Author Archives: Sherry Toh

“I’m doing good, I’m on some new s**t/ Been saying ‘yes’ instead of ‘no.’” These lyrics opened Taylor Swift’s song “the 1” and her 2020 album “Folklore.” I thought them fitting to open my first column of the new year…

“Lord, what will become of me/ Once I’ve lost my novelty?” was the original lyric sung in Taylor Swift’s “Nothing New,” a bonus track she included with her recent remaster of her 2012 album, “Red.” Yet, for some reason I heard her…

Let’s start this story about Evrysdi (risdiplam) from the beginning. About a year ago, the chronic neuropathy in my scalp that had been bothering me for three years worsened to a point of concern. It started as a mild and slightly nauseating throbbing from the back of my…

For someone who has watched many a sex scene in movies and television, the sounds were unmistakable, yet unsurprising. Netflix’s “The Witcher,” based on a fantasy book series by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, pulls no punches when it comes to explicit imagery. Body horror, gore, nudity,…

Hear that? It’s the sound of writers across the world readying to drive ourselves crazy in November for National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo. We’ve got our blankets, a mug of our chosen caffeinated beverage, and snacks, and will be devolving into decrepit hermits as we attempt to…

At every briefing before their shift, the nurses at my local children’s hospital would glance at me with amusement. As a child, I was often in the hospital for respiratory issues, and I had acquired a reputation. Not for my SMA, mind you, but for the one request…

I was unprepared for the thrill I’d experience when I logged into the instant messaging platform, Discord, and clicked on the server for the two-day Games Accessibility conference. Also known as GAconf, the conference is hosted by the International Games Developers Association for people in the gaming…

Humans like to believe that progress is linear. We were in the Dark Ages, then we weren’t. We were largely illiterate, then we read so much we created demand for the printing press. We didn’t have smartphones and international access to each other via the internet, and…

“Hey, is that Lego?” my brother asks, a spark of interest in his eyes. He leans over to get a better view of my laptop. He’s 17, but in that moment, I see the 7-year-old boy who loved Lego so much, he’d want to immediately begin work on every…

After I was hired as a columnist for SMA News Today, a stack of onboarding documents was sent to my email. I spent an entire day reading them and signing my name systematically. But among the documents, one titled “Writing Advice” drew my deeper attention. I’m not usually one…