Adiba - bio
Adiba Nelson - Founder/President
Adiba Nelson is mom to her daughter Emory (the inspiration for "Meet ClaraBelle Blue"), and a recovering social worker turned prolific writer. Her work has been featured in Ravishly, Huffington Post, Huffington Post Brasilia, Huffington Post Japan, Washington Post, The Lily, Mater Mea, Everyday Feminism, Scary Mommy, Your Tango, The Good Men Project, and My Brown Baby. She recently brought her words to life, delivering her first TEDx talk "Skating Downhill: The Art of Claiming Your Life", to a sold out house, and recently wrapped up having her daily life with her daughter captured by Arizona Illustrated in the Emmy Award winning mini-documentary, The Full Nelson (watch below).
Adiba wrote "Meet ClaraBelle Blue", based loosely on her own daughter, Emory, after becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of representation of children with special needs in children's books. After being rejected by numerous literary agents for the content (inclusion) being "too niche", Adiba decided to self publish the book because according to her "children cannot wait for the world to be ready to see them".
While she started this venture with a children's book, she been able to expand the message of inclusion to classroom lesson plans, with future goals being to expand to product lines and children's television all centered around visibility, and inclusion. In the meantime, she travels the country leading workshops and speaking at conferences about her life as a special needs parent, the importance of inclusion in the classroom/youth activities, in children's literature, and mainstream media as a whole. You can watch her most recent spot on Tucson morning show, The Morning Blend, below.