Tag: blindness

Footnote on ‘Invisible Child’ by Andrea Elliott

Andrea Elliott was recently announced as the Pulitzer winner in nonfiction for Invisible Child: poverty, survival, and hope in an American city (Random House, 2021). I was honored to have a conversation with her during the Virtual Monster Book Tour for There Plant Eyes. During that conversation and others over the past couple years, we’ve talked about visibility and invisibility.… Read more

NY Times & Inside Edition, Books & Bakes, Scent &Architecture, Hyacinths & Timberlines, and AP open for submissions!

New beginnings collide with old haunts in recent months as Alabaster and I settle back into New-York-City living. A sudden teaching gig landed me back at NYU, helping out a favorite former professor as the oldest TA in the world, . And on the other side of things, I was honored that the New York Times let me weigh in… Read more

The Brain-Smashing, Pity-Bashing Art of Blind Punks

“You must sing like an angel,” a woman said to me as I prepared to go onstage with my “Avant Accordion Brain Smash” act in a Brooklyn warehouse performance space. She either did not notice my hand-sewn black bustier, or decided that my white cane rendered all the badassery surrounding it null. When I began bellowing about some murderous renaissance… Read more

Looking at Ebooks & Accessibility With 20/20 Vision in 2020

One definition of legal blindness is having a visual acuity that is best corrected to only 20/200. That means that even wearing glasses, a person can see no better than 20/200 using the standard eye chart. It also means that a person who is legally blind may walk around without a white cane or guide dog, but nonetheless cannot read… Read more

Tap. Tap. Tap. Joyce’s Blind Stripling in honor of White Cane Safety Day

*Parts of This introductory essay first appeared for White Cane Safety Day 2018 at Catapult* “God’s curse on you,” said the blind stripling sourly to the oblivious passerby who’d knocked his cane, “whoever you are! You’re blinder nor I am, you bitch’s bastard!” The blind stripling is one of the hundreds of Dublin characters who crisscross Ulysses. His unfortunate encounter… Read more