Category: There Plant Eyes

My Portrait—Graffitied By Me—Hanging Out with the Mayor in City Hall

Almost ten years ago, I was invited to the SoHo studio of artist Roy Nachum. He had me choose colors and paint my portrait on a big piece of paper on the wall.. It basically consisted of long stripes of hair and round sunglasses. I think I chose silver and black. I was wearing gold and black and purple. He… Read more

Reading Club Discussion Guide for ‘There Plant Eyes’

February is Low Vision Awareness Month, and I’m honored that There Plant Eyes was chosen as one of 3 Reading Club books by the NNLM (Network of the National Library of Medicine). Here’s the announcement, and here’s TPE featured plus other vision resources. Below is the discussion guide I created for them. I hope it will be useful for other… Read more

‘Ulysses’ and Joyce’s Blind Community * Excerpt from an Article by Dr. Cleo Hanaway-Oakley

“Ulysses at 100: Why Joyce was so Obsessed with the Perfect Blue Cover” is a delightful article at The Conversation by Dr Cleo Hanaway-Oakley. It’s not only a fun deep dive into the famous blue cover, but it’s also about Joyce’s interest in blindness and the blind community. It is in this context that There Plant Eyes is referenced!: Blindness… Read more

“The Best Books on Blindness and the Brain” at Shepherd.com

The Best Books on Blindness and the Brain on Shepherd.com is a grateful nod to the authors that deepened the sciencey bits of There Plant Eyes! Oliver Sacks, John Locke, Lawrence Rosenblum, Jason Roberts, & @DavidEagleman—whose book Livewired came out after I’d finished TPE but surely would have been in there. Why I wrote this Blindness and the Brain list… Read more

TPE Book Celebration and Conversation with Steve Kuusisto and Elizabeth Bearden at NYU (In-Person & Online)

Co-sponsored by the Modern and Contemporary Colloquium and the Center for Disability Studies at NYU There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness (Pantheon, 2021) is now out in paperback! To mark the occasion, author M. Leona Godin (NYU) will be joined by Stephen Kuusisto (Syracuse University) and Elisabeth Bearden (University of Wisconsin, Madison) to read from their… Read more

“Revealing and Rewarding Work of Impressive Scholarship” * ‘There Plant Eyes” Review by Author Lazarus Belle

Every author knows how important reviews are, and although we all like to hate on Amazon, it’s a very good place for finding and publishing public reviews. Of course Goodreads is the other biggie. My friend and fellow author published this thoughtful review of There Plant Eyes (now out in paperback) in both places, and to show my appreciation (and… Read more