About

The Work Between is a podcast about creative practice, identity, and the space where they shape each other. Host Nic Steenhout talks with disabled creators, artists, and makers: Painters, quilters, musicians, sculptors, photographers, and more. These aren’t inspiration stories. They’re honest conversations about how people actually make things, and how disability and creative work influence each other in real, sometimes complicated ways.

Why this show

I’m interested in disability identity. I’m also interested in the creative process. I’ve listened to podcasts about both. But I don’t want to just listen — I want to be part of those conversations. And I want to share them.

This is how my first podcast started. I created and hosted over 160 episodes across two other series: the A11y Rules Podcast and the A11y Rules Soundbites. Both shows are about conversations about web accessibility. The Work Between follows that same impulse, just pointed in a different direction.

A lot of media about disabled artists follows a familiar script. The focus is on overcoming. The work becomes proof of resilience. The circumstances become the story.

Those stories aren’t wrong. But they’re incomplete.

I’m interested in something else. I’m interested in conversations that take both the work and the identity seriously, without reducing either one to a lesson.

That’s what the title points to.

Not “work and disability” as separate topics. The work between, the relationship itself. The space where creative practice and personal circumstances shape each other. Not always neatly. Not always in one direction.

This podcast explores that space.

How do disabled artists think about their practice? What gets shaped? What gets challenged? What stays unresolved?

These are conversations about process, identity, and making things — without trying to tidy them up.

About me

I’m a disabled accessibility consultant, speaker, and trainer. I have over 30 years of experience in both physical and digital accessibility. I’ve spent most of that time focused on removing barriers. Training thousands of people on web accessibility, working on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Education and Outreach team, consulting with governments and corporations across three continents.

That work matters. But it’s not the whole story of what I do and of what I am.

I’ve also been making things for most of my life. Photography. Quilting. Leather work. Cooking. Drawing. Creating has always been part of how I understand the world.

My introduction to disability rights came through the independent living movement. I learned under Diane Coleman at Progress Center for Independent Living in Illinois. She also founded Not Dead Yet. Diane was my mentor in disability rights. Diane taught me a core principle: Disabled people know what we need. We make our own decisions. We control our own lives.

Through that work, I met many disabled people, including creators and artists, who were making things alongside everything else in their lives. Not as “inspiration.” Just as part of who they are.

At the time, I didn’t fully connect those dots. This podcast is, in part, me coming back to that.

That same idea — that disabled people define our own lives — is what drives this podcast: conversations where artists speak for themselves about their work, instead of being framed as someone else’s story.

I’m disabled. I’m a wheelchair user. I have audio processing issues. I have arthritis. I have a (now retired) service dog named Chambly. These aren’t incidental details — they’re part of how I move through the world and how I think about access, both in the built environment and the digital one.

I bring a pragmatic, down-to-earth approach. I’m not looking for neat stories or easy conclusions. I’m interested in honest conversations about how creative work and identity intersect — and what happens in between.

What you’ll get

You’ll hear conversations that:

Focus on the work as much as the person — what someone makes, how they make it, what challenges them in the process
Take disability seriously without making it the whole story
Ask about creative decisions, not about overcoming obstacles
Leave space for ambivalence, contradiction, and things that don’t resolve neatly

You won’t hear “How did you overcome your disability to create art?” You will hear “What’s your process? What works? What doesn’t? How do you think about your practice? Does your approach to art changes how you perceive yourself?”

If that’s what you’re looking for, you’re in the right place. Start with the latest episode, or pick one that catches your interest — and see what shows up in the work between.

Audio engineering

The Work Between is mixed by audio engineer John Tubbs. John is a good and trusted friend. We’ve known each other for nearly a decade. John worked at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign working in digital media and audio production. His work ranged from radio production to award-winning educational content. He is also a working musician which means he brings a musician’s ear to every mix, not just a technician’s.

That combination of deep production experience and life as a performer is exactly what this show needs. John understands how sound shapes a story, and his work lets the conversations on The Work Between land the way they were meant to.