[blparent] Ryan Knighton's Book

Mon Jan 2 02:55:57 UTC 2012

Ryan Knighton appears to be from Canada.  Below is his contact info, as well 
as the info for his literary agent, his film and TV company, and someone who 
arranges his speaking engagements.  Contacting those people might be 
helpful, too.

You can email Ryan at ryanknighton.com

Be sure to put "Ryan" in the subject line. This will distinguish your email 
from his ongoing correspondence with a distressed, wealthy Nigerian 
businessman.

Or contact one of his appropriate peeps:

LITERARY AGENT : Denise Bukowski
Phone:416.928.6728
Email: info at thebukowskiagency.com
Web: www.thebukowskiagency.com

FILM/TV AGENT : Jody Hotchkiss
Phone: 212.253.0161
Email: jody at haalit.com
Web: www.haalit.com

SPEAKER'S BUREAU : The Lavin Agency
Email: info at thelavinagency.com
Web: www.thelavinagency.com

Neighborhood Watch
Originally aired 11.19.2010

It's amazing just how much drama can take place in the mini-universe of a 
neighborhood. This week we bring you stories of neighbors watching out for 
each other, for better and worse, including a story from CBC's WireTap. 
(originator of the story)

Act Two. Baby Steps.

The story of a father who relies on the help of his neighbors in order to 
take his baby daughter out on a walk. Actor Daniel Beirne reads this excerpt 
from Ryan Knighton's book C'mon Papa: Dispatches From a Dad in the Dark 
(which is not yet available in the US). This story originally aired on CBC's 
WireTap, distributed in the U.S. by Public Radio International. It was 
produced by Jonathan Goldstein and Mira Burt-Wintonick with Cristal Duhaime. 
(9 minutes)

   We love hearing your comments on our shows. Comment emails are circulated 
among all the producers and taken very seriously. Email your thoughts to 
web at thislife.org.
we try to reply to all questions that aren't answered on the website, with 
some exceptions.* It may take a bit, but we'll do our best.

And if you want to send something via snailmail, address it to us at:

This American Life
153 West 27th Street, Suite 1104
New York, NY 10001

Jo Elizabeth

"How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, 
compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of 
the weak and the strong.  Because someday in life you will have been all of 
these."--George Washington Carver, 1864-1943, American scientist

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Deborah Kent Stein" <dkent5817 at att.net>
Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2012 6:34 PM
To: "NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List" <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [blparent] Ryan Knighton's Book

>
>
> I'm all for it!  Whoever finds an address first, please share it!
>
> Debbie
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Jo Elizabeth Pinto" <jopinto at msn.com>
> To: "NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List" <blparent at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2012 7:19 PM
> Subject: [blparent] Ryan Knighton's Book
>
>
>>I did a little research on the Ryan Knighton book featured on This 
>>American Life.  If you were appalled before, check out these details from 
>>Amazon's page on "C'mon Papa" Dispatches from a Dad in the Dark."  This 
>>book is apparently not available to people in the United States--thank 
>>God.  It will be at some point, though.
>>
>>
>> Editorial Reviews
>> Review
>> NATIONAL BESTSELLER
>>
>> "Every new parent behaves like they're the first human to have given 
>> birth, and you don't always want to be seated beside them at a dinner 
>> party. What makes Knighton special is that, being blind, he's exquisitely 
>> attuned to every detail of the experience, every moment of joy and 
>> embarrassment, in a way that can make the merely sighted feel frankly 
>> unperceptive. His book made me want to have another kid, just to see what 
>> I missed the first time round."
>> - Daniel Richler, author of Kicking Tomorrow
>>
>> "A warm, insightful and very funny book. Knighton is a writer you enjoy 
>> in the moment and think about later."
>> - Timothy Taylor, author of Stanley Park
>>
>> "Ryan Knighton can't see, true. But his capacity to look inward, to 
>> create a landscape of what it is to be a blind parent, is nothing short 
>> of profound. He's also hilarious, and I'm warning you, you're going to 
>> cry, too. C'mon Papa is a memoir like no other, about a life like no 
>> other."
>> - Alicia Erian, author of Towelhead
>>
>> "Painfully funny. Whether he's writing about almost getting run over, 
>> role-playing a cervix or losing his infant daughter in the snow, Knighton 
>> is wise, witty, moving and assured."
>> - Annabel Lyon, author of The Golden Mean
>>
>> "A wonderful writer with a gift for laughter when the situation requires 
>> it; and even when it doesn't, he is still able to make it work. . . . 
>> Incredibly honest, eloquent and moving."
>> - Ottawa Citizen
>>
>> "Funny and moving, this is neither a fact-driven public service 
>> announcement nor a romanticized representation of blindness. . . . 
>> Well-written, thoughtful and engaging, this is a discussion of parenting 
>> with a difference, a book valuable not so much because it tells a 
>> remarkable story but because it tells its story remarkably well."
>> - Winnipeg Free Press
>> &#16...
>>
>>
>> Ryan Knighton's humorous and perceptive tales of fatherhood take us 
>> inside an unusual new family, one bound by its father's particular 
>> darkness and light.
>>
>> C'mon Papa is Ryan Knighton's heartbreaking and hilarious voyage through 
>> the first year of fatherhood. Becoming a father is a stressful, daunting 
>> rite of passage to be sure, but for a blind father, the fears are 
>> unimaginably heightened. Ryan will have to find novel ways to adapt to 
>> nearly every aspect of parenting: the most basic skills are nearly 
>> impossible to contemplate, let alone master. And how will Ryan get to 
>> know this pre-verbal bundle of coos and burps when he can't see her 
>> smile, or look into her eyes for hints of the person to come?
>>
>> But this is no pity party, and Ryan has no time for sentimentality. 
>> Tackling these hurdles with grace and humour, Ryan is determined to do 
>> his part - and this is where the fun starts. From holding his daughter as 
>> she wails into the night to their first nerve-wracking walk to the cafe, 
>> no activity between father and daughter is without its pitfalls. In his 
>> struggle to "see" Tess, Ryan reimagines the relationship between father 
>> and child during that first chaotic year.
>>
>> C'mon Papa: Dispatches from a Dad in the Dark is Ryan Knighton's second 
>> memoir, written after the birth of his daughter, Tess. (I reviewed 
>> Knighton's Cockeyed: a Memoir in April.) In his latest book, Knighton 
>> writes of his experiences as a blind father raising a daughter.
>>
>> C'mon Papa is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the 
>> conception, where Knighton's wife Tracy suffers a miscarriage as a result 
>> of a molar pregnancy. Tracy goes through chemotherapy and the Knightons 
>> must wait a year before trying again to conceive. The second part is 
>> about the birth and Knighton's trials with an infant. The third part 
>> deals with blind life with a two-year-old. I did not find this story as 
>> funny as Cockeyed, although it still was a book I couldn't put down. 
>> Knighton writes of his failures at diaper-changing and baby-minding. 
>> After a heavy snowfall, Knighton loses his daughter while they are 
>> playing outside and there is a sense of panic that infects the reader 
>> until they are reunited. More tales of near-disaster, or even near-death, 
>> are included. The toughest time for Knighton is trying to care for Tess 
>> while she is a baby. It gets easier for him when she is a toddler since 
>> she, even at the age of two, can walk and see and lead her father around.
>>
>> Unfortunately I missed seeing Ryan at an author appearance in Toronto 
>> while I was in Halifax in early May. It would have been a pleasure to 
>> meet him; even more so now that I have read his latest memoir.
>>
>>
>> Maybe we should write to This American Life and ask that equal airtime be 
>> given to competency.
>>
>> Jo Elizabeth
>>
>> "How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, 
>> compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant 
>> of the weak and the strong.  Because someday in life you will have been 
>> all of these."--George Washington Carver, 1864-1943, American scientist
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