[Nfbk] Ruston novelist and Braille instructor shares his inspirations and struggles

[Kevin Pearl]

Ruston novelist and Braille instructor shares his inspirations and struggles. 

Jerry Whittle, a former Braille instructor, is a writer.

He has self-published three novels based loosely on his experiences growing up in South Carolina. The novels — “Slingshot,” “Standing with Better Angels” and “Two Hearts Make a Bridge” — are available on the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes and Noble Nook.

The novels also deal with living with vision loss. Whittle has written his books without being able to see his computer screen.

“Because I cannot see people,” said Whittle, “I found myself remembering what my friends looked like, so I used my family and friends as means to describe characters.”

The novelist has suffered from vision loss since he was 15. He first noticed a problem with his sight while playing baseball one night for the American Legion team in Seneca, S.C. where he was born.

“I could not see the ball under artificial lights,” he said, “so I turned in my uniform… and had my eyes examined.”

Whittle was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a form of hereditary vision loss that begins with night blindness. In the years since, he has dedicated his life to education and to writing about the condition of the blind.

Writing presents unique challenges for Whittle. He writes with a voice-activated screen reader and hires personal readers to help him edit. “I do not like the computer voice,” said Whittle. “I prefer a real human voice, and I can tell my reader to add or change something for me.” He usually writes early in the morning, when he feels he will do his best work.

Though recently retired from his 28-year career at the Louisiana Center for the Blind in Ruston, Whittle said that before becoming a Braille instructor, his short stories met with success in literary magazines. “I won a contest and published several stories,” said Whittle. “I even received a fan letter from a college student at the University of Tennessee, who told me to keep up the writing.”

While working at the center, Whittle also wrote 23 plays about the nature of vision loss and blindness, all performed by his students at state and national conventions. He used these plays as outlines and inspiration for his novels.

http://www.thenewsstar.com/article/20140108/NEWS01/301080043
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