptance, reclaiming the juicier parts of life, and creating adaptations.
While working as a teaching artist, I also became a peer counselor and advocate for both government and nonprofit disability organizations, mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area. These included LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, San Francisco Mayor's Office on Disability, and Centers for Independent Living. While still in San Francisco, I became certified as a sexological bodyworker (also called a somatic sex educator), because I saw the degree to which social segregation and body-shame was further oppressing myself and my disabled clients, students, and collaborators.
With a background in the arts, a BA in Literature from New College of Florida, and an MFA in Creative Writing from California College of the Arts, I began teaching poetry to youth in juvenile detention, teen moms, kindergartners in low-income neighborhood, and seniors and adults with disabilities like myself. My poetry has been published in various journals and anthologies. In recent years, I have set poetry to movement and created performance arts at museums, theater, festivals, and universities. You can find some links to those works and publications in my Performance/ Poetics section.
[Amber DiPietra, Berkeley CA. Photo credit: jessicaschillingphotography.com]
While working as a teaching artist, I also became a peer counselor and advocate for both government and nonprofit disability organizations, mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area. These included LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, San Francisco Mayor's Office on Disability, and Centers for Independent Living. While still in San Francisco, I became certified as a sexological bodyworker (also called a somatic sex educator), because I saw the degree to which social segregation and body-shame was further oppressing myself and my disabled clients, students, and collaborators.
Upon moving to St. Petersburg, Florida in 2013, I integrated my experiences as artist, activist, and bodyworker to offer The Body Poetik. Since then, I have also co-founded the Disability and Sexuality Access Network and the Tampa Bay chapter of the national Sex Workers Outreach Project.