For the next several months, NEW MOBILITY will be celebrating 25 years of journalism by and for active wheelchair users. Join us for a look back at each period of the magazine’s history, starting with our first issues circa the passage of the ADA. Each month we’ll move down the timeline, sharing key moments in disability rights and lifestyle from almost 250 issues of NM.

2007-2009: Home

They say home is where the heart is, and for NEW MOBILITY’s freelance writers during 2007-2009, the maxim rings true, wherever they found themselves. For enthusiastic yoga practitioner and instructor, Matthew Sanford, his paralyzed body and mind became progressively more in tune with his spirit over the years. Now his whole self is home, and he keeps the welcoming door wide open. Allen Rucker interviewed several Iraq war vets who became disabled in a distant land, then returned home to find their biggest challenge was adapting to “a new normal.” NEW MOBILITY began running a series called My Town, which gave us up close views of widely varying lifestyles. Natalea Watkins rooted down in the Oklahoma Prarie, where her neighbors were scorpions and rattlesnakes, but she still found a way to connect with the busy world. And Ned Fielden, a world away in Berkeley, melded into his diverse surroundings with a jaunty beret and a growing family. All found home right under their noses.

New Mobility, May 2009

Awakening Your Whole Self

by Roxanne Furlong
Told by his doctors to forget about his legs, para Matthew Sanford became a “floating upper torso” until 25, when he began yoga.

Read article

New Mobility, October 2008

A New Generation of War Vets Comes Home

by Allen Rucker
A decorated veteran, Matthew Keil survived a high SCI in Iraq, came home to a supportive family and rebuilt his life. His “new normal” now includes two beautiful children.

Read article

New Mobility, September 2008

My Town: The Oklahoma Prairie

by Natalea Watkins
No IMAX movie can compete with the panorama outside my window, where hawks ride the thermals over the pasture. Sunrises and sunsets explode east to west in shards of purple and orange. Clouds — dazzling white — dance on the lake’s mirror surface on cool mornings, and clouds murderously black throw lightening bolts on muggy nights, illuminating fractured scenes, like the birth of a new foal typically determined to arrive in a storm..

Read article

New Mobility, May 2009

My Town: Berkeley

by Ned Fielden
Berkeley is a physically beautiful and intellectually stimulating town, and as a disabled person, it’s possible to blend into the background better here than almost anywhere else.

Read article

BEST COVERS Vote each month on your favorite cover from the featured time period. In October, we’ll share the seven most popular covers from 25 years — vote again, and see NM’s best cover of all time in the December issue. Click here to vote.