Four television shows and one feature film have been honored with the “Seal of Authentic Representation” from the Ruderman Family Foundation. Established in Boston in 2002, the Ruderman Family Foundation works toward the inclusion of people with disabilities in society. The Foundation’s Seal of Authentic Representation recognizes films and television shows that have demonstrated a commitment to the full inclusion of people with disabilities in popular culture. This is particularly important as so many productions have cast actors without disabilities in roles that portray disability.

Disability in Film: The Honorees

This marks the fourth time the Ruderman Family Foundation has bestowed the Seal. The current group of honorees are:

See, a science fiction drama produced by Apple TV+. The series is set in the distant future at a time when the human race has lost the sense of sight and society must find new ways to interact and survive. See has cast Marilee Talkington and Bree Klauser, both of whom are legally blind.

This Is Us, NBC’s comedy/drama about a set of triplets, their parents and the family’s struggles, has cast Blake Stadnik, an actor who lives with Stargardt Disease, a form of macular degeneration. Stadnik plays Jack Damon, a character who lives with retinopathy of prematurity, a disease of the eyes which can cause blindness.

Atypical, a coming-of-age series produced for Netflix, tells the story of 18-year-old Sam Gardner, who has autism spectrum disorder. The show has cast three actors with autism: Dominique Brown, Layla Weiner and Spencer Harte.

Also produced for Netflix, The Politician earns kudos for casting Ryan J. Haddad, an actor who lives with cerebral palsy, as Andrew Cashman, a character with cerebral palsy.

And finally, the feature film Spare Room, a romantic drama, co-stars Cole Sibus, an actor with Down Syndrome who plays a character with the same disability.

Advocating for Actors with Disabilities

The actors couldn’t be more pleased with their jobs.

“I am grateful to the Ruderman Family Foundation for its steadfast commitment to disability inclusion in entertainment, and I thank the Foundation for recognizing The Politician with its Seal of Authentic Representation,” said Ryan J. Haddad in a statement. “Series creators Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan set out to populate the world of their satirical high school with a variety of voices without calling attention to it in the scripts. It’s been a privilege for me to inhabit their story and their words. This kind of disability inclusion is refreshing, truthful and necessary. We exist in the world, we can be part of any story, and those stories need not be laser focused on our disabilities in order for us to play meaningful roles.”

“It is incredibly important for the entertainment industry to authentically cast characters with disabilities,” added Blake Stadnik. “Not only does it deservingly give work to some of the most talented actors I know, but it also influences the audience’s perception of disability as a whole. Personally, it would have been beyond meaningful to me to see a person with low vision play a character like Jack when I was growing up. I am honored to possibly be that for someone now, and I am so proud to be part of a show that wants to authentically represent everyone’s story.”

Disability Advocate: The Ruderman Family Foundation

The Ruderman Family Foundation conducted a study in 2016 that found that only 5% of characters with disabilities on television were played by actors with disabilities. In February 2020, the Foundation released a new study that showed that the number of disabled characters played by actors with disabilities has risen to 22%.

For more information on the Ruderman Family Foundation, please visit https://rudermanfoundation.org.

Photo: Jason Momoa and Hera Hilmar in See. Photo courtesy of Apple TV+.

As more people turn to online streaming to get their content, it can be difficult for a visually impaired person to know what accessible options are out there. It can be equally as frustrating trying to judge the quality of these services.

This mini guide provides a general overview of the accessibility services offered by streaming companies and how well they perform. Note: This list is focused on accessible streaming services, and does not include cable providers.

Note: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links and I will earn a commission if you purchase through these links (at no additional cost to you).

Accessible Streaming Services

Netflix

Price: $9 to $16 per month

Netflix began offering audio description (AD) in 2015. They describe nearly all originals, even newly released comedy specials. Older comedy specials won’t have audio description. They actively try to acquire third-party AD tracks from production companies wherever possible.

They have an audio description category on all mobile apps. Their audio description catalog on the web can even be filtered down by genre.

Netflix even offers audio description in languages other than English for people watching in the U.S. on selected titles.

When browsing titles on their website, their details page clearly says audio description is available. They have two play buttons, one to start with AD enabled, and one to start with AD disabled.

One major drawback of Netflix, however, is that they will only produce one AD track. This is a big problem for foreign originals that are dubbed in English because the AD is only available in that native language. There have also been reports that the AD is region locked. An English AD track for a Netflix original made in the U.S. won’t have an English AD track when a U.S. user travels to other countries, for example.

Amazon Prime Video

Price: Comes free with Amazon Prime membership ($12.99 per month), or $8.99 a month if purchased separately. If you have a valid EBT or Medicaid card, Prime benefits cost $5.99 a month for a maximum of four years.

Amazon started offering audio described content in 2017. Amazon has titles that can be rented or purchased with audio description. Some titles can be streamed for free with a Prime subscription. The titles that can be streamed for free rotate due to licensing deals. The Prime originals, created by Amazon, can only be accessed with a Prime subscription, but will never expire because Amazon is the producer. Amazon took three years to include audio description information in details of titles. The web player isn’t fully keyboard accessible, but the iOS app is accessible, as well as the Apple TV app. Many blind Android users report that the app is accessible. Audio description doesn’t work on all third-party TVs though, so if you have an obscure smart TV or a Roku device, you may not be able to get AD.

Amazon has recently started actively working with AD companies that provide text-to-speech AD rather than human-narrated AD. Some say this is a good thing. While I firmly disagree, it could lead to more titles with AD that never had the chance to get AD in the past.

Even though Amazon provides described content, that content isn’t easy to search for and filter. They only have one audio description category link. There’s no AD category on any of the apps. Searching for audio description within the Prime Video app on both iOS and Apple TV leads to inaccurate results.

IMDb TV

Price: Free

IMDb, the Internet Movie Database, is owned by Amazon. In addition to their well-known online database of movie data, they operate a free streaming service called IMDb TV, which includes some audio described content. This is the only technically free service to watch described movies. One could argue that it’s supposed to persuade you to buy Amazon Prime to get commercial free Prime video, but the service has no limitations. It does feature ads though, at random times throughout the movies. There’s no way to tell what movies have audio description, though. There’s no AD category, nor audio description details on movie pages. You can watch IMDb TV through their website or by connecting it to your Amazon Prime account and selecting “stream free with ads” on a title’s Prime detail page if it’s available.

Disney+

Price: $6.99 per month, or $69.99 per year.

Disney+ has described content. Everything within Disney+ is owned by Disney, but not everything is described. Diligent staff members are working to eventually make their entire catalog have audio description, which is their reasoning for not including an AD category within the app, nor an AD designation symbol. Still, it won’t happen overnight, which is why I wish Disney would put an audio description identifier on detail pages.

All originally produced titles during and after 2020 will have audio description. Still, the quality of the accessibility service is somewhat inconsistent. Their support staff doesn’t know what audio description is, or even screen readers. Sometimes, audio description won’t retain across titles or devices. Their web player isn’t fully accessible via the keyboard. It can be difficult for screen reader users running older versions of JAWS to use their website. Their iOS and Apple TV app is fully accessible, though. Blind Android users say their Android app is fully accessible.

Apple TV/iTunes

Price: Varies per title

Apple started offering described movies around Global Accessibility Awareness Day in 2016. Users can rent or buy described titles. Like everything else “Apple,” it just works. AD is designated in a movie’s details page on both the iOS and Apple TV details page. AD is in English only when browsing for described titles. It just works. That’s it. Find a described movie and play it. If your AD setting is turned on in accessibility settings, the AD will automatically start.

Two major drawbacks are that the audio description category isn’t easily located on the Apple TV. It’s buried under an obscure genre list in the features tab of the TV or movies app. The other drawback is that TV shows, except for Apple TV+ originals, don’t have AD at all. Apple says that acquiring TV licensing rights is more complicated and different than acquiring movie rights, but that claim doesn’t make sense when their competitors obtain AD tracks for TV shows regularly. If Apple could get AD tracks for TV shows, this service would be my number one pick for accessible media services. All elements are labeled. Everything just simply works.

Apple TV+

Price: $5 per month

Apple TV+ is my number one choice for accessible streaming services. Apple TV+ is their subscription offering, where users pay a monthly subscription and watch Apple original shows whenever they want. Apple TV+ has everything described. Considering that Apple TV+ consists only of Apple originals, this isn’t shocking. AD is available in multiple languages on every title. AD isn’t region locked. AD isn’t encoded in a low quality, either. AD is available in Dolby Atmos.

Everything is labeled. All menus read. Everything is accessible. It also sounds great on a high-quality Bluetooth speaker. It just works, and it works far better than any other service. I also rank Apple’s content higher than any other originals. I have yet to dislike a show or movie on there.

The only drawback is that Apple TV+ isn’t made for binging. TV shows release episodes every week. Still, there’s something about clearing out my weekend calendar to dive into an Apple TV+ episode that leaves me feeling calm. I’m not overwhelmed by binging and I’m happy I don’t feel like I have 30 episodes to go all at once. This, of course, is a personal preference. Still, my Apple love shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.

Hulu

Price: $5.99/mo. (Hulu) or $54.99/mo. (Hulu + Live TV)

After refusing to take accessibility seriously and ignoring the visually impaired community, Hulu and advocates from the American Council of the Blind (ACB) and Bay State Council of the Blind (BSCB) reached a settlement agreement in October 2018 to increase the accessibility of Hulu’s streaming service. Their deadline was January 2020. Hulu offers Hulu originals and third-party content with audio description. Their apps are also now much more accessible than they were previously. Described content can be difficult to find without browsing their AD catalog page online. The iOS and Apple TV apps have the same category, but it’s buried under the genre menu for some reason. Titles don’t designate audio description availability in detail pages at all. AD isn’t in high quality as on other platforms. Many customer service representatives don’t know what audio description is without asking supervisors. Hulu seems to be adding described tracks for third-party content the slowest out of all the services.

CBS All Access

Price: $5.99 per month

CBS All Access has audio description. That’s the only good thing I can say about it. Their app has a ton of unlabeled buttons. Audio description doesn’t play in both channels when wearing a Bluetooth headset. AD skips and stutters while programs continue to play. Audio description settings never retained for me when switching shows or devices. Their customer service representatives are very convinced that audio description is closed captioning, even after a lengthy explanation. AD isn’t available for all seasons of originals or third-party content. AD has static when listening via a Bluetooth speaker. The AD audio channel mutes some shows completely. An episode isn’t described when an audio description language option exists. There’s no way, inside the app, to tell what shows or episodes have audio description at all.

Out of all the other services on this list, I’d actually say you should avoid paying for this service at all costs, even if there are originals you may want to watch. There are far more accessible services out there that deserve your money. CBS All Access doesn’t deserve money from the visually impaired community at all in its current state.

Graphic of audio description symbol: Font Awesome Free 5.2.0 by @fontawesome / CC BY

By Belo Cipriani

Having a job is important. Aside from generating income, it provides independence and can boost a person’s self-esteem. But for people with disabilities, landing that one job is extremely tough.

According to a study released by Melwood, a nonprofit providing jobs and opportunities to people with disabilities throughout the greater Washington, D.C. area, only four out of 10 individuals with disabilities are employed in the U.S. While the study points to some grim figures when it comes to work participation for people with cognitive or mobility conditions, the Melwood study highlights that people with disabilities have a lot to contribute, if given the opportunity.

For example, the report states Melwood workers of differing abilities earned wages of about $27.7 million in 2017 and paid about $6 million in federal, state, and local taxes.

Melwood’s CEO, Cari DeSantis, believes the disability community has a lot to offer employers.

“This group of people is creative, hardworking, and loyal,” she said.

Legally blind electronic dance music star Lachi, who only uses one name, fits DeSantis’ description like a glove. In addition to being a performer, she is an entrepreneur and author. She also does a lot of freelance work to support herself.

“In today’s industry, you gotta keep the bills paid between the major projects,” she said. “So apart from live engagements, I also write toplines and produce vocals for other artists; compose music or vocals for producers, production studios, and ad agencies; and create vocal packs for club DJs.”

While Lachi has no problem landing projects, she said that her disability sometimes impacts how her clients perceive her.

“I tell artists and clients about my visual impairment right at the gate, if they don’t already know,” she said. “Usually they start off a little taken aback by the way I work, then they get all ‘Oh, wow, she’s really good for a blind person,’ but it usually ends with ‘Wait, she’s actually just really frickin’ good.'”

Lachi recognizes looking for work with a disability has its challenges. And to all those individuals that are having a tough time securing a job, she encourages exploring the gig economy.

“If you’re having a hard time finding work,” she said, “consider ditching the traditional work-grinder and joining the gig economy. With micro-skills such as writing ad copy, Photoshop editing, virtual assisting, people are making livings without leaving the house or interacting with other humans beyond a few messages. Sites like Upwork or even Fiverr allow you to post your skills on their sites and find clients. SoundBetter is a great marketplace for experienced musicians to acquire independent projects.”

For Lachi, being an entrepreneur means she has to be constantly networking. And with just one partially-seeing eye, meeting people at events often presents barriers.

“Well,” said the LGBTQ ally, “being blind makes networking quite the endeavor. I’m on a constant split-test of how best to shock people into engaging with me. Learning and navigating new locations is always a thing, namely because I’ve gotta figure things out super fast and somewhat furtively. People have no idea that most of the simple tasks I do in new locations (i.e. sitting in a chair, opening a door, shaking a hand) is about 60% based on intuitions and deductions, not on actual physical knowledge.

“People sometimes assume I’m aloof because I don’t wave back, or approach, or make direct eye contact, or acknowledge social cues altogether,” she continued. “People also render me a bit pushy, because I often have to really focus on the situation at hand to comprehend it. Failing to see and needing to work hard to focus are both physical traits — resulting from my disability — that have seeped into the macrocosm of my personality. But once I can see you, and even when I can’t, I’m super social.”

Lachi’s determination has made her an artist to watch out for. Her recent release “Fire” debuted on international dance charts, and “Go” hit over one million streams in three months, and hit the BeatPort Top 100 for EDM/Drum & Bass. She also has a few releases dropping in July and August — including a dub track titled “Unafraid,” featuring emerging Milano DJ duo RIOHTZ.

Lachi represents a small section of the disability community that is employed. As the Melwood study pointed out, and as we have learned through meeting Lachi, the disability community has many creative and hardworking individuals that would be an asset to any organization. Improving the work participation of people with disabilities can seem like a huge undertaking; however, it is an issue that anyone can support in several different ways.

If you are a supervisor or work in human resources, you can talk to the leadership in your company to see about starting a program that recruits from the disability community. Additionally, employers can establish partnerships with nonprofits that help people with disabilities find work to create hiring events. And if you are one of those people that likes to volunteer, you can reach out to nonprofits and offer to provide interview coaching, or simply help out through any volunteer need the agency may have.

For those who may not have much free time to get involved, you can pledge your support for increasing the number of employed people with disabilities by donating to the agencies that do work in this space, as well as by buying the goods created by people with disabilities. Gift card donations to nonprofits for places like Target or BestBuy are other ways people can help the disability community with securing work, as this makes it possible for people to buy clothes and gear for work. Also, liking and sharing the social media posts of disability advocates, and the agencies that support them, helps them to be seen by more people.

To learn more about Melwood, visit www.melwood.org. To follow Lachi’s work, visit http://www.lachimusic.com.

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.

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

How does a 74-year-old, legally blind, African American woman living in Wisconsin hook up with the man voted the Best Disability Advocate of 2015 in the Bay Area? As usual, it’s all about who you know, and Belo knows my daughter, Dawn. (Both are talented people who met through Lambda Literary Foundation’s Emerging Writers Fellows, a program for LGBT writers.) When Belo learned that I am visually impaired, and that I’m three courses away from completing my PhD, he wanted to hear my story. I’m so grateful to Belo for inviting me to do a guest blog on his highly-regarded site.

I began to lose my vision in my mid-30s, but continued to work full time as a college administrator while raising four children. The eye disease I am diagnosed with is Rod-Cone Dystrophy. This means that the rods and cones at the back of the eye are disintegrating and have been doing so for the past 40+ years. There is no cure for this disease, and eventually I will be completely blind.

Earning this PhD has been a lifelong dream, and after five years of online study, I am at the end of the doctoral process. I have three courses remaining:  Dissertation 2, On-Site Residency, and the Dissertation Defense course. My dissertation project topic is: “An Examination of the Services provided to the Blind and Visually Impaired by the State of Wisconsin.” I sit on the Board of The Wisconsin Statutory Council on Blindness, which created a committee charged with making recommendations to the state on improvements to the lives of the visually impaired in Wisconsin. This 9-person committee adopted my suggestion to submit a scientific study, which became my dissertation topic. When complete, my research will first go to the Office of the Blind and Visually Impaired (OBVI), and then to the Secretary of Human Services of Wisconsin, and, finally, on to the state legislature!

My colleagues and dissertation chair have often told me they are in awe of my ability to do this work with my visual impairment. I would be lost without my accessibility tools: my reverse colored computer monitor, my assistive binoculars, and, most importantly, ZoomText software, which allows the intense zoom I require, and reads text aloud to me as my condition worsens and the zoom function is not as effective for me.

In addition to the three courses, I’ll need to retain a dissertation editor due to my blindness, which makes the APA doctoral guidelines a problem for me.  At the end of May, I will attend the fourth-year residency program in Phoenix, AZ, which will require airfare, hotel and meals. Lastly, I’ll need a website for my qualitative e-Delphi study, as well as a statistician to aid in accuracy in collecting the study data. But, first things first! I need support to finish my coursework.

I’m a life-long learner and educator. With my doctorate, I can continue to teach as well as learn. I have a chance to affect legislation in my state for the blind through my PhD research.

Photo Captions: (1) Jo Grove, PhD candidate 2015; (2) Jo Grove with Dawn and her partner, Kat, in March 2015

The Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network (RTB) was the world’s first radio reading service for the blind when it was established in 1969. At that time, there was no access to newspapers, many magazines, and many books for people who were unable to read print. Although it was part of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind, the radio has always included a wide variety of people with print disabilities among its customers — people with dyslexia, traumatic brain injury, and any physical disability that does not allow a person to hold a book or turn the pages.

From the very beginning, the station was recording books, even though the National Library Service (NLS) was also recording books, because it was obvious that there were many books they were not recording. For many years, those books were only available to residents of Minnesota, on vinyl disc or on cassette. About ten years ago, we established a tighter relationship with the Minnesota Braille and Talking Book Library, which is Minnesota’s Regional Library Service for the NLS, and, at that time, we established that people could request books recorded by the RTB by requesting an interlibrary loan from their own regional library connected to the NLS.

The airing of books, which are aired serially, one hour per day, is only part of what the RTB offers. Monday through Friday, people will hear eleven hours of books, four hours of today’s newspapers, and nine hours of programming taken from around three hundred periodicals. Saturdays and Sundays only have four books, which consist of a self-help book, a book of regional interest, a book aimed at children 8 to 15, and a book of contemporary poetry; the rest of the weekend programming is periodicals and newspapers.

The signal is available to people in Minnesota via a closed circuit digital radio, but it is available to people outside of Minnesota as one of the stations on iBlink, or by accessing the stream on the Internet at www.mnssb.org/rtb and using the password “rtb”. Articles from the RTB are also available as podcasts on the AudioBoom podcast site — look for RadioTalkingBook.

I have been the manager of the station since 2000, and have been working at the station since 1986.

We are always looking for additional ways of making our products available to a wider audience. Last summer, we began exploring ways of adding our books to BARD. Since BARD is run by the NLS, they are very particular about not only what they allow on BARD, but about the quality of the materials that are put into the system. Our first book to be on the BARD system was put up there in January of 2015. It is a book entitled Sky Tinged Red: A Chronicle of Two and a Half Years in Auschwitz, written by Isaia Eiger, and translated by his daughter, Dora Eiger Zaidenweber. Though the NLS was most interested in us having BARD books that were of particular interest to people of Minnesota, that is not a necessity. This book, however, does have a Minnesota connection because the daughter who translated it lives in Minnesota.

The RTB records our books in a DAISY format and our volunteers, around 500, are all over Minnesota and outside of Minnesota as well. We have volunteers in New York state, Illinois, Missouri, Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas, and more. The volunteers who do not come into our offices have equipment that we loan them on which to record the books. They burn their recordings onto CDs, send them to us, and then we compile the recordings here in St. Paul, making any adjustments we need to for volume, etc. before they go onto the radio or get put into a format for distribution.

Our readers take a fairly stringent Oral Reading Test. They come from many walks of life, though some of them are experienced in theater, radio, or television. We also have people who are dermatologists, lawyers, teachers, real estate agents, artists, and musicians. What they have in common is that they enjoy reading and they passed our Oral Reading Test. One of the very important rules for our readers is that if they are not absolutely certain of a pronunciation of a word, they need to stop their recording and find out how to pronounce it. One might think this doesn’t happen often, but it does. Most people are not aware that the average speaking vocabulary is only one-third the size of the average reading vocabulary. We see words all the time in print that we don’t use in conversation, so much of the time we are not certain of the pronunciations. We have a huge English language vocabulary — over five times the size of the next smaller language (German) — so it is impossible that any one person will know the pronunciations of all the words. Our attention to that detail is one of the elements that convinced the NLS to allow us to put our books on BARD.

Our recording studios in St. Paul are some of the largest in the United States. We have twenty recording booths. When you add the numbers of people we have recording in their homes, that adds up to a great deal of recording happening at any one time. At this time, our recording system is a custom-designed DAISY system, which is integrated with our library, volunteer management, and billing systems. When we started recording in DAISY, we were the only ones in the U.S. to be doing that, so we had to design our own system. Now there are a number of systems available and we are in the process of evaluating them to see which might suit our needs if we move to an off-the-shelf product.

So, how would one find out what books the Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network has put up on BARD? As far as I know, BARD does not have a way of searching for what organization has produced the books. The RTB does have a Facebook page, and the books that will be airing each month are listed there. It is listed as Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network. One can also see this month’s books listed on the department’s website at www.mnssb.org.

At this time, the books we have posted on BARD are the following: Sky Tinged Red: A Chronicle of Two and a Half Years in Auschwitz, by Isaia Eiger; The Keillor Reader, by Garrison Keillor; Evergreen, by Rebecca Rasmussen; Augie’s Secrets: The Minneapolis Mob and the King of the Hennepin Strip, by Neal Karlen; The Heart of All that Is: Reflections on Home, by various authors; The High Divide, by Lin Enger; Into the Paradox: Conservative Spirit, Feminist Politics, by Toni A. H. McNaron; Land of 10,000 Loves: A History of Queer Minnesota, by Stewart Van Cleve; The Last Kind Word: A McKenzie Novel, by David Housewright; We’ll be the Last Ones to Let You Down: Memoir of a Gravedigger’s Daughter, by Rachael Hanel; The Unseen Trail: The Story of a Blind Hiker’s Journey on the Appalachian Trail, by Michael O. Hanson; Vikings Across the Atlantic: Emigration and the Building of a Greater Norway, 1860-1945, by Daron W. Olson; and Your Legacy Matters: Harvesting the Love and Lessons of Your Life: a Multi-generational Guide for Writing Your Ethical Will, by Rachael Freed.

To learn more about the Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network, visit their website at www.mnssb.org and connect with them on Facebook.

Photo Courtesy of the Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network. Photo shows one of our volunteers wearing a recording head-set. Judy McGuigan was a wonderful volunteer who passed on some years ago, but she left us a great image of what a volunteer should be.

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

Susan’s first book, The Mirror Dance, captures the fears of a lesbian community in a Midwestern town. Susan says, “I interviewed about sixty women and almost all feared being outed at work.”  This is a concern she admits may be less common in our modern society, but was definitely a big part of the Lesbian community not so long ago.

In a more recent book, Things No Longer There, Susan vividly relives her experience at a camp she attended as a teenage girl that was run by two lesbians. Although she did not know about their sexuality then, in retrospect she could remember Ms. Sandy’s unused bed, which was always cluttered with papers and projects. In the first chapter, she dives deeper into the dynamics and idiosyncrasies that made up the camp organizer’s relationship. She writes, “They never arrived together as if to insist they came from different lives.” The camp had such great impact on her that Susan wishes she could have been able to see the camp owners as an adult to tell them how much she loved the place and that she was lesbian too.

Susan also analyzes her own fears, what she calls “lesbo-phobias,” in another piece called The Family Silver. In this narrative, Susan discusses the lesbo-phobias pertaining to being a lesbian teacher. She writes, “I was aware of the consequences of touching students to say ‘great work’ or ‘nice,’ and always kept my hands to my sides.” The world that existed outside the “heterosexual veneer,” as Susan refers to it, was to be protected and kept a secret in those times.

Being out of the closet was risky and Susan experienced some taunting, yet it did yield some good as well. When Susan arrived at Stanford and asked if there were any other lesbian faculty members, the answer was, “just one other.” Later, Susan found herself knocking at professor Estelle Frieddman’s door. The two soon became partners, and they now have been together for 30 years.

When Susan began to lose her sight in the mid 90s to a condition called birdshot retinochoroidopathy, it was Estelle who helped Susan through the transition. “Hannah,” as Estelle is known in Susan’s books, encouraged her partner to write and served as her first editor. This wonderful display of support resulted in Things No Longer There, and her latest book, Traveling Blind, in which “Hannah,” Susan, and her guide dog Teela travel to many parts of the country.

In the GLBT community, labels come naturally and words like “bottom,” “butch” or “fem” are casually exchanged, yet Susan discovered that the blind label was easier to go public with. When she was sighted, hearing occasional name calling while walking down the street was not uncommon. However, once she started to carry a white cane and later to walk with a guide dog, people treated her more kindly. “Blindness definitely has its own set of problems, but it is easier for people to accept,” says Susan. While doing a radio interview for Things No Longer There, which is mostly about lesbianism and touches lightly on vision loss, Susan was not surprised that the radio program focused entirely on her blindness.

In a statement that illustrates the fearlessness embodied in the colorful GLBT community, Susan proudly claims herself as both Lesbian and blind.

Susan Krieger, a sociologist and writer, teaches in the Program in Feminist Studies at Stanford University. Her books include Things No Longer There: A Memoir of Losing Sight and Finding Vision; The Family Silver: Essays on Relationships among Women; Social Science and the Self: Personal Essays on an Art Form; The Mirror Dance: Identity in a Women’s Community; and Hip Capitalism. Click here to learn more about Susan Krieger.

Who is Belo Cipriani?

Belo Cipriani is a staffing professional, the award-winning author of Blind: A Memoir and Midday Dreams, a spokesperson for Guide Dogs for the Blind, and the career expert for the Ed Baxter Show on Talk Radio San Francisco 910AM. You are invited to connect with him on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and  YouTube.