A Blind Writer's Notebook A monthly column by M. Leona Godin.

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

Embracing the stigma and using it as a weapon feels punk.

Nov 21, 2019
How Helen Keller’s Vaudeville Stint Inspired Me as an Artist

The idea of exploitation seemed to me fraught with assumptions about what a blind person is supposed to do and be—assumptions that insist blind people be poets and prophets, saints or beggars, not lowbrow entertainers.

Jan 29, 2019
When People See Your Blindness as Superhuman, They Stop Seeing You as Human

The sixth sense, second sight, third eye. We are supposed to have both extra-accurate hearing and perfect pitch, more numerous and more acute taste buds, a finer touch, a bloodhound’s sense of smell.

Nov 29, 2018
Parting the Sea, and Why the White Cane is a Symbol of Power, Not Helplessness

I felt that whipping out the white cane would irrevocably launch me into the kingdom of the blind, and, for many years, I did not want to go there.

Oct 15, 2018
Mourning My Lost Dark as a Blind Artist

For me, distinctions between light and dark have dissolved as my blindness has worsened. I do not experience blindness as darkness or blackness.

Aug 14, 2018
Are Blind People Denied Their Sexuality?

The contortions that people will undergo to desexualize me, a blind woman, can be overwhelming.

Jul 17, 2018
The Blind Feeding the Lame: Growing Disabled with Dad

As I turned into a blind person, my dad metamorphosed into a disabled person.

Jun 13, 2018
E-Books, Accessibility, Luddites, and the Techno-Dazzled

“Blind and print-handicapped readers do not have the luxury of deciding whether they will go old-school and deny the digital age.”

May 01, 2018
Reading Blind

An awesome braille reader’s fingers move smoothly across the page. My fingers, however, move like caterpillars on Klonopin.

Mar 06, 2018
Cancer Vs. Blindness

Blindness can be a pain in the ass, and infantilizing, even depressing sometimes, but it is not cancer.

Feb 01, 2018