About this episode

Maya interviews playwright Jerry Slaff about his journey with stuttering and how it has influenced his work and life.

Maya sits down with Jerry Slaff, a playwright and and a writer who stutters, for a conversation about voice, craft, and the lifelong arc from fear to freedom. Jerry first reached out to Proud Stutter back in December 2021, writing, “once a stutterer, always a stutterer… if people don’t like my speech, that’s their problem.” We revisit that email and trace how age, practice, and community reshaped his relationship to speaking, onstage, at work, and in everyday life. Jerry reflects on building a career that demanded communication, from press briefings, talkbacks, to cold reads, and how stuttering shows up differently across contexts (ease during prepared talkbacks vs. blocks in table reads). We explore his love of radio storytelling, the writers who formed his ear for dialogue, and his new creative chapters: a two-hander play set in 1950s America and a novel that includes a 12-year-old character who stutters. Along the way, we talk representation (what lands, what harms), allyship across disability communities, and the simple rule that guides him now: “Not caring is a great freedom.” Mentioned A recent documentary about Marlee Matlin that sparked a cross-disability allyship convo…

People in this episode

Host: Maya Chupkov

Guest: Jerry Slaff

Topics covered

• stuttering
• playwriting
• communication
• representation
• disability allyship

Keywords

• stutter
• playwright
• communication
• voice
• disability
• representation
• storytelling

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Proud Stutter, saintstephenfilm

Books & works: Lies

More episodes of Proud Stutter

• Stuttering, Comedy, and Embracing Uncomfortable Situations · April 20, 2026 · 38 min
• Episode Swap: Down To The Struts · March 23, 2026 · 35 min
• The Story She Needed as a Kid: Jennifer Dickinson on Writing a Young Girl Who Stutters · March 11, 2026 · 31 min
• Anjali Hid Her Covert Stutter for Years. Then Acceptance Became a Spiritual Practice. · February 7, 2026 · 48 min
• From Delhi to Data and Back to the Stutter That Shaped Him · December 26, 2025 · 33 min
• From The Vault: The Psychology Behind Our Responses To Stuttering · November 7, 2025 · 27 min

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