Wellcome Collection and Profile acquire doctor and disability activist Grace Spence Green's memoir

Wellcome Collection and Profile have acquired doctor and disability activist Grace Spence Green’s To Exist As I Am: A Doctor’s Notes on Recovery and Radical Acceptance.

Fran Barrie, publisher at the Wellcome Collection, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Gordon Wise at Curtis Brown, and the book will be published in June 2025.

"In 2018, aged 22 and a fourth year medical student, Grace Spence Green sustained a spinal cord injury and is now a full-time wheelchair user," the synopsis says. "Since her life-changing injury, Grace has become a doctor and a passionate advocate for the disabled community, working to challenge the narratives surrounding disability, medicine and identity."

The synopsis adds: "Her life-affirming reflections reframe disability and the value we place on independence, in favour of the rich networks of care that bind us together, and how we might fight for change and acceptance while joyously embracing life exactly as we are."

Barrie said: "We’re thrilled to be publishing Grace’s very special book, which tells her powerful story as a doctor and as a patient. She grapples with how to heal, how to care for ourselves and others, and find joy on the other side of trauma."

Green added: "A spinal cord injury changed the course of my life at 22, and opened my eyes to how medicine and society perceive disability—as either tragedy, medical catastrophe or inspiration. My recovery has been a process of radically accepting my new body, and my new life, as a wheelchair user. To exist as I am. I wanted to write this book for anyone else struggling with trauma and change, struggling to let go of the pressures to be ‘fixed’ and to fit into a well-defined box. Instead, I’ve found so much power in finding acceptance, community and taking action for real social change—to change how we talk about disability, and how we treat each other."