28 May 2023, 7:23am
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “The ride of her life: the true story of a woman, her horse, and their last-chance journey across America” by Elizabeth Letts

Kate’s 2¢: “The ride of her life: the true story of a woman, her horse, and their last-chance journey across America” by Elizabeth Letts

“The ride of her life: the true story of a woman, her horse, and their last-chance journey across America” by Elizabeth Letts

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   This was a wonderful story. I’m so glad Annie made her trek when she did. I’m pretty sure that in 2023, she would not find so many back roads to traverse nor trusting people to aid in her up-keep.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Elizabeth Letts was born on June 23, 1961, in Houston, Texas.[citation needed] She grew up in Southern California. As a teenager, she was a competitive equestrian three-day eventer. She attended Northfield Mount Hermon School and Yale College where she majored in History. She served in the Peace Corps in Morocco.

She is the author of multiple books: Quality of Care; Family Planning; The Butter Man; The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman the Horse that Inspired a Nation, a #1 New York Times bestseller.;,[1] The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis, which reached #5 on the New York Times bestseller list;[2] and Finding Dorothy. Elizabeth Letts also writes women’s fiction under the pen name Nora Carroll.

Her younger brother, John, is a retired professional tennis player.[citation needed]and her father, J. Spencer Letts was a Federal District Court Judge.

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

The ride of her life: the true story of a woman, her horse, and their last-chance journey across America DB107346

Letts, Elizabeth Reading time: 10 hours, 30 minutes.

Tavia Gilbert

Biography

Animals and Wildlife

The triumphant true story of a woman who rode her horse across America in the 1950s, fulfilling her dying wish to see the Pacific Ocean. The author recounts her adventure, which included crushing storms, celebrity encounters, and harrowing stretches of highways. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2021.

Download The ride of her life: the true story of a woman, her horse, and their last-chance journey across America DB107346

20 May 2023, 6:58am
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Killing The Killers” by Bill O’reilly, Martin Dugard

Kate’s 2¢: “Killing The Killers” by Bill O’reilly, Martin Dugard

“Killing The Killers” by Bill O’reilly, Martin Dugard

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,    describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   I was familiar with many of these events as they unfolded throughout the years, but to have them all in one book was difficult to read.  In the first few chapters, the horror of the cruelties and gruesomeness is hard to take; however, by the end of the book, one is a bit inured with it all.

   Let’s face it, both sides were nasty to each other. War is a lose/lose proposition.

Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia

William James O’Reilly Jr.[1] (born September 10, 1949) is an American conservative commentator,[2][3] journalist, author, and television host.

O’Reilly’s broadcasting career began during the late 1970s and 1980s, when he reported for local television stations in the United States and later for CBS News and ABC News. He anchored the tabloid television program Inside Edition from 1989 to 1995. O’Reilly joined the Fox News Channel in 1996 and hosted The O’Reilly Factor until 2017. The O’Reilly Factor had been the highest-rated cable news show for 16 years, and he was described by media analyst Howard Kurtz as “the biggest star in the 20-year history at Fox News” at the time of his ousting.[4][5][6][7][8] He is the author of numerous books and hosted The Radio Factor (2002–2009).[9]

In early 2017, The New York Times reported that he and Fox News had paid five women approximately $13 million to settle various sexual misconduct lawsuits, which led to the network terminating O’Reilly’s employment.[10][11][12][13] An additional New York Times report that O’Reilly paid legal analyst Lis Wiehl $32 million for allegedly initiating a “non-consensual sexual relationship” with her led to him being dropped by the United Talent Agency and literary agency WME.[13] He subsequently began hosting a podcast, No Spin News.[14]

Early life and education

O’Reilly was born on September 10, 1949,[1] at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan to parents William James Sr. and Winifred Angela (Drake) O’Reilly from Brooklyn and Teaneck, New Jersey, respectively.[15] He is of Irish descent with a small degree of English (Colonial American) ancestry.[16] Some of his father’s ancestors lived in County Cavan, Ireland, since the early eighteenth century, and on his mother’s side he has ancestry from Northern Ireland.[17] The O’Reilly family lived in a small apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey, when their son was born.[18] In 1951, his family moved to Levittown on Long Island.[19] O’Reilly has a sister, Janet.[20]

O’Reilly attended St. Brigid parochial school in Westbury and Chaminade High School, a private Catholic boys high school, in Mineola. His father wanted him to attend Chaminade, but O’Reilly wanted to attend W. Tresper Clarke High School, the public school most of his closest friends would attend.[21] He played Little League baseball and was the goalie on the Chaminade varsity hockey team.[22] During his high school years, he met future singer Billy Joel, whom O’Reilly described as a “hoodlum”. O’Reilly recollected in an interview with Michael Kay on the YES Network show CenterStage that Joel “was in the Hicksville section—the same age as me—and he was a hood. He used to slick it [his hair] back like this. And we knew him, because his guys would smoke and this and that, and we were more jocks.”[23]

After graduating from Chaminade in 1967, O’Reilly attended Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York.[24] While at Marist, he was a punter in the National Club Football Association[25] and also wrote for the school’s newspaper, The Circle. He was an honors student who majored in history. He spent his junior year of college abroad, attending Queen Mary College at the University of London.[26] He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1971.[27] He played semi-professional baseball during this time as a pitcher for the New York Monarchs.[28] After graduating from Marist College, O’Reilly moved to Miami where he taught English and history at Monsignor Pace High School from 1970 to 1972.[29] He returned to school in 1973[30] and earned a Master of Arts degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University.[27] While attending Boston University, he was a reporter and columnist for various local newspapers and alternative news weeklies, including the Boston Phoenix, and did an internship in the newsroom of WBZ-TV.[31] In 1995, he attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and received a master of public administration degree in 1996.[27]

Marist College had bestowed an honorary degree upon O’Reilly, which would later be revoked once the sexual abuse allegations came to light.[32]

Broadcasting career

1973–1980: Early career

O’Reilly’s early television news career included reporting and anchoring positions at WNEP-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he also reported the weather. At WFAA-TV in Dallas, O’Reilly was awarded the Dallas Press Club Award for excellence in investigative reporting. He then moved to KMGH-TV in Denver, where he won a local Emmy Award for his coverage of a skyjacking.[33] O’Reilly also worked for WFSB in Hartford, Connecticut from 1979 to 1980.[34] In 1980, O’Reilly anchored the local news-feature program 7:30 Magazine at WCBS-TV in New York. Soon after, as a WCBS News anchor and correspondent, he won his second local Emmy, which was for an investigation of corrupt city marshals.

1982–1986: CBS News and return to local television

In 1982, he became a CBS News correspondent,[35] covering the wars in El Salvador on location and in the Falkland Islands from his base in Buenos Aires, Argentina. O’Reilly left CBS over a dispute concerning the uncredited use in a report by Bob Schieffer of footage of a riot in response to the military junta’s surrender shot by O’Reilly’s crew in Buenos Aires shortly after the conclusion of the war.[36][37]

After departing CBS News in 1982, O’Reilly joined WNEV-TV (now WHDH) in Boston, as a weekday reporter, weekend anchor and later as host of the station’s local news magazine New England Afternoon. In 1984, O’Reilly went to KATU in Portland, Oregon, where he remained for nine months, then he returned to Boston and joined WCVB-TV as reporter and columnist-at-large for NewsCenter 5.[38][39]

1986–1989: ABC News

In 1986, O’Reilly moved to ABC News, where, during his three-year tenure, he received two Emmy Awards and two National Headliner Awards for excellence in reporting. He had delivered a eulogy for his friend Joe Spencer, an ABC News correspondent who died in a helicopter crash on January 22, 1986, en route to covering the 1985–86 Hormel strike. ABC News president Roone Arledge, who attended Spencer’s funeral, decided to hire O’Reilly after hearing the eulogy.[40] At ABC, O’Reilly hosted daytime news briefs that previewed stories to be reported on the day’s World News Tonight and worked as a general assignment reporter for ABC News programs, including Good Morning America, Nightline, and World News Tonight.[41]

1989–1995: Inside Edition

Main article: Inside Edition

In 1989, O’Reilly joined the nationally syndicated King World (now CBS Television Distribution)-produced Inside Edition, a tabloid-gossip television program in competition with A Current Affair.[27] He became the program’s anchor three weeks into its run after the involvement of original anchor David Frost had ended.[42]

In 1995, former NBC News and CBS News anchor Deborah Norville replaced O’Reilly on Inside Edition; O’Reilly had expressed a desire to quit the show in July 1994.[43]

Viral video

On May 12, 2008, an outtake of O’Reilly ranting during his time at Inside Edition surfaced on YouTube.[44] The early 1990s video depicts O’Reilly yelling and cursing at his co-workers while having issues pre-recording the closing lines on his teleprompter, eventually yelling the phrase “Fuck it, we’ll do it live!” before continuing the closing segment to his show.[45][46] The original video, titled “Bill O’Reilly Flips Out,” was removed, but another user uploaded it once again the day after and retitled it “Bill O’Reilly Goes Nuts”. Immediately after the video surfaced, O’Reilly acknowledged the video’s existence, claiming that he was amusing his co-workers and said “I have plenty of much newer stuff… If you want to buy the tapes that I have, I’m happy to sell them to you.”[47][48] The rant was later parodied by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report[47][49] as well as Family Guy and by Trevor Noah on The Daily Show,[50] and was named one of Time’s “Top 10 Celebrity Meltdowns”.[51] In October 2008, Wednesday 13 named his first live album after a line in the rant.[50][52] In 2009, a “dance remix” of O’Reilly’s rant was nominated for a Webby Award for “Best Viral Video”[53] but lost to “The Website Is Down: Sales Guy vs. Web Dude”.[54]

1996–2017: The O’Reilly Factor

Martin Dugard His 2008 screenplay, A Warrior’s Heart, was released as a feature film starring Kellan Lutz and Ashley Greene. It was also presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011 and was released in the United States on 2 December 2011.

1988

Dugard began writing professionally in 1988. Bored by an unfulfilling corporate marketing job, he began writing articles for endurance sports magazines such as Competitor and Runner’s World in the mornings and on weekends. In 1993, inspired by a three-week journey to Madagascar to cover the Raid Gauloises adventure race, Dugard left the corporate world to pursue a full-time writing career. Although he has returned to journalism from time to time, as when covering the Tour de France from 1999 to 2008, Dugard’s primary focus is writing narrative non-fiction. Dugard wrote his first work of history in 2000. . He is also a track and field coach under Sean Zeitler in Rancho Santa Margarita, CA.

1961

Martin Dugard (born June 1, 1961 in Maine) is an American author living in Rancho Santa Margarita, Orange County, California. He is known for his frequent collaboration with former Fox News host and commentator, Bill O’Reilly. He and his wife have three sons.

Killing the Killers DB108373

O’Reilly, Bill; Dugard, Martin Reading time: 9 hours, 18 minutes.

Robert Petkoff

Government and Politics

Bestsellers

“In Killing The Killers, #1 bestselling authors Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard take listeners deep inside the global war on terror, which began twenty years ago on September 11, 2001. As the World Trade Center buildings collapsed, the Pentagon burned, and a small group of passengers fought desperately to stop a third plane from completing its deadly flight plan, America went on war footing. Killing The Killers narrates America’s intense global war against extremists who planned and executed not only the 9/11 attacks, but hundreds of others in America and around the world, and who eventually destroyed entire nations in their relentless quest for power. Killing The Killers moves from Afghanistan to Iraq, Iran to Yemen, Syria, and Libya, and elsewhere, as the United States fought Al Qaeda, ISIS, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, as well as individually targeting the most notorious leaders of these groups. With fresh detail and deeply-sourced information, O’Reilly and Dugard create an

Download Killing the Killers DB108373

20 May 2023, 6:58am
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “The truth of you: poetry about love, life, joy, and sadness” by Iain S. Thomas

Kate’s 2¢: “The truth of you: poetry about love, life, joy, and sadness” by Iain S. Thomas

“The truth of you: poetry about love, life, joy, and sadness” by Iain S. Thomas

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   Iain  S. Thomas read his own book of poetry. He has a pleasant voice to listen to and the meditative mood music was a nice touch.

From the web:

Iain S. Thomas is a writer and new media artist. He is the author of several books, the most popular of which is I Wrote This For You. Originally an online verse and photography project widely considered to be at the forefront of popular contemporary poetry, it has gone on to become a worldwide phenomenon.

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

The truth of you: poetry about love, life, joy, and sadness DB108837

Thomas, Iain S Reading time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Iain S. Thomas

Psychology and Self-Help

Poetry

“This is the truth of you. Because you are all I see. Because you are all I breathe. Because when I cannot find you, I am lost. Because when I’m with you, I am found. Because you have the fire of the universe in you, and sometimes you forget. So this book is here to remind you. Dear You, I want you to know that I see you. I want you to know that even if no one else does, even if you are a ghost in this bookshop, or just the static floating across the screen of your computer, wherever you’re reading this, I see you. I see you in the dark and I see you in the grey. I see you as a story, as words I have spoken or may yet speak. Maybe only in a memory or a dream. I see your hands and your arms and your body and your legs and your face and I see what you have been and what you will be. I see you and in looking at you, I want you to know that whoever you’ve had to be to survive all this, I will not look away. I want you to know that there’s a space inside this book for you. So if you have the time and the inclination, you can sit here with me, just for a while. And perhaps between us, we can see everything that matters. -pleasefindthis.” — Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2021.

Download The truth of you: poetry about love, life, joy, and sadness DB108837

20 May 2023, 5:58am
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “O say can you hear?: a cultural biography of “The Star-spangled banner” by Mark Clague

Kate’s 2¢: “O say can you hear?: a cultural biography of “The Star-spangled banner” by Mark Clague

“O say can you hear?: a cultural biography of “The Star-spangled banner” by Mark Clague

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   Mark Clague’s extensive research and attention to detail, make this book educational and a joy to read. This book really fills in the details of our national anthem. I found it fascinating to read how each word, line, and verse has depth and meaning, although we usually only sing the first verse.

   I recommend this book to history buffs, music lovers, and teenaged and adult Patriots.

From the University of Michigan:

Mark Clague

Associate Dean for Collaborations and Partnerships and Professor of Music; Director of U-M Gershwin Initiative, Co-Editor-in-Chief MUSA

Music Studies, Musicology, Senior Leadership

Mark Clague researches all forms of music-making in the United States, with recent projects focusing on the United States national anthem (“The Star-Spangled Banner”); American orchestras as institutions (especially in early Chicago and San Francisco); the Atlanta School of composers; Sacred Harp music and performance; critical editing; and the music of George and Ira Gershwin. His interests center on questions of how music forges and shapes social relationships: the art of sound as simultaneously a transcendent emotional expression and an everyday tool for living.

   Professor Clague is an associate professor of musicology with tenure at the School of Music, Theatre & Dance at the University of Michigan who also enjoys affiliate appointments in American Culture, African and Afro-American Studies, Non-Profit Management, and Entrepreneurship. He serves as director of research for the School of Music, Theatre & Dance and as co-director of its American Music Institute. He further serves as faculty advisor to student organizations including Arts Enterprise@U.Michigan, the Ypsilanti Youth Symphony Mentors, Mu Phi Epsilon, and the Interdisciplinary Music Forum.

   Before joining Michigan’s faculty, Professor Clague served as executive editor for Music of the United States of America, a series of scholarly editions of American music published by A-R Editions for the American Musicological Society. He also held editorial positions for the Center for Black Music Research in Chicago, where he helped complete the International Dictionary of Black Composers under the direction of Dr. Samuel Floyd. His dissertation for the University of Chicago – “Chicago Counterpoint: The Auditorium Theater Building and the Civic Imagination” – was completed under the direction of Professors Philip Bohlman and Richard Crawford and won the 2003 H. Wiley Housewright Dissertation Prize of the Society for American Music.

   His first book is an annotated edition of The Memoirs of Alton Augustus Adams, Sr.: First Black Bandmaster of the United States Navy (University of California Press, 2008). He is currently completing a book for the University of Illinois Press titled “Music for the People”: Chicago’s Auditorium Building and the Institutional Revolution of Gilded Age Culture, along with a manuscript entitled “O Say Can You Hear: A Cultural Biography of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’” His writings on teaching music history and arts entrepreneurship appear in the journals College Music Symposium and Music History Pedagogy as well as the books Teaching Music in Higher Education and Disciplining the Arts: Teaching Entrepreneurship in Context.

   Professor Clague’s research appears in the journals American Music (on the film Fantasia and critical editing), Black Music Research (on bandmaster Alton Adams), Michigan Quarterly Review (on Motown), Opera Quarterly (on Chicago’s Auditorium Building), and the book American Orchestras in the Nineteenth Century (on early orchestra organization models) as well as in the International Dictionary of Black Composers, The Encyclopedia of Chicago, and African American National Biography. In addition to being a contributor, Professor Clague also served as project editor and cities and institutions editor for the New Grove Dictionary of American Music, Second Edition (Oxford).

   Professor Clague has lectured throughout the United States and China and has presented papers at national meetings of the American Musicological Society, American Studies Association, Brevard Conference on Music Entrepreneurship, Center for Black Music Research, Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estética Musical (Lisbon, Portugal), College Band Directors National Association, College Music Society, Experience Music, Feminism and Music Theory, Institute of Musical Research (London, U.K.), Michigan Music Educators Conference, Music and the Moving Image, National Association of Schools of Music, Society for Ethnomusicology, and the Society for American Music. He has spoken as a guest at universities, including Bowling Green, Columbia College Chicago, CUNY Graduate Center, Grand Valley State University, Michigan State University, Northwestern, Peabody Conservatory, University of Chicago, and the University of Southern California.

   His awards include the University of Michigan’s Albert A. Stanley Medal, a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities, the University of Chicago’s Wayne C. Booth Teaching Prize, the 2003 Wiley Housewright Dissertation Prize of the Society for American Music, a 2004 and 2006 Teaching with Technology Fellowship, an 2007 UROP Advisor Award, 2009 Advisor of the Year from the University of Michigan Leadership Awards, a 2013-14 Humanities Institute Faculty Fellowship, a 2013 Sight and Sound subvention for his recorded history of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and a 2013 NEH grant for $200,000 to host a month-long K-12 teacher institute titled “Banner Moments: The National Anthem in American Life.”

   Professor Clague was board president of the Great Lakes Performing Artists Associates and continues to serve on the board of directors of the Star Spangled Music Foundation and the University Musical Society, where he chairs the education committee. He is also a member-at-large of the board of the Society of American Music, where he chairs the outreach council. He is on the advisory board of the Sphinx Organization.

   Before joining the Michigan faculty, Professor Clague was principal bassoonist with the Chicago Civic and Rockford Symphonies and played periodically with the Grant Park and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. In March 2003, he performed André Jolivet’s Concerto pour basson, orchestra a cordes et piano (1954) as the Concerto Competition Winner of the University of Michigan Campus Symphony Orchestra. He has given pre-concert talks for the Ann Arbor, Berlin, Detroit, New York, San Francisco, and Chicago Symphonies as well as the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, the Detroit Chamber Winds, and the University Musical Society. He has written and edited program notes for the Detroit Symphony as well as the Sphinx Virtuosi and served as centennial historian and American Orchestra Forum host for the San Francisco Symphony.

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

O say can you hear?: a cultural biography of “The Star-spangled banner” DB110077

Clague, Mark. Reading time: 9 hours, 40 minutes.

Read by Reuben J. Tapp.

Music Appreciation and History

U.S. History

“The fascinating story of America’s national anthem and an examination of its powerful meaning today. Most Americans learn the tale in elementary school: During the War of 1812, Francis Scott Key witnessed the daylong bombardment of Baltimore’s Fort McHenry by British navy ships; seeing the Stars and Stripes still flying proudly at first light, he was inspired to pen his famous lyric. What Americans don’t know is the story of how this everyday “broadside ballad,” one of thousands of such topical songs that captured the events and emotions of early American life, rose to become the nation’s one and only anthem and today’s magnet for controversy. In |O Say Can You Hear?| Mark Clague brilliantly weaves together the stories of the song and the nation it represents. Examining the origins of both text and music, alternate lyrics and translations, and the song’s use in sports, at times of war, and for political protest, he argues that the anthem’s meaning reflects—and is reflected by—the national anthem.

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20 May 2023, 5:57am
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Haven” by Sherry Gomes

Kate’s 2¢: “Haven” by Sherry Gomes

“Haven” by Sherry Gomes

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   Sherry Gomes held a book launch in February, 2023 with the Behind Our Eyes.Org, an organization of writers with disabilities. When her book became available in the National Library System’s accessible books, I down-loaded it.

   I enjoyed having a blind character portrayed accurately. All the other characters were also well developed and believable.  Although, Michael might be one in a million.

   Thank you Sherry for sharing your dream come true.

From: www.sherrygomes.com

I’ve always written, almost as far back as I can remember. But I was probably in my twenties or thirties, when I finally knew the types of stories I wanted to tell. Until then, I’d journaled, written articles, poetry, and little short stories about things I’d done, sounds I’d hear, places I’d been.

I’ve grown to hate the kind of books I call how-I-live-life-as-a-blind person. I read plenty of them growing up and as a young woman, particularly those relating to guide dogs. But 35 years ago, I read a book in which a blind woman proclaimed that she always cooks anything in her oven at 350, because she can’t adjust the oven dial. And she said that if she makes a PB&J sandwich, she gets peanut butter all over her kitchen. I nearly threw up. I was horrified that sighted people would read such nonsense and think that blind people can’t take care of themselves or can’t cook without making a total mess. I’m a good cook and baker. My oven dial is marked with raised dots, something friends and family have helped with over the years. I don’t care for PBJ sandwiches, but unless I’m making bread, I don’t tend to get ingredients all over my kitchen, and I know how to clean up after myself! And the sighted people I’ve known who make bread from scratch without a bread machine always make messes too. So, I stopped reading such books and looked around for fiction. And there wasn’t anything to speak of.

We know that even though the ADA, Americans With Disabilities Act, is over 30 years old now, still many people think of us as lesser. Among blind people, over 70 percent are unemployed, due to things like lack of training, tools and primarily due to the attitudes of employers. Blindness is one of the most feared things, next to cancer in the dread people have. People don’t realize that with the right tools and training, we can do damn near any job at all. Well, except fly a plane.

I realized, as I looked around at representations of disability in the mainstream media, that we are rarely shown as normal people doing normal things. We’re shown as inspirational, superhuman, helpless and so many other negative connotations. Often we’re shown as only being able to survive when some miracle happens and we regain our sight. I began to wonder what we could do if we used fiction, books, movies or TV to show that disability is normal, that we are just people doing the normal things people do. We live. We go to school and work. We fall in love. We have friends. We love movies. In short, we do or want to do the everyday sort of things all people do. We are just like our neighbors, coworkers, fellow students, politicians, media and anyone else.

My books will always have blind characters as main characters, doing the things people do. The books won’t be about how they live as blind people. In Haven, you’ll know Elizabeth is blind because she reads braille, uses a screen reader, has a guide dog and many other details. I’ve tried to work such details in without making a big deal of them, showing them as normal. The story isn’t about her blindness, other than in dealing with what has happened to her. The story is a romance. It’s about falling in love, healing from grief, and fighting for your rights. Blindness isn’t even secondary. Other than the custody issue, blindness isn’t important at all. And that’s how I’ll always write my stories!

Author of Haven, book 1 in the Haven Valley Series, available from amazon and audible.

Haven – Kindle edition by Gomes, Sherry. Contemporary Romance Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Haven by Sherry Gomes | Audiobook | Audible.com

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Haven DBC00693

Gomes, Sherry Reading time: 16 hours, 32 minutes.

Laverne Rios A production of Colorado Talking Book Library.

Disability

Family

Romance

Elizabeth Bennett is seeking healing after her emotionally abusive, unscrupulous ex-husband used his family’s political influence to gain sole custody of their daughter–on the basis that Elizabeth is blind. Michael Kelly’s grief for his wife is fresh as when he lost her three years ago, but he focuses on his love for the son he is now raising alone. A good man, a good father, and a good pastor to the community, he deeply longs for companionship and love. These two people, nearly broken by disaster, meet on a snowy night that will change their lives. Adult.

 
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