The Heritage Month Project: "Blind Man's Bluff" by James Tate Hill

While Disability Pride Month (July) is recognized by a number of groups, it doesn't appear to have ever been observed by the U.S. government as a heritage month. Nonetheless, July was kind of free as heritage month reading goes, and what you might call disability literature isn't something I think I've ever sought out, so I decided to go for it.

You can find lists of books featuring disability. I was attracted to Mystery – The Disability Book Archive,  but then was thrown because it included a book about vampires, who I don't think of as disabled. (This led me to much speculating about what, exactly,  disability is, which I will spare you. You're welcome.) I wish now that I'd spent more time going through The Disability Book Archive's other genre offerings.  I did look at Book Riot's 20 Must-Read Fiction and Nonfiction Books About the Disability Experience, though. It had a lot of memoir, and I was hoping for fiction at that point.

Yes, I am so freaking picky.

One way or another, it's the end of July, and I've only read one disability-related book, the memoir Blind Man's Bluff by James Tate Hill. I ran into Hill on BlueSky, where he comes across as being very congenial. (The first thing I look for in a writer, I guess.) His memoir describes his efforts to hide his blindness, something he had a shot at doing, because he became legally blind in his mid-teens, being left with some modest vision. (I think the cover of his book is an attempt at replicating what he can see.) The book is also described as humorous, which is always a draw for me.

So here was an intriguing situation, with humor. I was in. 

First, Hill does have a dry, self-deprecating sense of humor that I definitely appreciate. 

Second, what most intrigued me about this book was not the disability/blindness. What intrigued me was the way it was about transitioning from high school to college and from college to the work world and from single life to married life. Yes, Hill had to do all these things I recognize while working out how he would get his college reading done, how he would mentally map out how he'd get to classes, how he would find the men's room in restaurants and bars, and how he would, as a college instructor, deal with the issue of students raising their hands to speak, since he couldn't see them. Also, he risked his life every time he crossed a road. But there was still much that he was living through that many seeing people live through, also.

I don't want to downplay the significance of the blindness Hill deals with. But what struck me about this book was not how different he is, but how much he is the same. He just can't see.

The "Bluff" Aspect of This Book

The young Hill didn't like to address his vision with new people. He didn't like to talk about what he couldn't do. When he did feel he had to deal with it, with new people he expected to have to interact with in the future, for instance, he would say something about having blindspots that made it too hard to do something. "Too hard. Never impossible. Not once had I ever said I can't drive; it was always I don't drive, which wasn't a lie. I didn't drive. If that particular verb left room for one to infer choice, so be it."

That idea of choice seems significant to me. When he lost his sight at sixteen due to Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy, Hill didn't just lose his vision. He lost the choice to do so many things, choices that sighted people have. And that may be a big factor in why he tried to keep his blindness to himself as much as he could. He didn't want to make his lack of choice obvious to the world.

At one point, though, he says, "I had accomplished less than many blind people who acknowledged their disability."

He was still young, though. He had time.

The Writer Aspect of This Book

I'm not sure if I've read other writer memoirs. I can recall reading my-mother-was-horrible memoirs and my-oddball-dad memoirs and collections of essays about aging women or young humor writers. I can't believe I've never read a writer memoir, but I have to say that Hill as a young writer seemed familiar to me not because I'd read about writers, but because I am one.

He writes about how he became a reader after he lost his sight, through audio books. He writes about editing his work. He quotes F. Scott Fitzgerald. He gets an agent!

This, to me, illustrated that a disability isn't everything a person is. This person was a writer like me. In fact, one who right now is doing more than I am professionally.

I am still here, though. I have time, too.

The Memoirist Now

I don't want to say. I don't want to take another writer's story. Read his book. Oh, wait! I will share that there was a section of this book, which was probably the most painful, and that was only marginally involved with his blindness. Unless, of course, I've got that wrong and it was intricately involved with his blindness. Anyway, that was a part that really kept drawing me in in a when-is-what-I-am-damn-sure-is-going-to-happen going to happen? way.

A Couple of Other Options

While going over disability reading lists, I did find a couple of novels I'd read. And written about here!

Tru Biz by Sarah Novic, an adult book that deals with a deaf school that both my sister (for what that's worth) and I liked. It also won the Alex Award.

The War That Saved My Life , a middle grade book by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, turned up somewhere on a disability reading list. This is a book I liked, and I liked the sequel even more. These are books that fall into the World War II British child evacuation genre. I'm assuming there's a genre, because there are so many of them. Not complaining about that. I have enjoyed a lot of those books. In this one, main character Ada has a clubfoot that was ignored by her abusive mother. 

If you followed my link to my post on the subject, you saw that I didn't even mention Ada's disability. I had trouble recalling it until I read a review of the book at a site that focuses on disability. What was my thinking about that? Can't even begin to guess.

I do think that the reading I've done this month, limited as it was, will change my perception of how disability is portrayed in the future.

I don't have any Heritage Month reading planned for August. I hope I can use that time to read ahead for September.

I Went For A Book Walk Last Weekend Part 1

Last weekend I attended the Book Walk organized by Nutmeg Lit Fest in Wethersfield, Connecticut. A one-mile round trip walk on a ridiculously nice day.

Nutmeg Lit Fest is an organization that promotes its Connecticut writer members. Because many of those members are self-published, they may not get many opportunities for their books to be featured in bookstores. (Two million books are supposed to be published annually. Bookstores can't absorb all of them.) Self-published writers, then, have to rely on handselling. The Nutmeg Lit Fest Facebook group provides support for these writers, publicizing their events.

Additionally, Nutmeg Lit Fest's partners, among them Heidi Rocha (sorry I don't have the names of the others), organize events like Old Wethersfield Book Walk for its authors to meet the public and sell books in unique venues such as shopping areas with foot traffic or at town events. The writers bring some shoppers to the area, the area already has shoppers, and a sort of symbiotic/mutualism relationship is created. (No, I don't know much about biology. Let's think metaphorically here, okay?)

Heidi Rocha

There used to be a few traditional literary festivals in Connecticut, but they began disappearing even before the pandemic. We cannot blame the loss of the Connecticut Children's Book Fair on that. With book festivals. though, readers/shoppers still have to come to the books, just as they have to come to the books in bookstores. The Connecticut Children's Book Fair was successful, pulling in 2,000 people a weekend I was told once, but those were people interested in children's books and willing to make their way to the fair. The fair was in Storrs, home of the main University of Connecticut campus. No one has ever called Storrs a convenient location.

Something Different

One of at least 4 Book Walk stops

What Nutmeg Lit Fest does that is different is bring books to people instead of hoping people will come to the books. Last weekend that set-up worked very well.

The Authors Guild Bulletin includes a chapter called The Cruelty—and Possibilities— of 21st-Century Book Promotion by Michael Castleman (The Untold Story of Books). In it Castleman says that an average of 2 million books a year are published, as I've already mentioned. Eighty percent of those books, he says, including books from traditional publishers, will sell fewer than 100 copies, a figure I've seen before. 

Even if you subtract textbooks, which have a captive audience, from the 2 million yearly published books, we're still talking hundreds of thousands of books coming out every single year, piled up on top of what was published in years past. I don't know how many readers are out there, but I'm going to stick my head out that there aren't hundreds of thousands of them. All the regular readers who read multiple...or many... books a year, cannot read all the books that are being turned out.

On Saturday, one of the writers I spoke to said he (or she, I truly can't remember who it was) had sold 200 copies of a book in a few months. That didn't sound like much until I read Castleman's article yesterday and was reminded of the 100-copy figure. 

Which brings me back to Nutmeg Lit Fest and the something different it does. Because Nutmeg Lit Fest takes its authors out into the community, it is exposing its authors and their books to people in the community who may not be traditional readers who would go to a bookstore or a literary festival. 

To sell more books, you have to find more readers. You have to create readers who were not readers before. You don't do this in bookstores and literary festivals, which attract people who are already readers. You have to go where the nonreaders are.

Handselling Is A Lot Of Work

Back in my day, boys and girls, as a traditionally published writer I could rely on my publisher to do the bulk of my bookselling. I created a website, started blogging, marketed myself as a speaker to schools, and became involved with social media. It seemed like a lot to do at the time, especially when it is so difficult to determine your Return on Investment for any individual book marketing attempt. Except for situations like school appearances that might involve the school selling your books to students or even buying some, it's hard to tell which things you did that resulted in a sale.

The writers I've been seeing at the Nutmeg Lit Fest Facebook page (I'm a member) and at the two events it sponsored that I attended are doing a great deal more. I'll get into more of that in my next post.

What I will say for now is that in days of old, I had a network of sorts with children's writers in New England. These days I am building connections with writers in Connecticut. 

Gerald E. Augustine

I've met Gerald E. Augustine, author of Vietnam Beyond and the subject of Passion in Life, twice now. Same with Heidi Roche. There were at least two other authors at Saturday's event that I've met.

Wesleyan University Press

Wesleyan University Press, a Connecticut publisher, had a table at Saturday's event. Though this was my first contact with the organization, I used to know Susan Campbell, the author of a couple of the books it was featuring. 

Jennifer Regan-Lefebre

Another university press, University of California Press, published Jennifer Regan-Lefebre's book, Imperial Wine, which interested me because while I only drink cheap wine (but not that cheap) I am a sucker for history books, which is what Imperial Wine is. I had not met Jennifer before, but she is a historian, and I am a history reader. She's also a professor at Trinity College in Hartford, which, wouldn't you know it, I did not attend. But years ago, I'm talking maybe decades, I somehow managed to wrangle my way into a free essay symposium there. (I did something similar at UConn. I used to be shameless. Now I'm too lazy to do things like that.) Anyway, I feel connection, people. It takes very little for me to feel that. 

Next time I'll be covering other writers who appeared at Old Wethersfield Book Walk and discussing some of the marketing they're doing.

What Passes for Professional Self-improvement Here

My Personal Short Story Study

Over the last few months, I've been "studying" short story writing by going over notes from workshops I've taken. I'm done with that. Now I've started going through material I've collected and saved on the subject, including an article listing the best short stories to teach yourself how to write. 

So far, these seem like the best short stories to encourage you to give up writing altogether. Or maybe even reading.

Pinterest

Then today I read Pinterest Is My Best-Kept Author Marketing Secret by Melissa Bourbon at Jane Friedman. Bourbon says that followers don't matter at Pinterest, because it's a search engine. You can use it to direct people to your writing.

Well, I'm on Pinterest, and though I don't have much to sell, I thought maybe I could use it to encourage people to read my humor, essays, and short stories. Maybe I could use Pinterest to get my name out for that kind of writing now that I'm not writing children's books.

Well, I took a look at my Pinterest boards, which I haven't touched in 3 years. As you can see from the menu to the left, I don't even link to it here. I think I forgot about it. I sure hope followers truly don't matter there, because I only have 14. And the page seems kind of a mess of both my writing, my design work for characters in books that never found publishers, and things I'm just interested in. (Learning French!) 

I did a little searching to see what other writers are doing on Pinterest, and it seems the same. Though they seem to have more boards. And are there all that many writers there? Really? 

So maybe I'll do a little work on Pinterest, but it will be low priority.

Lower than the short story study.