I usually avoid reading novels and short stories with characters who are blind. Too many fiction writers portray blind characters one-dimensionally — we’re either heroic or tragic, bumbling or, particularly lately, blessed with super-powers. But Anthony Doerr isn’t like other authors. One of the main characters in Doerr’s current best-selling novel All the Light We Cannot See is […]

Whitney usually leads me to the train station in downtown Chicago on her own, but when my gem of a husband, Mike Knezovich, generously offered to walk us this morning, I said “YES!” Reasons: Freezing temperatures — if Whitney and I got lost or turned around for just a few minutes, we’d end up with […]

Beth wrote a post last week about how author Laura Hillenbrand and NPR’s Terry Gross—like Beth—conduct interviews without being able to see their subjects. Of course, that’s owed to very different circumstances for each of them. Not being able to do something in a conventional way can be the mother of invention for other methods that have their […]

When our friend Mary Ivory told me early last year that she and her husband were going to volunteer to raise a puppy for Leader Dogs for the Blind, I asked if she’d be willing to write a blog post about the experience. Mary is a clinical professional counselor, social worker, life coach, and co-author […]

Turns out I’m in good company when it comes to interviewing people without seeing what they look like. Laura Hillenbrand (award-winning author of Sea Biscuit and Unbroken) and Fresh Air’s Terry Gross were both quoted in a New York Times Sunday Magazine story recently saying they actually prefer interviewing people that way. The article explains […]