[stylist] writing about blindness

Sun Mar 23 03:18:31 UTC 2014

Bridgit,
There seems to be a thing with the sighted that they want to have some
closure about coming to terms with blindness. I suppose it's that way with a
lot of the things that they consider insurmountable. I know there are books
and novels about coming to terms with this or that. Personally, I don't get
it. Blindness isn't something I feel I have to come to terms with -- at
least not in the sense that you go through some emotional upheaval and
ultimately accept it. To me, the bigger issues are all of the things that we
have to learn to deal with, the pity, humiliation, the negative assumptions.
We never know what offensive reaction we're going to confront next. It goes
from the sublime to the ridiculous, and it can throw a person off track. To
me, that's a life-long issue; there isn't some way of defining it and
putting it in a box and never having to grapple with it again.
Donna

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Bridgit
Pollpeter
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2014 4:26 PM
To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [stylist] writing about blindness

I had a prof in a workshop class tell me I needed to explore blindness as a
topic, especially my own blindness. I wrote one essay about it, which she
raved about. My next essay had nothing to do with blindness, and she
wondered why. When I said I wanted to write about other topics, she didn't
understand.

"But don't you want to explore your feelings about it? Don't you want to
seek out why this happened and how it affects your life?"

"Um, I've already discovered a lot about my blindness and how I feel about
it."

Oh? Really?"

"Yes, I've been blind for a while; I really don't have any personal
exploration about it."

Thankfully she understood after this convo. Because she was so interested
and wondered how she might deal with it, she assumed I was still in that
place. She never asked me to write about blindness again until I took a
fiction workshop with her. Then my only fully-realized, three-dimensional
characters were when I wrote blind characters, which I did once. I think
this was more her fuzzy perspective on the issue than my writing is only
good when I have blind characters, but who knows?

Bridgit

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Atty Rose
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2014 9:40 AM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: [stylist] writing about blindness

One afternoon my sister and I are having lunch. I told her I was working on
a story, the one that I sold to Breath and Shadow, as it were, and she says,
"You should write about being blind and blindness."

I bristled at this. I said "Why is that?"

She said, "Cause it is interesting and you know all about it."

I said, "I didn't think it was all that interesting and I didn't know all
about it at all."

She said, "You should do it.'

I said, "that is like me saying you should write about blonds and being
blond, cause you have been that way a lot longer than I've been blind."

She didn't see what I meant but she dropped it. LOL

Sheesh...

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bridgit Pollpeter" <bpollpeter at hotmail.com>
To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 10:57 PM
Subject: Re: [stylist] bios and cover letters

> Yes, and sometimes, the focus becomes about blindness. If all you
> write about is blindness, than maybe, but most of us write about a lot

> of things.
>
> Once people learn I'm blind, they tend to want me to write only about
> it. I don't mind this, but I have a lot of other things to say, to
> write about, and I don't want to be pigeon-holed.
>
> And when you think about it, need we state other things about us? My
> name may be a clue, but do I need to say I'm a female writer? Do I
> need to say I'm a mother or wife who writes? Unless it pertains to a
> guideline or subject, I say less is more.
>
> Bridgit
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
> Applebutter Hill
> Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 10:07 PM
> To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
> Subject: Re: [stylist] bios and cover letters
>
>
> Atty,
> Some of the blindness and disability publications want you to include
> something about it, but other than that, I am trying to say as little
> as possible about it. I decided to leave something in on my LinkedIn
> profile, because I am trying to connect with people in the blindness
> professions and activists. But, that said, I still push it down into
> the text as far as possible. Blindness is part of who I am, but I want

> people to know about some of the other parts of me before they find
> out.
>
> I wouldn't personally say that I am a blind writer. I'm a writer and
> write about this that and the other thing. I was the first legally
> blind kid mainstreamed in my school district. That way they don't
> pigeonhole your writing yet they find out you're blind in a way that
> keeps it in perspective. Just my two cents. Donna
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Atty
> Rose
> Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 5:28 PM
> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
> Subject: [stylist] bios and cover letters
>
> Hi gang,
>
> When you send a bio to a magazine, they want cover letter, brief bio,
> that sort of thing, do you write that you are a blind writer working
> blah blah, living blah blah....
>
> In other words, do you mention your blindness? I did for Breath and
> Shadow but none of the other ones.
>
> What are your thoughts on the matter?
>
> Atty
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