[stylist] A New Member

Fri Dec 26 23:45:56 UTC 2008

John,
I understand your perspective and I am writing a novel with a blind 
character, but having grown up trying to be sighted and being taught to 
be sighted, I have information from that world as well and have written 
some fiction with non blind characters, simply to avoid having the story 
be about blindness, when the real point is more complicated as well as 
universal.

I also can't help wondering, especially reading this particular post, 
about the difference between the blind and deaf communities.  If the 
blind community were as large, independent and self-integrated as the 
deaf community and if blindness were as socially acceptable as deafness 
-- i.e., Marly Maitlin is a superstar and the only blind woman anyone 
knows is Helen Keller who died over fifty years ago, well, perhaps there 
would be a market for blindness-related literature.
Donna

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

John Lee Clark wrote:
> Shelley:
>
> Aside from my six-year run as publisher of my own publishing operation, I
> have been involved in the publishing world for twelve years.  I've worked
> with many, many writers, about half of them hearing sighted and the other
> deaf sighted with a few deafblind.  While the quality of the writing always
> plays a role in whether or not something gets published, the deaf writers'
> writing from the deaf perspective is always, always an advantage.
>
> No, I don't mean one needs to make a conscious effort to write "about" being
> deaf, in the didactic sense.  Just write about life--love, crime, family,
> whatever--but through deaf eyes, drawing from the deaf writer's own
> observations and sensations.  Ha Jin, the well-known writer, made the point
> in his latest book that there are too many writers who write about stuff
> they learned in a secondhand fashion, and readers can pick it up, even
> though they may not be conscious.  The writer's describing his or her own
> genuine observations and experiences for the purpose of describing things is
> very important and lends the work with an aura of, a vibe exuding
> authenticity.
>
> So that's one benefit of writing exactly what you know.  Another boon to any
> writer is any type of outsiderhood.  If you look back on the annals of
> literature, those who are "different" from the establishment population but
> don't write from that different perspective don't get published often, or if
> they do, their work wears off quickly and they are forgotten.  Take the
> example of Thomas Caldwell, who was deaf, but wrote as if he wasn't.  Who
> knows him now?  Or take Richard Wright, a wonderful and groundbreaking
> African American writer.  All of his books are still in print, except one,
> and that was the only book he wrote about only white people.
>
> You understand, there are tens of thousands sighted people writing and
> trying to get published.  So I cannot imagine any use in adding more of the
> same types of material to that pot.  There are only a limited number of
> genres and plots, and they all have been done over and over again.  But if
> you're blind, and you're privileged to have different sensations and a
> different touch in your observations, that's quite a blessing and will help
> your work stand out amidst the awful racket of the same old, same old that
> editors endure reading through week after week.
>
> Now, my deaf writer friends, they all have found their most important and
> rewarding publishing credits through their deaf material.  Many of them,
> before they started workring with me, wrote only mainstream stuff, thinking
> they would have a better chance.  Not so.  Take Raymond Luczak: He has
> written over forty plays, but only twelve with deaf characters.  Thirteen of
> his plays have been produced.  All twelve deaf plays and one not make up the
> thirteen, leaving the rest of his "hearing" plays still collecting dust.  He
> has written four novels, only one with deaf characters.  No surprise: The
> three mainstream works remain unpublished and the deaf one won a prestigious
> fellowship and also a national first-novel contest and will be coming out
> soon.  Raymond's "hearing" stuff is good and worthy of publication, but the
> problem is that there are so many equally good stuff these days, because
> there are so many well-trained writers from all those MFA programs.  Those
> who get published are the ones with unique voices, original twists, or those
> who bring to the reader authentic tastes of different worlds.
>
> I once got a story from a good deaf writer.  It was about the Titanic.  A
> couple gets separated at the end, the woman rowed away while the man sinks
> with the ship.  It was wonderfully researched and detailed.  The writing was
> smooth and luminous.  In all the fundamental areas, it was a superb story.
> But it was never picked up, and the deaf writer could not understand why
> not, since it was one of her very best efforts.  The reason, of course, is
> that the Titanic as the backdrop for a love story has been done to death.
> It was already worn threadbare even before that movie with Leo and Kate.  
>
> But what if the couple was deaf?  They wake up because of the great
> commotion outside their room sending vibrations to them.  They ask each
> other what's going on.  Outside their room, they see people running.  They
> try to get someone to write to them on a notepad, but they're all panicked.
> So they have to investigate, and gradually, from all the visual information,
> they begin to understand.  A sailor tries to put the deaf woman in line for
> getting on a lifeboat, but she doesn't want to be separated from her
> husband.  All sorts of misunderstandings, issues, correctives, etc. occur.
> And at the end, a twist on the classic separation thing: The deaf woman
> decides to sink with her husband, so strong is their bond with each other as
> they come from a small community and the deaf woman cannot imagine venturing
> out on her own amidst all those hearing strangers.  
>
> Now, isn't that a much better story?  A blind couple on the Titanic would
> likewise be much better than the mainstream version and would definitely
> stand out!
>
> Incidentally, some of the hearing writers I've worked with but who have
> connectins to the Deaf world, they also have found greater success in
> publishing their work relating to the Deaf world as opposed to their more
> mainstream fare.  Take Morgan Grayce Willow, an ASL interpreter.  Her
> biggest book credit is her work on interpreting.  Her most prestigious
> magazine credit is for her essay "Double Language," about her experiences as
> an interpreter.  She has published other stuff, but with much more
> difficulty and less compensation.  Or take Pia Taavila, a wonderful poet and
> professor of English, who is the daughter of deaf parents, or a CODA as we
> call people like her--Children of Deaf Adults.  She has written both
> mainstream stuff and stuff having to do with her upbringing in a Deaf home
> and her continued link with the Deaf community.  You guessed it again: Her
> Deaf-related poems are more readily published and get higher praise.
>
> It is not that they can't get published without the deaf material.  They can
> and have.  But it is against greater, much greater odds that they do.  Here
> and there, they are able to be heard, able to be distinguished from the rest
> clamoring for the same editor's attention.  And it's not that writing from a
> different perspective will automatically get you published.  The writing
> still has to be good.  But it is a huge advantage in arresting the editor's
> attention, curiosity, and interest.
>
> I don't know how the deaf writers could possibly try to write mainstream
> stuff, or how you could avoid writing as a blind writer, but I never could,
> never wanted to.  It feels fake and contrived to me.  It would take too much
> effort to pretend, to write about auditory things I never heard, to write
> visual descriptions of what I have never seen.  I am of the opinion that
> "'catering" to the mainstream audience is self-defeating, because there are
> many writers that produce mainstream stuff and it's not like they're
> "catering" but they're genuine because they ARE mainstream.  I have always
> written straight from who and what I am.  And I am not complaining about my
> inability to write mainstream stuff because I've been published in POETRY
> magazine twice, while there are thousands of poets who can only dream about
> ever getting there; I've been published in McSWEENEY'S, America's most hip
> literary journal; I've won all those awards; my work has been broadcast on
> radio, including on the "Poem of the Day" program on Martha Stewart; I'm
> being interviewed by someone from The New Yorker right now; I've been a
> featured poet at an international cultural arts festival, flown there
> first-class and with all expenses paid . . .   so I guess I must be doing
> something right.
>
> No, that was not to brag at all.  That was purely to make my point, to make
> my case for writing from a different angle, and to encourage you and others
> to try doing that.  Hey, it can't hurt to try, can it?
>
> John 
>
>  
>
>
>
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