Georgia Webber, writer and illustrator, comes to the Cavern of Secrets to talk about what it means when you can’t express yourself, learning to draw again, and allowing the possibility that someone will say ‘yes’ and help you. Georgia’s graphic memoir, Dumb, is about what it means to become voiceless and how it changes you. 

Our favourite moments: “If there’s something that calls for my voice to be raised at all in a really loud way, I can push it if I want to and I most of the time really want to. But it’s a bad idea.” [4:43] 

“I had always wanted to make comics but I didn’t feel like I was good enough to start. Which is a terrible trap to be caught in.” [5:34] 

I hit send. I woke up the next morning and I felt - god, I’m gonna sound like such an asshole right now - I felt the closest thing I can to enlightened.” [10:05] 

It’s much harder for us to accept something that changes constantly and it’s much harder for the wide broad us to accept complication” [14:55] 

“It’s also fascinating to collaborate with someone and have her voice at the centre of it but she can’t see what I’m doing. She’s exercising a massive amount of trust…” [17:00] 

“This idea of disability as a shift in health paradigm as the rest of the world to accept is something that I’m grappling with” [24:00] 

“I could see all the accommodations that were being made for people who had those different needs and being in that space and sharing it with them was not a detriment to my experience in any way” [28:05] 

CREDITS: Cavern of Secrets is hosted by Lauren Mitchell. Produced byEllen Payne Smith & Katie Jensen, with assistance from Vicky Mochama and Sarah Daniel.