Publishing seems to think anyone can write a book with a disabled main character. No qualifications needed. They protest against white people writing black or Asian or brown (LatinX), etc., if the author is not of that racial category (I don’t say race because race is a made up social construct.) LGBTQ books are expected to be written by someone who is LGBTQ identified. Yet I have read—tried to read—a score of books with a disabled character when the author has no experience with the disability, as in, they don’t have one.
The reason why I say I have tried to read is because the writers get it wrong. They have no clue what life as a person with a disability is, the internal thinking, so they resort to cliches and stereotypes. They also resort to considerable misinformation. An author in the SF Bay Area wrote a huge chunk of misinformation about a guide dog. Lazy writer. One of the most important guide dog training centers is right there in San Rafael. The author couldn’t be bothered to take a tour to get her facts right? Or did she not like the truth, so rewrote misinformation for her own convenience?
Here are other issues I encounter with blind characters:
- They are afraid to be in crowds.
- They sit in a corner at a party and hope people come to them.
- They wear dark glasses.
- They count steps.
- They end up with the ugly guy because they only care about the heart.
- They get healed before the story can have a happily ever after.
I’m sure I could come up with more, but these are the sorts of things I’ve encountered in books.
I once had an editor reject my story because she said, “A blind woman would never do that.” She thought she knew more than I did about fears and pains of a blind woman. When she learned I am blind, she never apologized. I rather despise her for that. She presumed I knew nothing that I had taken straight from an adoption website because she had “seen differently in the media.”
I was so appalled I nearly gave up writing. What I did give up was writing disabled characters, at least in contemporary fiction.
Now the time has come when I want to write #OwnVoices fiction. I have a short story coming out in an anthology that is #OwnVoices contemporary fiction. I am working on a novel that is also #IwnVoices. I am not candy-coating the hardships of life as a blind woman in our society. In truth, I am emphasizing some serious issues we face too often.
I’m writing it, and will anyone want it? I don’t know. Publishing is inordinately prejudiced against blind people, whether as writers or characters. Realistic characters. My Huffington Post article out a couple of years ago touches on many issues I have faced. Many more exist. When I wrote for a division of Amazon Publishing, I was at a conference book signing. The marketing person came through to introduce herself to the authors. She talked to the person on my left. She talked to the person on my right. She ignored me, though I was looking right at her. Later, she ignored me at the publisher party, though I specifically addressed her—by name.
I wasn’t worth meeting. Despite my books published with them, despite my other books published, despite my awards and nominations for awards, I was unworthy.
I’ve had editors refuse to work with me, and editors who thought me incapable of editing my own work despite it being my twentieth novel. I have had agents refuse to work with me once they learn I’m blind.
Seriously. Apparently my writing changes with the knowledge. Of my blindness. For all I know, some people won’t read my books because they found out I’m blind.
The question I get asked more than any others is: “How do you write?”
Would these same people ask another writer the same thing? Uh, no. I have yet to meet someone sighted who’s been asked such a question.
Being blind in America is like being a Leper in ancient Israel. Even without the guide dog issue, Uber drivers are refusing to take blind people. Not because of dogs; they won’t take blind people who don’t have dogs.
My own publisher, Harlequin, won’t even mention disability on their list of diversities. They say “Or ability”. You know, mentioning race or ethnicity or religion or body type or gender identification is all right, but mentioning disability is shameful. I guess we should all lock ourselves away so the rest of the world doesn’t have to remember we’re around or worry about using words they—not us—consider shameful.
That includes publishers. A few blind people are published in nonfiction. A great book is coming out in June, Their Plant Eyes by M. Leona Godin. But I have only known of four blind people traditionally published in fiction. One says he has never made sell-through*. One seems to no longer be writing as of about 30 years ago. One had a couple books published in the ’60s. Another had one book published in 2012, but nothing since. Godin mentions another book from the ’50s I’ll leave to you to read about in her book.
And then there’s I. More than two dozen books traditionally published and a couple nontraditionally published. Why?
Because, as I have, they have run into prejudice, into obstacles that have thwarted them.