[stylist] writing about blindness

Sun Mar 23 20:51:44 UTC 2014

Atty,
I was told that I wasn't blind; I just had "bad eyes." I was definitely
ashamed too, but I come from a family that displays a lot of anger. My Dad,
who worked for the railroad post office in the '50s, was "going postal" long
before the phrase came into popular use.
Donna

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Atty Rose
Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2014 8:24 AM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: Re: [stylist] writing about blindness

I didn't go through any sort of anger, I went through feeling like I wasn't
as good as sighted people, so I did my best to be one of them. It took many
years and actually meeting and admireing some blind people, Robert our
writers president, for one, to realize that I didn't have to be ashamed of
it. My family really ignored it, and in some ways that was good, in others
it made me feel like it was something I shouldn't ever mention or talk
about.

I didn't have the best home ever. LOL

When i grew up, I made a better home.

Atty

----- Original Message -----
From: "Applebutter Hill" <applebutterhill at gmail.com>
To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2014 10:18 PM
Subject: Re: [stylist] writing about blindness

> 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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>
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