[stylist] A New Member

Thu Dec 25 20:43:06 UTC 2008

Donna:

Thanks for the welcome!

Ah, press releases!  I've written too many of them myself and would rather
avoid doing it if I could.  Perhaps the next time I need one, I'll have you
do it!

Aw, shucks re: getting paid only twice.  But then again, the point in
creative writing shouldn't be to get money.  If that was the main goal, one
would probably not reach one's full creative potential.  Still, it is nice
to get money.  The trick here is not to get paid directly for publishing
your work, but to make it pay indirectly.  I've been paid about a total of
four thousand dollars for publishing pieces or poems in various venues, but
I have earned more than thirty six thousand dollars from grants and
fellowships.  My having published many pieces helped me make a strong grant
or fellowship application, you understand.  And then there are the
invitations to present at conferences and schools, most of them coming after
someone read something I wrote and thought I'd be great for them.  Honoria,
you know.  Many writers, though they make no money from royalties,
nevertheless find it easy to secure teaching posts at colleges and
universities.  So the thing to do is plumb such auxiliary sources of
revenue.  

I will be the first to confess that my work doesn't warrant the earnings
I've reaped, for there are many wonderful writers I know who do much better
work and more of it too, but I've made a study of these indirect methods and
have fairly mastered them.  But I am glad I never think about this when I am
creating something, and it's only afterwards that I decide how best to
profit by it.  Perhaps it is because of the kind of poet that I am that
gives me not only the opportunity to be so cunning about this but also the
NECESSITY.  What I mean is that I belong to a certain species of poet who
can only write a poem once every while, in my case, once every two months.
Not prolific at all.  An idea has to marinate for this long before it is
ready to be pinned down on paper.  So, I have the opportunity between one
poem and another, and because of the low productivity, I NEED to wring every
last drop of gold out of each one!

One small advantage to my poetic process, by the way, is that when a poem is
written, it is already the final draft or very near it.

Donna and others, what do you write about?  I am wondering if blind
characters populate your work.  As for me, my work always has something to
do with my deafblindness or my community.  I never write mainstream
material.

Thanks again for giving me a warm welcome!

John

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Donna Hill
Sent: Thursday, December 25, 2008 1:21 PM
To: NFBnet Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: Re: [stylist] A New Member

Hi John,
Welcome to the list.  I am Donna Hill from the Endless Mountains region 
of Pennsylvania.  I was born legally blind from Retinitis Pigmentosa and 
grew up trying to be sighted.  I eventually got my first guide dog after 
graduating from college with a degree in English lit and taught myself 
to read Braille.  I am a songwriter and spent most of my working life 
pursuing my music goals and have three recordings.

All along I have done other types of writing -- poetry, short stories 
and essays.  Currently, I am working on my first novel -- a fantasy -- 
which is about half done.  Most of my time, however, is spent doing 
writing as an advocate for blind people and more specifically for NFB's 
Performing Arts Division (PAD). 

My greatest successes as a writer have been through my work as a 
publicist, first for myself and more recently for PAD.  I always get a 
kick out of it when a newspaper or website prints one of my press 
releases verbatum.  I received a grant many years ago to do a booklet 
called "Unopened Gifts" on inclusion of people with disabilities into 
church communities.  Other than that, I have only been compensated for 
two articles, neither of which was published.  The first was on 
inclusion and was bought by the Lutheran magazine but never published.  
The second is a first-person account of my experiences as a two-time 
breast cancer survivor, which won first prize in a contest this past 
October held by the PR guy Peter Shankman on his Help a Reporter Out 
(HARO) e mail list.  I won a leather computer tote -- so far, I don't 
have a laptop, but I know what I'll be carrying it in when I do get one.

I appreciate the information you gave Judith about grants and the 
importance of fund raising.  PAD has a scholarship for students majoring 
in the performing arts, and it was originally thought that it could be 
funded through sales of the "Sound in Sight" CD, a compilation of 18 
original tracks and covers from different musical genres, all donated by 
blind recording artists.  We are just branching out into trying to raise 
funds through private donations -- not that there wasn't always that 
option,.  I was appointed head of media relations this past July and 
have been trying to generate publicity for the organization with 
profiles of the leadership, press releases about the CD and scholarship 
fund and getting state and federal representatives to give statements 
and allow photos.  So far, our success has been online except a few 
things I've done locally in my own region which is rural.

I'm happy to have you on the list and look forward to your insight.
Donna Hill

-- 
For my bio & to hear clips from The Last Straw:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/donnahill

Apple I-Tunes

phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playListId=259244374

Performing Arts Division of the National Federation of the Blind
www.padnfb.org

John Lee Clark wrote:
> Hello!
>
> I recently subscribed to this list, on the suggestion of Lori Stayer.  I
> would have liked to lurk for a while before introducing myself, but so far
> the list has been awfully quiet, too quiet even for someone who is deaf.
So
> I am going to dip my toes in here.
>
> To introduce myself briefly: My name is John Lee Clark, and I am a native
of
> St. Paul, Minnesota.  I was born deaf to an all-deaf family and so
American
> Sign Language is my first language.  I gradually became blind in early
> adolescence, just as my father did and my younger brother did.  After
> graduating from the Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf--on the other
bank
> of a former river across from where the Minnesota State Academy for the
> Blind is--I studied briefly at Gallaudet but jumped up in love, not fell,
> with Adrean, a deaf girl from North Carolina.  We got married fast and
moved
> to Minnesota.  We've been married for ten years now and have three sons.
> Currently, I am the head of a new service that provides accommodations for
> deafblind people using video relay service.
>
> As for my literary pursuits, my wife and I ran for six years a small press
> devoted to signing community literature both in English and ASL.  But it
> could not support our family, so we've had to turn to other sources of
> income.  I've published many essays, but it's through my poetry that I've
> won the most recognition--awards, grants, fellowships, all that.
Recently,
> my chapbook of poems, Suddenly Slow, came out from Handtype Press.  I've
> also done some independent scholarship on the literature of the deaf and
> deafblind communities.  In March, Gallaudet University Press will come out
> with Deaf American Poetry, which I edited and which is the first
definitive
> text of its kind, covering nearly two centuries of poetry by Deaf
Americans.
> I am nearly done with anther anthology, this time of writings by deafblind
> people all over the world and since 1820.
>
> This should suffice for now!  I would love to learn about who's on this
> list, so please do introduce yourself.
>
> Thanks!
>
> John
>
>
>
>
>   
>
>
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