A new memoir examining disability, the natural world, and issues of inclusion is scheduled for release this spring.

The book My Body is a Meadow: Finding Freedom in the Outdoors represents the newest work from Monmouth-based author Bethany Handley.

Headline will release the title on May 7, 2026, addressing disability, nature writing, and ecological challenges through both personal experience and political analysis.

The Welsh writer transitioned to using a wheelchair full-time during her early twenties following the onset of a chronic illness.

The landscapes that had once defined her sense of self suddenly became inaccessible to her.

Her publisher characterizes the memoir as ‘a perspective-shifting journey across Britain exploring our right to access nature.’

Within the work, Ms Handley establishes profound connections between ecosystems affected by disability and bodies living with disability.

She investigates obstacles, restriction, and vulnerability, emphasizing how exclusion affects both environmental and human dimensions.

Polly Atkin, who wrote The Company of Owls, offered: “Beautiful, informative and urgent, this is a book that should change conversation and possibilities both for nature and for humans, and how we live together and care for each other in a more just world.”

Ms Handley has already established herself within Welsh literature. Her first poetry collection, Cling Film, was published by Seren in 2025, and she co-edited the anthology Beyond/Tu Hwnt through Lucent Dreaming in 2025, placing disabled perspectives at the forefront of literary discourse.

Beyond her writing, she collaborates with organizations and property owners to enhance accessibility in outdoor spaces.

She serves as an ambassador for the Wales Coast Path, Ramblers Cymru, and Country Living’s Access for All initiative.

Ms Handley is scheduled to appear at the Hay Festival on May 27, 2026, as part of her UK tour. Additional confirmed appearances include Reading the Wild Festival in Llandovery on May 10, Waterstones Birmingham on May 17, Book Space Cardiff on May 21, and the Blake Theatre with Rossiter Books in Monmouth on June 4.