Category: Blind Writer

Blindness as Creative Force – Fall 2026 News & Events

Dear readers, After relying on a barely accessible newsletter platform for almost a decade, I’ve decided to turn my jam-packed newsletters with carefully curated image descriptions into seasonal round-up posts at DrMLGodin.com and AromaticaPoetica.com, and just send out a simple, text-based email blast to alert readers. So here’s the Fall 2026 Blindness as Creative Force Newsletter! Please reach out and… Read more

First Month as an NYPL Cullman Fellow * Photo/Description Journal

From my first mornings entering the New York Public Library as the 2025-26 Jean Strouse Fellow in the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, I knew it would be a very happy year! Perhaps it was the five months away in so many new situations—MacDowell, Yaddo, San Francisco—learning to bumble about with Moses, that made it possible for me to… Read more

Valentin Haüy’s Essai (1786) * On the Education of Blind Children * NYPL Rare books * Image + Description

I wrote about Valentin Haüy and his founding of the first school for blind children in 1785 in There Plant Eyes. My dear friend David Lowe, who is a photo specialist in the Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs at the New York Public Library, read my book (Thanks, David!), and because he did, when he saw Valentin Haüy’s… Read more

Image Description and the Critical Blind Gaze * NYPL Public Lecture

*As a 2023-24 Diamonstein-Spielvogal Fellow at the New York Public Library, I was asked to give a public lecture in the Vartan Gregorian Center for Research in the Humanities on March 8, 2024 called: “Image Description and the Critical Blind Gaze.” Below is the recording of the lecture—including questions from the star-studded audience!—followed by a cleaned-up transcript of my lecture… Read more

New York Public Library Talk: “Image Description and the Critical Blind Gaze” – In-Person on March 8

I’m thrilled to present “Image Description and the Critical Blind Gaze” at The New York Public Library (NYPL) in-person on March 8, 2pm! Free, but please register. About the Talk Author and scholar M. Leona Godin uses photographs in the Library’s collections to explore the strange relationship between sighted photographers and blind subjects. The photography division of The Miriam and… Read more

Neal Slavin’s “Blind Woman” (1963) * Image Descriptions

“New York City, Blind Woman” (1963) is by Neal Slavin, world-respected photographer and film director. I first met Neal, briefly, at the old Lighthouse Music School (now FMDG Music School), where he brought his ICP students to assist him in taking a large group shot of all us students—children and adults, with and without our instruments. More on that photo… Read more