Not quite seeing or hearing artist Terry Galloway ambled through early childhood with mixed emotions. On one end, she was arrogant. In fact, she would even describe herself as “a little shit,” yet she also sought physical approval from the people around her.

“My deafness,” she said, “even before it was diagnosed, made me cleave more to others for a reassurance that I wasn’t quite aware I needed.”

When Galloway was 10 years old, doctors discovered she had a chemical imbalance caused by the introduction of drugs to the fetal nervous system, a result of medication her mother took while Galloway was in the womb. Ultimately, the reaction to the treatment left her deaf and with limited eyesight.

“I was saddled with glasses and hearing aids, and my deafness manifested itself then as a savage insecurity,” she said.

“I was mainstreamed,” Galloway, 68, continued, “and grew up not knowing any other kids who were deaf or Deaf. My own deafness, and my budding, constantly churning sexuality, made me feel warmer toward the kids with their own problems — kids who liked to dress differently, kids who were poor, kids who were too fucking smart for their own good, kids who felt uncertain about their sexualities, kids with disabilities — both hidden and visible. I identified with those odd ducks. When I was in my late teens, I met some other kids who were ‘big D’ Deaf. I admired the hell out of them, but they frightened me a little — they were tough. But then, they had to be.”

In her book, Galloway explained big D Deaf.

“There is a definite hierarchy in that deaf culture,” she writes. “If you are deaf of deaf — a deaf person born to deaf parents — and your language is Sign and the company you keep is primarily deaf, you are Deaf with a capital D.”

With plenty of experiences to draw from, Galloway plunged herself into the arts, and just like many young people with disabilities in the late 1960s, she faced a lot of discrimination.

“When I was graduating from high school, the guidance counselor was advising all my friends who were in the Thespians of the Scarlet Mask to apply for Yale, or UCLA, or any college that had a decent drama department,” she said. “But when I walked in the door, he took one look at me and said, ‘Oh, you’re the one.’ And handed me a brochure that read, errors and all: ‘Factory work make good job for deaf.'”

Like many LGBTQ and disabled people of that time, Galloway carved her own path into the arts. With the help of friends, she sought out or created spaces that would welcome people like her.

“Places with people who didn’t think of me as a waste of time because I couldn’t hear or talked with a kind of muffled lisp,” she said. “And from there I started to write pieces that spoke to the experiences of people like me — that’s when I started doing my solo shows.”

In 2009, Galloway published her memoir, “Mean Little deaf Queer,” which has become a cult classic among people with disabilities. Celebrated lesbian author Dorothy Allison called it “a damn fine piece of work that is unbelievably powerful.” Author Kenny Fries included it in his article on LitHub titled “8 Books That Move Disability from the Margins to the Center.”

“She gives us what we are rarely given in literature: a fully dimensional disabled person, warts and all,” Fries said.

Just a year after the release of her groundbreaking memoir, Galloway received a cochlear implant — a process not all deaf people are eligible for. And even Galloway herself was initially unsure it would work. The surgery allowed Galloway to gain significant hearing and her latest show, “You Are My Sunshine,” is about her experience of negotiating the world of sound.

Galloway identifies as being a “little d” deaf, omni-sexual, happily married, female-ish artist/activist. Along with her partner, Florida State University communication professor Donna Marie Nudd, Ph.D., she splits her time between Austin, Texas and Tallahassee, Florida.

The couple also co-directs the Mickee Faust Club — an arts nonprofit that creates performance opportunities for marginalized communities through workshops.

“I love Mickee Faust,” said Galloway. “I love playing the head rat, Mickee Faust, who is supposedly the sewer dwelling, cigar chomping, beer guzzling, foul mouthed, rat bastard brother of that other more famous unctuous rodent in Orlando.”

To learn more about the Mickee Faust Club, visit http://www.mickeefaust.com. To follow Galloway’s other projects, check out www.theterrygalloway.com.

Employers aim to show workers that they care about them — and are invested in their future — by offering benefits. But more often than not, these corporate perks fail to offer employees services that are useful, especially during a crisis.

One of the most commonly overlooked benefits by organizations is flexible work time to be a caregiver for a family member. For LGBTQs, who often follow a chosen family structure, this can include neighbors and friends.

San Francisco resident Terry Wicks, now 64, was enjoying a successful career as an X-ray/MRI tech in 2015 when his husband, Michael Draper, now 57, was diagnosed with multiple system atrophy — a very rare neurodegenerative brain disease that has no treatment and is fatal.

“When we were told it was terminal,” said Wicks, “I gave two weeks’ notice and quit my job to focus on Michael and the life changes that were necessary going forward.”

Wicks confirmed what we all know: that caregiving is tough. He spends his entire day caring for his husband, running the home, looking after pets, and managing the household budget. Prior to his diagnosis, Draper worked as a senior director of global operations for a major tech company in Silicon Valley. Now that some time has passed, Wicks said that loss of income has greatly impacted their family.

“I am not compensated in any way by anyone for being Michael’s full-time caregiver. The fact that I cannot work because I have to take care of Michael has really hurt our finances,” said Wicks.

Wicks and Draper’s heartbreaking story is, sadly, not uncommon. According to a 2019 Harvard Business School study, “The Caring Company: How Employers Can Cut Costs and Boost Productivity by Helping Employees Manage Caregiving Needs,” by Joseph B. Fuller and Manjari Raman, which examines survey results from 1,500 employees and 300 human resources leaders, three out of four (73 percent) employees surveyed reported having some type of current caregiving responsibility, and more than 80 percent of employees with caregiving responsibilities admitted that caregiving affected their productivity. In addition, almost 25 percent of employees surveyed who said they left an organization cited doing so to care for an ill or disabled spouse, partner, or extended family member.

“We are always working,” said Raman, one of the study’s authors, “and where is the time to take care of our responsibilities?

“Traditional families don’t really exist, but most employers don’t acknowledge family of choice and lose out on great workers,” continued Raman. “Our research found that most organizations are wasting money offering benefits that employees don’t need, and overlook care benefits.”

Raman explained that care benefits are often limited to executives and are not advertised within organizations or on benefit company sites. She also stated that people live in a culture where they can feel guilty for taking time off — even if it is to deal with a tragedy — and may be hesitant to ask their employer for a care benefit.

Paul Blom, owner of a Right at Home franchise in Bloomington, Minnesota (https://www.rightathome.net/twin-cities) — an agency that provides caregiver services — said most people end up paying for caregivers from their income or out of their savings, and that the costs quickly add up.

“It can cost anywhere between $30-$40 per hour, depending upon the level of care that is required,” he said. “People who are low-income can qualify for medical assistance/Medicaid programs that will cover care, but the reimbursement rates have stagnated over the last 10 years, to the point that there are fewer and fewer agencies that will accept reimbursement through those programs.”

Blom’s business has started to see some referrals come in through http://www.care.com — a website that connects families with different care providers. However, he said it’s only a handful of large companies that are offering a care benefit through the care.com service, Care Concierge.

Both Raman and Blom feel more employers need to offer care benefits; yet, it’s a long journey toward making care benefits a common company perk, as companies would have to shift their culture in order to appreciate the advantage of helping their employees meet their caregiver responsibilities.

To read the full Harvard study, visit https://hbs.me/2VXj18x. And for more information about caregiving resources for the LGBT community, you can visit the National Resource Center on LGBT Aging at: https://www.lgbtagingcenter.org/training/index.cfm

Some people prefer to communicate with words, while others find images more telling. For gay San Francisco resident Kurt Schwartzmann, drawing has always been a way to share his thoughts with the world.

“I’ve always loved to draw,” said Schwartzmann. “My parents — retired educators — encouraged my artistic abilities.”

Schwartzmann, 54, used his creative talents to launch a 20-year career as a professional pastry chef and baker. While things were good for some time, it all changed in 2006 when CMV retinitis, a complication of AIDS, attacked his left eye. The virus severed the optic nerve, and slowly and painlessly, he began to lose his vision.

“One day the doorbell rang. I went to answer and realized that I could not see anything through the peephole with my left eye,” he said.

Life became even more complicated when, in 2008, he lost his housing and found himself living on the streets.

“A Muni operator showed me a great kindness,” Schwartzmann said. “She allowed me to board her bus and sleep when I had nowhere else to turn, even though I had no money to pay the fare.”

The display of compassion the Muni driver showed touched Schwartzmann and the memory stayed with him.

A few years later, Schwartzmann was back on his feet. With his troubles behind him, he finally had the opportunity to reconnect with his art. Though, it was his mate, Bruce Schwartzmann, who gave him the big nudge.

“My partner suggested that I take a printmaking class,” he said. “When I inquired ‘Why?’ he replied, ‘So you can make our wedding invitations.'”

“So,” Schwartzmann continued, “I added printmaking to my artistic repertoire. We got married in 2013.”

As Schwartzmann reconnected with his craft, he also realized he needed to talk to someone about his visual impairment and turned to the Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired in San Francisco.

“I was looking for a therapist that I could relate to, one that could help me with situations and language associated with loss of vision,” he said.

Although Schwartzmann does not use a white cane, or any other mobility aid for the blind, he found it necessary to cover his blind eye.

“I choose to wear a black eye patch,” he explained, “to communicate to the world that I can’t see on my left side.”

Schwartzmann clarified that by covering his eye, if he happened to bump someone with the left side of his body, the individual would automatically know the reason for the abrupt collision. However, some reactions to the patch have given him much to talk about.

“Sometimes,” he said, “insensitive people call me a pirate. This used to bother me, but now I just answer: ‘I am not a pirate, I am an artist.’

“As for my patch,” he continued, “a friend of mine and I designed it to fit my face. We created it out of plastic mesh and fabric. The ones they sell at drug stores are too big and uncomfortable.”

But while his lack of sight with one eye has presented him with some unpleasant social interactions, when it comes to his drawing, Schwartzmann states that it has helped with his technique.

“Having 2D vision,” he said, “flattens my perspective of the world and makes it easier to transfer it to a flat piece of paper.”

“To me,” he continued, “drawing is like dismantling a composition into its components and reproducing them on my sketchpad to recreate the whole.”

On January 10, the Lighthouse opened an exhibit of Schwartzmann’s collection of drawings: “Yellow Line: A Tribute to SF Muni Operators.” The well-attended event showcased 64 drawings that pay homage to the Muni drivers that he came in contact with while drawing the series over a three-month period.

The “Yellow Line” collection is simple, yet also complex. It possesses impressionist elements, but with a playful and primitive twist. Schwartzmann’s work is available for purchase on his online store at www.yellowlineart.ecwid.com. To reach him, you can visit his artist website at www.YellowLineArt.com. The “Yellow Line” exhibit will be at the Lighthouse, 1155 Market Street, 10th floor, until May, according to his website.

Oleb Books author Andrew Gurza, a self-identified “queer cripple,” not only writes, speaks, and tweets about his experiences, but also hosts a podcast about disability and has become well-known for his ability to spread awareness about the intersection between the queer and disabled communities.

Having earned his masters degree in legal studies from Carleton University in 2013, Gurza, who has cerebral palsy, switched from writing stories and imitative newspaper articles as a child to writing about his experiences as a man who is both queer and disabled. He views himself as a “Cripple Content Creator” and encourages both his readers and podcast audiences to think outside the box and attempt to examine disability and sexuality through the lens of those living the experience. “I love bringing people into (my) world and sharing perspectives around disability that we don’t often talk about,” he says.

Growing up, Gurza felt supported by his family, who ensured he was able to participate in any and all activities that interested him. His mother was his strongest and most steadfast supporter and advocate. “She’s been my rock,” Gurza says.

Though his childhood was fairly typical, Gurza stated his disability did pose its own unique challenges. “It was hard for me to make friends as a disabled kid and teen, and, ironically, as a queer, disabled man, that feeling hasn’t necessarily changed.”

In addition to making and listening to podcasts, Gurza is a True Crime fan who also enjoys traveling and exploring.

In his essay for Firsts: Coming of Age Stories by People with Disabilities, “Baring It All,” Gurza takes us back to college life. He shows the reader the ins and outs of navigating gay culture with a disability.

To learn more about author Andrew Gurza, check out his podcast, DisabilityAfterDark, follow him on Twitter at @andrewgurza, and visit his website at www.andrewgurza.com.

A northern California native, Caitlin Hernandez writes novels for teens and tweens, as well as nonfiction prose pieces. Occasionally, she writes songs, plays, and poems. She was a Lambda Literary fellow in 2015, and recently received mentorships through Writing In The Margins and We Need Diverse Books.

Caitlin lives in San Francisco and teaches fifth and sixth graders with disabilities.

Belo Cipriani: Why does the Center for Social Justice at Holy Names University take a group of students on a civil rights trip every year?

Javier De Paz: For the past 12 years, the Center for Social Justice and Civic Engagement has helped members of the Peace and Justice Club organize visits to historic civil rights sites in the South. This year’s trip takes place from Thursday, November 19 to Sunday, November 22. We start in Birmingham, Alabama, the cradle of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s. While in Birmingham, we will visit the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, the 16th St. Baptist Church and Kelly Ingram Civil Rights Sculpture Park. We then continue over to Montgomery, AL to visit the Rosa Parks Museum, the Freedom Riders Museum and the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Civil Rights Memorial.

Holy Names University serves a large number of first generation college students. By attending these types of opportunities, we expand our worldview beyond Oakland, which helps us to understand local and global issues of justice at a deeper level. This firsthand exposure will enhance students’ studies of these topics and enable them to add to academic dialogue in a unique way. In addition, learning about the Civil Rights Movement will empower students to develop leadership skills and become active citizens so they can be transformative leaders in our communities, beyond Holy Names University!

The Center provides logistical support to the group. This includes booking airfare, lodging, food, rental vans and tickets for the civil rights museums. This year, it will cost approximately $8,500 to take 10 students and one staff. We are busy fundraising and now are reaching out to everyone to help out a little!

We will appreciate any assistance you are able to provide! In appreciation for your support, we will provide a report back presentation to the Holy Names University and Oakland Community on Wednesday, January 27, 2016.

BC: Who gets to go on the trip?

JDP: Holy Names University students who are part of the Peace and Justice Club get to go on this trip.

BC: What makes these museums and historic sites unique?

JDP: There is so much we can learn from museums. We like to think that museums are like the elderly. They both hold so much information from different periods in history that can better help us understand the past and the present. While on this trip, we often meet individuals that lived through the historic civil rights movement and help educate us even further with their life experiences. For us, it’s important that students know and understand what forces have shaped our country. In high school and even in college, students study history. But it’s a whole different experience when students visit historic places and learn first hand accounts of what happened during the movement because it transforms students’ worldview.

BC: What have been some of the reactions from students in the past as they visited the various historic sites?

JDP: Students feel reflective when they visit historic landmarks. While some have family connection to the movement, others have taken history classes and read books about it. However, many students have shared that it feels different when you get to walk these historic sites and learn the significance of each place. Students express gratitude to those before them who fought to integrate schools and end racial discrimination in this country.

This trip also helps change individual perceptions. When we think of the Civil Rights Movement, we all think of Dr. Martin Luther King. When we get to the museums, we learn a different story. While Dr. King played a pivotal role in building the movement, there were other men, women and children who also shaped and fueled the movement. Examples include Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer and many youth that filled the jails in Birmingham protesting unjust laws.

In the end, these trips empower students to lead. By learning the history of the civil rights movement and who led the movement, this breaks down this notion that you have to be a Dr. Martin Luther King to positively impact change.

BC: How does the Peace and Justice Club fund the trip?

JDP: We are grateful to the generous support of the Associated Students of Holy Names University (ASHNU). Every year, members of the Peace and Justice Club submit a funding proposal to ASHNU. ASHNU has been extremely generous and has provided some funding to cover some of the costs associated with the trip.

Club members also reach out to family, friends, faculty and staff for their support. Students develop letters that they send out.

We also make buttons to sell to the community. We attend local community events such as the Day of the Dead or First Friday and we sell buttons. Last year, we also used the fundraising platform GoFundMe. This fundraising platform helps us spread the word by posting on social media, allowing us to reach a wider population. In addition, students contribute $175.00 each for the trip.

BC: How many people support HNU students on the trip?

JDP: The number varies. I can estimate about 50 people who lend a helping hand to make this trip possible. The support comes in various forms as well. While some people provide financial support, other people donate tangible objects that we can raffle to make extra money to cover expenses.

Belo Cipriani: Where are you from and where do you live now?

Jim Blacksten: I was born in Oroville, California. I attended junior high and senior high school in Chico and I graduated from Chico Senior High School.

I currently live in San Francisco. My office is at Berkshire Hathaway Home Services (BHHS), Drysdale Properties, 1715 Polk Street, San Francisco, CA 94109.

Also, I have lived in Burlingame and in Daly City, California.

BC: What inspired you to become a real estate agent?

JB: Back in 2010, I was reading emails from people who decided to go into real estate — buying and selling homes. A number of these people just bought homes, fixed them up, and flipped for profits. Many of them made very good money, and they performed a lot of their work online. I am inspired to do the same as a visually impaired person.

I am also inspired to build part of my business with U.S. service members and veterans in San Francisco, East Bay, North Bay, South Bay, and throughout northern California. I’d like to assist veterans, as buyers here in San Francisco, to find their homes.

Also, I’d like to eventually become a real estate investor, which is really what inspired me to secure my California real estate license.

BC: What were some of the initial challenges in selecting real estate as a career path?

JB: I have taken and passed nine courses in real estate from City College of San Francisco (CCSF), which qualifies me to obtain a broker’s license after working for two years in the field. I have also taken and passed the California real estate exam for realtors, and am under contract with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services as a realtor.

One large challenge had to do with the CCSF Disabled Students Program Services (DSPS) converting printed books and materials into a digital, readable format for my text-to-speech software program (JAWS), which is keyboard driven to read the text and charts to me. Also, I had the challenge of working with instructors to make sure they explained what materials were being printed by them (i.e. on the class blackboard, or on projectors in PowerPoint format).

Then, I had to find a brokerage firm interested in bringing me on under contract as a realtor, as well as a manager who would be ready, willing, and able to champion my cause. Fortunately, I had an instructor (Carol Jensen), who taught the class I took in property management who believed in me, and what I could do. She introduced me to James Caldwell who is my manager today with BHHS.

BC: What adaptive technology do you use to do your work?

JB: I use the text-to-speech program Job Access with Speech (JAWS), which is a software program that is keyboard driven to assist me with reading the text information on the computer screen. Also, I use a device called a braille display, which converts the information on the computer screen into electronic braille, which I can read with my fingers. In other words, this BAUM Braille Display works as text-to-braille, and works in conjunction with JAWS. The BAUM Braille Display produces 40 characters of information at a time: I press the advance bar allowing me to read the next line of 40 characters, and so forth. Also, I have a unit called the Hims Notetaker, which is a personal data assistant with a built-in braille display of 32 characters. This unit has its own text-to-speech program that works in conjunction with the braille display for this particular Hims unit.

BC: How do clients respond to your disability?

JB: Thus far, everyone has responded favorably to me as a visually impaired person. I have also served as a Senior Accounts Representative as well as a consultant, and have met quite a number of clients, all of which were positive experiences. As long as I have a very positive attitude, and appear to know exactly what I am doing as a professional California realtor, clients and colleagues respond favorably. I have to say that Acura, my guide dog, in some cases, is a strong ally, and helps to break the ice in some introductory conversations.

BC: Do you know of any other blind real estate agents?

JB: I do not know of any other visually impaired persons that are realtors here in California. There are two others that I’ve heard of, though. One is located in the eastern U.S. and the other is in Canada.

BC: What projects are you working on now?

JB: I am currently working with Eddie Ramirez, who spearheads OneVet OneVoice and is sponsoring veteran home buyers workshops. We are scheduled to hold our first workshop this Thursday evening, July 23, 2015, at Mama’s Art Café on 4754 Mission Street, where Eddie Ramirez is a co-owner.

OneVet OneVoice is also working on bringing veterans together to be housed in a new building on Van Ness Avenue starting in October of 2015. We expect to assist in spearheading the home services section of this grand opening.

And, I am working toward becoming a successful listing agent.

BC: How may people contact you?

JB: Jim Blacksten, Realtor (CALBRE #01951334) at Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Drysdale Properties. I can be reached by phone (Cell: 415-297-3084; Office: 415-655-9007) or email (jim.blacksten@bhhsdrysdale.com or jimeblacksten@gmail.com). You can also find me on the web at www.jimblacksten.com.

Photo courtesy of Jim Blacksten

Belo Cipriani: Where are you from and what brought you to San Francisco?

Patrick Carney: I grew up in central Washington State, and we moved to Palmdale, CA when I went into high school. I moved to the Bay Area a month after Harvey Milk was assassinated in late 1998 to attend graduate school in architecture at UC Berkeley, and moved back and forth between Berkeley and San Francisco. I graduated with a Master’s Degree in Architecture in 1980 and began my career as an architect, and finally gave up the back-and-forth commute across the bay and moved full time into San Francisco.

BC: How did the idea for the Pink Triangle come together? What was your inspiration?

PC: The display started as an attempt to add a little extra color (pink, it turns out) to the 1996 Pride Parade. We were sitting in a restaurant on Market Street wondering how we could spread the weekend’s festivities to other parts of the city and noticed a huge blank canvas right outside the window — Twin Peaks. The Pink Triangle of Twin Peaks was born three weeks later. It started out as a renegade crafts project, which went up in the dark of night, and is now appreciated enough for the community and the city’s elected officials to help celebrate.

Once we learned so many people did not know about the story of the pink triangles used in Nazi concentration camps, annual commemoration ceremonies were then established. It is great to live in a city where one can not only put an enormous pink triangle on a hill in the middle of the town, but the mayor, supervisors, senators, assemblypersons, and our congressperson have shown up and taken part.

To many people, the pink triangle is a brightly colored, graphic image that has come to represent the LGBT movement, and there is often not a connection to the tragic history of how the symbol came about. In the 1930s and 40s, the pink triangle was used by the Nazis in concentration camps to identify and shame homosexual prisoners. This symbol, which was used to differentiate one “undesirable group” from another “undesirable group,” has been embraced by the gay community as a symbol of pride.

BC: How long did it take you to get it started and who were your initial supporters?

PC: The first year it was easy.

It started with a quick trip to Home Depot and the purchase of a handful of large tarps and large containers of pink paint. The display has doubled in size many times, requiring five painting parties. It’s now about 200 feet across and nearly an acre in size. Though now large, perhaps the most gigantic aspect of the display is not its size, but how many people it has hopefully educated and inspired. We install numerous placards along the edge of the tourist overlook, which is a few feet above the top edge of the pink triangle. We like to stay back and observe people reading the signs, which describe the project, to hear how they all universally seem to say: “I didn’t know that.” That means the education process is working. Mostly friends and family were the initial supporters, and they are still supportive to this day. My sister, Colleen Hodgkins, and my husband, Hossein Carney, are long-term and consistent volunteers — they are so essential and I can’t imagine the project lasting this long without their help and unwavering support, loyalty and reliability (we can expect that from family!). My nearly 92-year-old mother will be on Twin Peaks on Saturday, June 27th handing out coffee and pastries to the volunteers helping install the 20th annual display, just like she has done for every pink triangle set up for years.

BC: Have you received funding?

PC: Yes, outside funding is necessary. I have put in lots of money over the years, but lately, as the economy improved, there have been consistent donors. The 2015 sponsors are: Toad Hall, Badlands, The Apothecarium, SF Pride, The Castro Lions Club, The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, The Steamworks, Hodgkins Jewelers, Haus of StarFish, Starbucks for the coffee, tea, snacks and volunteers, Barefoot and Bubbly for the champagne used in the christening.

BC: How many people does it take to put together?

PC: It takes about 125 people to install it on Saturday, and 50 to take it down Sunday, after the parade. The outline is installed by my husband, my sister and I the day before the public installation. We found that having the outline up makes it much easier once the volunteers arrive. The volunteers then fill in between the pink lines with 175 bright pink tarps and over 4,000 12” long steel spikes.

This is a true “community-building project” and volunteers are needed. See below for information on how you can help.

BC: Is the Pink Triangle the only one of its kind?

PC: Yes, it is a one of a kind as far as I know. I am pretty sure it is the only one. Several have contacted me about the logistics of doing one in other areas (one was even in Europe from someone who found my website). However, no one has actually create a giant Pink Triangle for another city.

BC: Where do you see this project in the future?

PC: Still going up on Twin Peaks every year, and hopefully in other cities too. A big inspiration for keeping the annual San Francisco Pink Triangle display going was learning that after the camps were liberated, and all of the other prisoners were let go, gays were put back in prison.  The discrimination and dehumanization continued — simply because they were homosexual.  It was amazing to me that after all of the carnage and horror of the camps was revealed to the world via newsreels, and people around the globe were unified in shock and disbelief, somehow it was still okay to throw the gays back in prison. That kind of hatred and discrimination certainly doesn’t exist here, but there are still plenty of places in the world where it is not only alright to discriminate against homosexuals, some even look the other way when we are killed.

It is through the display that we hope to educate others of the lessons of the Pink Triangle; the lesson being: what can happen when hatred and bigotry become law. There are certainly numerous recent examples covered well in the media such as in Uganda, Nigeria, Iran, Jamaica, Brunei and many others. Unfortunately, there are currently 77 countries where homosexual activity is illegal. While it isn’t illegal in Russia anymore, President Putin signed an anti-gay propaganda law. There is still much discrimination toward the LGBTQ community. The gigantic display is a visible yet mute reminder of man’s inhumanity to man.

BC: How can people support this cause and get involved?

PC: Volunteering to help install it or take it down are great ways to support the cause and contribute. Also, educating others about the Pink Triangle is the ideal way to support the cause. The goal is to remember the hatred of the past to help prevent it from happening again.  Also, the message we are trying to teach is “what can happen when hatred and bigotry are allowed to become law.” For those who want to contribute financially, they can contribute via SF Pride. The pink triangle project is too small to spend money on lawyers to draw up documents to create a 501c3. About 18 years ago, Pride agreed to be the fiscal sponsor (money is run through them). Donation checks can be written to SF Pride with “for Pink Triangle” in the memo line.

If you’re interested in volunteering to help install and/or break down the Pink Triangle this year, here’s some helpful info:

Installation: Saturday, June 27th, from 7am-10am, with ceremony at 10:30am

De-installation: Sunday, June 28th, from 4:30pm-8pm (after the parade)

(One need not stay the entire time — even an hour of help on either day is a huge help!)

• Bring a HAMMER and Gloves!!!
• Wear closed-shoes. Sandals are not recommended. Wear sunscreen.
• Fashionable Pink Triangle t-shirts will be provided to all who help.

More info at www.thepinktriangle.com 

Belo Cipriani: What is your book about?

Greg Archer: Grace Revealed is about my journey uncovering my Polish family’s journey surviving Stalin’s mass deportations of Polish people. It’s a kind of Eat, Pray, Love by way of a Polish Alex Haley. I take readers along my own journey discovering this rich odyssey, which nearly got swept under the rugs of history. While the book mainly illuminates my own Polish family’s survival, after being taken to the Siberian Gulags along with 2 million other Poles in the 1940s, I learned that Stalin was an equal opportunity deporter. It did not matter if you were Polish, Jewish, Catholic. My family was Catholic and were farmers, as were many other Poles who experienced this. I wanted to also reveal how what happens in the past has a tendency to live on through us.

BC: What structure did you use for your memoir and why?

GA: The book is broken up into three parts. The front and back are more about me and the journey I went on as I discovered this information in my family’s past. The middle section is their unique story of survival — from the Gulags, to later becoming Polish refugees, to winding up in Uzbekistan, then the Middle East and then India, and then Eastern Africa, where they lived in huts in one of many Polish orphanages in the area.

BC: How long did it take to write and was there a part that was tough to navigate?

GA: I wrote a story about my family as a newspaper article in 2003 and thought that was it; that I had set out to do what I needed. But after interviewing them more, their story kept haunting and hunting me. In 2012, I finally committed to really seeing it through to the end.

BC: Did you travel?

GA: I did. I went to Poland and explored things there. I found the villages from which my family came; located the actual church were they were baptized and where my grandparents met as kids.

BC: How did your family initially react to the idea of your book and how are they feeling now that it’s been published?

GA: They were all for it actually, because they, like many others, felt that the world was very aware of Hitler and what he had done to the Jewish population, but that few people really understood the wrath of Stalin. There was a sense that since Stalin became allies with us to defeat Hitler, that much of his brutality was never discussed.

BC: Tell us about your publisher. Why did you choose them?

GA: The publisher is NorLights Press. I wanted a publisher that I could trust and one that could get the book out prior to or around the 75th anniversary of the Polish deportations, which was Feb. 10, 2015.

BC: What was the editing process like?

GA: It seemed a bit endless, actually, as there were many many facts to check. The third part of the book offers significant research and that section had to be re-checked often.

BC: What did you take away from the experience of writing your memoir?

GA: That there definitely felt like there was something leading me and helping me… Fate? Ancestors? Who knows. But there were too many serendipitous and synchronistic occurrences before, during and after writing the book to dismiss as mere random moments.

BC: Do you have a favorite chapter?

GA: It’s a toss up between the chapter where my grandmother is searching for the grave and remains of her husband, who had been discarded in an unmarked grave after passing away in the hospital; and the chapter that led me to locate the church in the Polish village where everything began…

BC: This is your second book. What’s next for you?

GA: I’m working on developing this story into a film; and I also have another book I am working on whose central theme is about home — where is it, what is it, why do we crave it, etc.?

Greg will be discussing Grace Revealed at Books Inc., located at 2275 Market St. in San Francisco, CA, on Thursday, April 9, 2015 at 7pm. For more information about this event, click here. To learn more about Greg Archer, visit his website at www.gregarcher.com. To learn more about the book, visit www.gracerevealedbook.com.

Watch the book trailer for Grace Revealed below:

Belo Cipriani: How did you lose your vision?

David Block: I was born with congenital Cataracts.

BC: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

DB: In June 1990, I wrote an article about goalball, a team sport played worldwide by blind and sight impaired people, which was published in the New York Times (Monday, June 11, 1990). To read the article, click here.

After the article was published, I realized that once someone is finished reading the paper, they forget what they read 5 minutes later. I thought by putting those images on the screen — images of blind people playing sports — people would remember them longer. Seeing is believing, so says the half blind filmmaker.

BC: What types of films do you make?

DB: My documentaries about people overcoming adversity. Please visit my website, www.blindfilmmaker.com and click on the documentaries link for more information.

BC: What is your creative process like?

DB: At times it’s stressful. It feels like there’s a demon in me that won’t leave until the project is done.

BC: Do you use any special software?

DB: I record my conversations with a digital recorder. I use a special pair of reading glasses that magnify the print. I listen to some of my material on my cartridge player and on my computer.

BC: What is casting like as a blind filmmaker?

DB: I make documentaries, not drama. I know the subject ahead of time. I sometimes know about the people I will make the documentary about. I learn about them from writing articles. I do preliminary phone interviews. Then, when it comes time for the shoot, I have an idea of what I will ask on camera and what I will avoid asking.

BC: What are you working on now?

DB: I am working on a film about how horseback riding helps people with disabilities raise self esteem. For more information, please click here.

BC: Do you know of any other blind filmmakers?

DB: No.

BC: Where can people view your work?

DB: Go to my website, www.blindfilmmaker.com

Photo: “Electric Cinema” by Steve N is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

Belo Cipriani: Why did you feel the need to put together an audiobook?

Ashok Rajamani: For one simple reason: to make my book accessible to members of my family, i.e., the brain injury community and the blind/visually handicapped community.

These were my most important readers, and it broke my heart that they weren’t able to fully enjoy the book. Many of my blind and/or brain-injured readers were having difficulties accessing the story. Plus, I always think it’s a great experience for any reader to hear a memoir — a true, personal journey — told in the memoirist’s own voice.

BC: What was the process of producing the audiobook?

AR: To begin with, there was the issue of getting back my audio rights. Many authors, when they get their book contract, give their publisher audio rights. Do not do that! You end up with your publisher doing the parking garage scenario: Buying a car just to own it, but never actually driving it. They get your audio rights, and never do anything with it — and you end up missing out. You lose the possibility of taking your book to new creative lengths and bringing it to customers who cannot read print books. I’m delighted that I was able to regain my rights with the help of a good lawyer.

Next, after getting back those rights, I had to figure out how to get the audiobook made. At first I planned to go to ACX, Amazon’s audiobook wing that offers narrators and producers who can work for a fee, or free with royalty share. ACX used to have a great royalty program, which would award authors up to 90% of royalties. But now, it’s just 20% or 40% for exclusive distribution. This didn’t feel right to me, as I would be narrating the audiobook myself. Also, ACX gets your audiobook out digitally only, and, like I said, I wanted my book to have a physical release as well.

BC: Sounds like quite a major journey!

AR: That was just the beginning. Since I wanted to narrate it myself, I had to figure out where to record it. I couldn’t just use the mic on my computer. I had to find a professional studio, and finding the right studio takes time. Studios can cost insane amounts of money. Many narrators have their own home studios, so high cost isn’t an issue. But if you want to do it yourself, do the obvious: research, research, research. Do enough research and you can find a studio with the right price for you. That’s how I found mine.

BC: After finding a studio, what was the process of recording like, and did you have to do anything differently because of your disability?

AR: The studio was pretty glamorous, all sleek and shiny. There was an enclosed recording booth, facing the sound engineer and director. I had to sit on a stool and read my book from an iPad. This is an unabridged audiobook, which means I had to say EVERY word correctly. For example, if I said ‘a’ instead of ‘an,’ I had to say the sentence all over again! Due to my form of bisected blindness, I could barely see half the pages, so I made quite a few mistakes. Because of the brain injury, I would miss pages and have to re-read. And because of that damn director, I would have to re-pronounce the word ‘figure’ every time it was in the book. I say the word figure like ‘trigger,’ and he wanted me to say it like ‘fig-year.’ But I’m proud to say, I finished the whole recording, even though it was the hardest thing to do. I also foolishly chose a studio that was situated in the heart of Times Square. And this was recorded during the height of summer. So not only did I have to deal with the stress of recording, but I had to deal with trying to navigate through mobs and mobs of people in sweat-soaked New York City. For normal-sighted people, this means major trouble. For blinded and visually handicapped people, this is a downright nightmare! But after the 6 weeks of being in the studio, I finished. Busted, exhausted and torn up like a Vietnam vet.

BC: You got your rights back, decided how to produce it, and recorded it in the studio. What was the next step?

AR: Well, now that the whole shebang was done, I had to find the right distributor, one who could get my book out everywhere, in all versions. Again, that took research. I’m happy with the distributor I eventually chose.

BC: What was your family’s reaction to your audiobook?

AR: My folks had three reactions. The first one was expected: they found it hilarious and loved the comedy. The second reaction was expected too: they found it very difficult to hear me recount my pain. It was hard enough for them to read my book; the difficult health situations and hospital horrors hurt them deeply. Obviously, listening to one’s child recounting his/her pain is a tough thing for any parent to handle. The last reaction was expected too: they wanted to shoot me for the way I performed my father’s accent.

BC: Where can people buy your audiobook?

AR: People can buy it it through many retailers, with multiple options. It is available as a digital work, an actual physical CD and an MP3 CD, and it is also available for loan on some sites. Here are the stores where it is available for purchase — physical edition or digital edition:
Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble.com and store
Audible
iTunes

Plus, audiobooks.com, Simply Audiobooks, Findaway World, Overdrive, spoken word, Midwest Tape, Downpour, Blackstone Audio, Ambling Books, eMusic, Baker & Taylor, Follett, LearnoutLoud, Midwest Tapes, Recorded Books

BC: What’s next for you?

AR: I’m excited to say that after releasing The Day My Brain Exploded through a traditional publisher, Algonquin Books, I’ve decided to abandon the old ways. The issues of dealing with a traditional publisher are really not worth it — life is too short. So I’ve now decided to go indie, enter the modern era, and release all my work electronically. As such, I formed my own entertainment production company called Spiral Mirror Entertainment. It is so named because the company intends to take on e-based projects that shake up society and offer a reflection that spirals the norm. The Day My Brain Exploded: The Audiobook is our first project. Coming up next is my second work, an e-book entitled If These Saris Could Talk, which reveals the lives of a group of subversive, transgressive Indian women, presenting a whole new definition of what femininity means. It will accompany a fabulous audiobook performed by a famous British Indian actress. Other upcoming projects include “Prose on Peace” — an e-collection of blog posts by a post-modern Catholic Peace Director, which will show entirely new ways true peace can be achieved spiritually.

BC: Ashok, thanks for taking the time to do this interview. Making an audiobook on your own, especially for a person with disabilities, really does seem like a daunting mission. If you had a chance to do this all over again, would you?

AR: In a heartbeat.

To learn more about Ashok Rajamani, you can visit his website, AshokRajamani.com, and find him on Facebook.