[stylist] A New Member
Donna Hill
penatwork at epix.net
Sat Dec 27 23:56:11 UTC 2008
Judith,
I think there's something to that, but I also think it may be a matter
of how the blind person uses body language which is easier for deaf
people to pick up. I'm not saying there isn't a social stigma around
deafness; I remember a story when I lived in Philadelphia of a deaf man
who was assaulted by a bus driver, who took his imperfect speech as a
sign of drunkenness.
Donna
--
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Performing Arts Division of the National Federation of the Blind
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Judith Bron wrote:
> Could it be that deafness is more acceptable than blindness is that
> deaf people don't look different? In many cases the blind person's
> eyes look different from the sighted person's eyes. Judith
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Donna Hill" <penatwork at epix.net>
> To: "NFBnet Writer's Division Mailing List" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Friday, December 26, 2008 6:45 PM
> Subject: Re: [stylist] A New Member
>
>
>> 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
>>
>> --
>> 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:
>>> 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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