Invisible Violets: A Mixtape in Lyric Essays by Chrys Buckley
Winner of the Wandering Aengus Book Award in Nonfiction
ALT: Front cover reads "A fierce manifesto about claiming your own story. This book will change you and linger long after the final page."
--Tarn Wilson, author of In Praise of Inadequate Gifts; Chrys Buckley - INVISIBLE VIOLETS: A Mixtape in Lyric Essays
Chrys Buckley was born with albinism, which means she has no pigment and she is legally blind. From an early age, she realized that while she was the blind one, it was hard for other people to see her as a real person.
Chrys often felt like a blank white canvas that everyone painted their assumptions about disability and paleness onto, rendering her invisible. With warmth, compassion, wit, and lyricism, Chrys examines albinism, disability, blindness, synesthesia, dysfunctional relationships, self-betrayal, true-crime pop culture and true crimes on the smaller stage of our real lives, discrimination in medical education, and the power of words and writing.
This literary mixtape is an exploration of seeing, not seeing, being seen, and not being seen. It’s a reclaiming of the real, particular self that too often gets overlooked and obscured by tropes and projections. Each essay is a love song: to place, to memory, to music across decades, to books, to science and medicine, to the land and the sea and the sky. Underscoring all the stories and contemplations is the steel will of a writer screaming in vivid color to make her flawed individual heart visible.
“I could not put this book down. The essays are impeccably crafted, yet the voice is lively and effortless and reads as if Buckley is confessing to a favorite friend over the kitchen table: generous, intimate, authentic, vulnerable, vibrant, witty, heartbreaking, and hopeful. Invisible Violets explores how we see and are seen–challenging assumptions about difference and disability. This memorable collection is an education, a love letter to the power of music and writing, and a fierce manifesto about claiming your own story. This book will change you and linger long after the final page.“
--Tarn Wilson, author of The Slow Farm and In Praise of Inadequate Gifts
“Invisible Violets is such a moving and honest collection of personal essays, it made me miss that all-too-brief era of curating mixtapes. The work here is as intimate as one you would make for a dear friend, one full of handwritten messages and inside jokes in the titles, or sometimes painful, unspeakable secrets in the lyrics. As the artist on every track here, Buckley's voice shines and crackles with authority and grace, widening our perspective and understanding of trauma, disability, and the very science of being human.”
--Stacy Brewster, author of What We Pick Up
“Chrys Buckley's debut memoir is not to be missed! She writes with empathy, grace, and poise about the nature of albinism. The joys of her life come through beautifully in Chrys's prose, and she doesn't hold back when addressing harmful stereotypes and society's assumptions. Chrys's gorgeous words shine an important light on a community that is so often passed by in the disabled minority. I love her essays and I know readers will embrace this memoir with a rib-cracking squeeze.”
--Annie Carl, author of My Tropey Life, Nebula Vibrations, and editor of Soul Jar: Thirty-One Fantastical Tales by Disabled Authors
Chrys often felt like a blank white canvas that everyone painted their assumptions about disability and paleness onto, rendering her invisible. With warmth, compassion, wit, and lyricism, Chrys examines albinism, disability, blindness, synesthesia, dysfunctional relationships, self-betrayal, true-crime pop culture and true crimes on the smaller stage of our real lives, discrimination in medical education, and the power of words and writing.
This literary mixtape is an exploration of seeing, not seeing, being seen, and not being seen. It’s a reclaiming of the real, particular self that too often gets overlooked and obscured by tropes and projections. Each essay is a love song: to place, to memory, to music across decades, to books, to science and medicine, to the land and the sea and the sky. Underscoring all the stories and contemplations is the steel will of a writer screaming in vivid color to make her flawed individual heart visible.
“I could not put this book down. The essays are impeccably crafted, yet the voice is lively and effortless and reads as if Buckley is confessing to a favorite friend over the kitchen table: generous, intimate, authentic, vulnerable, vibrant, witty, heartbreaking, and hopeful. Invisible Violets explores how we see and are seen–challenging assumptions about difference and disability. This memorable collection is an education, a love letter to the power of music and writing, and a fierce manifesto about claiming your own story. This book will change you and linger long after the final page.“
--Tarn Wilson, author of The Slow Farm and In Praise of Inadequate Gifts
“Invisible Violets is such a moving and honest collection of personal essays, it made me miss that all-too-brief era of curating mixtapes. The work here is as intimate as one you would make for a dear friend, one full of handwritten messages and inside jokes in the titles, or sometimes painful, unspeakable secrets in the lyrics. As the artist on every track here, Buckley's voice shines and crackles with authority and grace, widening our perspective and understanding of trauma, disability, and the very science of being human.”
--Stacy Brewster, author of What We Pick Up
“Chrys Buckley's debut memoir is not to be missed! She writes with empathy, grace, and poise about the nature of albinism. The joys of her life come through beautifully in Chrys's prose, and she doesn't hold back when addressing harmful stereotypes and society's assumptions. Chrys's gorgeous words shine an important light on a community that is so often passed by in the disabled minority. I love her essays and I know readers will embrace this memoir with a rib-cracking squeeze.”
--Annie Carl, author of My Tropey Life, Nebula Vibrations, and editor of Soul Jar: Thirty-One Fantastical Tales by Disabled Authors
Order Invisible Violets
Chrys Buckley has bachelor’s degrees in Arts & Letters, Micro/Molecular Biology, and Biochemistry. She endured approximately ¾ of medical school before breaking free to focus on writing and disability advocacy.
Chrys is currently in the Book Publishing graduate program at Portland State University, pursuing concentrations in Book Editing and Book Design. Chrys is the manager of the Digital and Audio departments at Ooligan Press.
Chrys’s nonfiction has appeared in The Sun, Shark Reef, and Aerial. She was a finalist (twice) in MTV’s “I’m from Rolling Stone” writing contest. She has won the R.L. Gilette Scholarship and the Sophie Kerr Gift in English Literature. Invisible Violets: A Mixtape in Lyric Essays is her debut collection.
Chrys is currently in the Book Publishing graduate program at Portland State University, pursuing concentrations in Book Editing and Book Design. Chrys is the manager of the Digital and Audio departments at Ooligan Press.
Chrys’s nonfiction has appeared in The Sun, Shark Reef, and Aerial. She was a finalist (twice) in MTV’s “I’m from Rolling Stone” writing contest. She has won the R.L. Gilette Scholarship and the Sophie Kerr Gift in English Literature. Invisible Violets: A Mixtape in Lyric Essays is her debut collection.