Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Ruth Perkinson's blog




Ruth Perkinson, a really wonderful author, posted on her blog today about the fact that she is going blind. This is the link for the blog Going blind . . .

Ruth is a friend. We've known each other a number of years and, since she lives in Virginia, we've met up a couple of times and at the GCLS conference. Her books and our shared experiences with teaching brought us together. If you haven't read her work, you should. Ruth was one of the first lesbian authors, in our current crop, to veer off from the thin romances, mysteries and other types of stories to write what I guess we would call "literature." Her books have depth and complexity and require you to think.

I'm not trying to insult anyone, but, when Ruth showed up, too many lesbian "novels" were still stuck in the Xena fan fic arena (I swore if I read one more book with a tall, stoic dark haired woman and her spunky, shorter blond girlfriend that I would start a bon fire and burn them all) or suffered from the belief that 120 pages was a long book. I was constantly posting on here, the GCLS site and anywhere else I could rant that we needed to do better. I would use Ruth as my example. Fortunately, we're moving more and more in that direction, but I hate the thought that we may lose Ruth from this community because she can't read to write anymore.

If you do a search, you'll find her books. My personal favorites are Piper's Someday (dog lovers will have a special interest in this) and The Mystic Market. I have reviews of them posted here. If you're looking for good reading with some real substance and texture to it, give Ruth a try.




1 comment:

  1. I wish I could afford to read her books but I don't have money. But I do want to say that with today technology and the fact that she hasn't been blind since birth that she should still be able to write. It was many many years ago that my nephew developed stargartz which I am sure I spelled wrong. It was before computers are advanced as today and before all the fancy phones. He was just out of his teens a mechanic that worked on the big trucks.tractor trailer size. He had to give that up and eventually was led to learn computers. That was long before the ability to talk and have the computer type for u. When mom died and Rodney came home for the visit the caregivers we had with us were amazed at how well he got around and took care of himself even though he is legally blind. You learn just like you learn to do anything else how to adapt. And there are vision specialists that help u. Even in Virginia. She has the advantage and blessing to have been sighted and know what colors are what a tree looks like. And her other senses will develop to take up the slack. My nephew has hearing that frustrated his sons as they grew up. But she can still write with the voice technology that will write for her. And she will have memory of things to fall back on if she were describing a fall day for example.

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