Wendy Booker is a life-long adventurer, speaker, MS Insight Founder/CEO, advocate within the global Multiple Sclerosis (MS) community, and author of New Altitude: Beyond Tough Times to the Top of the World. She has sixteen years of experience in patient advocacy, community engagement, marketing communications, media, events, and public affairs in the biotechnology/pharmaceutical sector. Over the years, Wendy has anchored a wide variety of patient relations campaigns, corporate events, community engagement initiatives, training sessions, media campaigns, fundraisers and public relations functions. 

In June of 1998, Wendy was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. When first diagnosed, she was devastated. But it took very little time for her to transform anguish into inspiration. Wendy immediately turned her hobby of casual running into a continuous pursuit. She was the first person with MS to conquer six of the Seven Summits. After transitioning her goal of standing on top of the world away from Mt. Everest, she became the first person with MS to reach the North Pole in April of 2011. The South Pole quickly followed in January 2012. Wendy continues to run marathons having done twelve so far. 

In this interview, with our Different & Able President and Founder, Alexandra Nicklas, Wendy discusses her life dealing with MS, her non-profit MSinsight.org, her passion for adventure, how she found the strength to climb mountains, figuratively and literally, as an “accidental athlete.” Wendy also shares the “Three S’s,” self-discovery, serendipity, and stubbornness, that have impacted her life. Wendy states, “The mountains are a perfect metaphor for life: goal setting, team building, challenges, doubts and leadership. Every obstacle we face can be related back to the mountains.”

Russell Lehmann is an award-winning and internationally recognized motivational speaker and poet with a platform of autism and mental health. His words have been featured in USA Today, LA Times, NPR, Yahoo! News, Success Magazine, and archived in the Library of Congress. 

A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology “Leadership in the Digital Age” course, Russell sits on the National Board of Directors for The Arc, is a council member for the Autism Society of America, the Youth Ambassador for the mayor of Reno, Nevada, sat on the Nevada Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities, as well as the Nevada Commission on Autism Spectrum Disorders. 

Russell showed signs of autism as a newborn. However, he was not formally diagnosed until the age of twelve after suffering through five weeks in a lockdown psychiatric facility. In 2011, Russell wrote a book titled, Inside Out: Stories and Poems from an Autistic Mind, which was featured in the LA Times. He earned an Honorable Mention at the 2012 NY Book Festival. Russell’s book was also read by Temple Grandin and won the award for Literary Excellence at the 2013 International Autistic People’s Awards in Vancouver, Canada. 

His new book, On the Outside Looking In, recently hit bookstores nationwide. In 2018, Russell was named as Reno-Tahoe’s “Most Outstanding Young Professional Under 40.” In 2019 and 2020, Russell lectured for the prestigious King’s College of London and the Mohammed Bin Rashid Center for Special Education in Abu Dhabi.  

Russell currently travels the world spreading hope, awareness, and compassion in a raw and dynamic fashion and hopes to erase the stigma and stereotypes that come with having a disability. His passion is to be a voice for the unheard. Russell knows how difficult and frustrating it is to go unnoticed. 

In this interview, Russell and Alexandra Nichols, our Different & Able President & Founder, talk about Russell’s autobiography, Inside Out: Stories and Poems from an Autistic Mind, and his newest book, On the Outside Looking In. Russell also shares his experiences growing up on the spectrum, how he is able to manage the different symptoms of autism, the stressful and difficult day he experienced with air travel in 2017, and his role as a public advocate. Russell encourages those who suffer from autism to embrace their challenges and use them as a chance to grow; “Yes, there are challenges that make us who we are, but they do so much more than that. They inspire hope, change, and accomplishment,” Russell states.

For more information about Russell and his work, visit his website at www.TheAutisticPoet.com and follow his journey on Instagram and Facebook.

Interviewed by our Different & Able President and Founder, Alexandra Nicklas, Jenni Ahtiainen, Founder & Head Designer at AIDesign and DEAFMETAL, discusses her hearing aid journey starting in 2018. Being involved with the fashion and music industry and her love for aesthetics, Jenni designed hearing aid jewelry collections for women, men, and children. The story of DEAFMETAL can be found here: The story behind DEAFMETAL® by its Designer Jenni Ahtiainen - YouTube.

Please see Jenni's photo biography below to learn more information about her work as a designer and her wearable art pieces.

Amanda Leduc is a disabled writer and author of the non-fiction book, Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability and Making Space, which was published by Coach House Books in 2020 and shortlisted for the 2020 Governor General’s Award in Non-Fiction and longlisted for the 2020 Barbellion Prize. She is also the author of the novel, The Miracles of Ordinary Men, published in 2013 by ECW Press. Her new novel, The Centaur’s Wife, is out now with Random House Canada.  

Her essays and stories have appeared across Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia, and she speaks regularly across North America on accessibility and the role of disability in storytelling. She is represented by Samantha Haywood at the Transatlantic Agency. 

Born in British Columbia, she has lived in Ontario, England, BC, and Scotland, and holds a Master in Creative Writing from the University of St. Andrews. Amanda has cerebral palsy and presently makes her home in Hamilton, Ontario, where she lives with a very lovable, very destructive dog and serves as the Communications and Development Coordinator for the Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD), Canada’s first festival for diverse authors and stories. 

Interviewed by our Different & Able President and Founder, Alexandra Nicklas, Amanda unpacks the many ingrained biases lurking in classic fairy tales, while also exploring her own experience with cerebral palsy. She also discusses the pedagogy of fairy tales, disability representation, writing tips, moving space, and responsible social media use for public figures. Amanda states, “Disability isn't visited on us in response to a grand, overarching narrative plan, but rather is a lived, complex reality that reimagines the very nature of how we move through and occupy space.”