“Losing this sense of control over my life and what I could do with my body really caused a lot of sadness and a lack of confidence,” she recalls. “I started wondering, What do I have that I can teach people?”
In January 2021, Wang started a digital writing workshop for people with disabilities called The Unexpected Shape Community. The name, she says, is inspired by the creative possibilities athletes find within the confines of a baseball diamond. “Life is like a baseball game,” Wang says. “It gives you boundaries that you might not want or might not expect. But that unexpected shape is what creates the game of life.”
The Unexpected Shape Community is built on Squarespace using Member Areas, a product that allows Esme to create a private section of her website for paid subscribers. The content available on her website includes weekly co-writing sessions, live workshops, Q&As, and courses tailored to those living with disabilities. Squarespace’s tools helped Wang find solid financial footing and the platform inspires more than 100 creatives who, she says “are not encouraged by society to pursue their dreams” but instead are pushed to “think a lot about how disabled they are.”
“I’ve been told by community members that the community has changed their life, that they feel that things are possible that were not possible before. And it really uplifts my heart,” Wang says.
“We don’t magically leap over a bridge of disability,” she says. Rather, she sees disabilities as something to live alongside, which inevitably contributes to who she is as a person and a writer.
“My life has taken the unexpected shape of having to deal with mental and chronic physical illness, and that has been frustrating,” she says. “But it has also been a really beautiful journey.”
