Today, W2 and Greeta Ahart--LightHouse for the Blind Braille transcriptionist and audio-tactile map maker--drove to Napa to doa workshop with blind and low vision teens at  Enchanted Hills Camp . Greeta is also a drama teacher and a thespian, so we combined my W2C practices with her Judging Fences technique--a way to get people to embody their hopes and fears and act them out as skits. The teens were really enthused. Ranging in age form 17 - 21, they sprawled on  mats and settled in for meditation and then a writing session. The theme was around relationships, openings and closings, and how to go beyond perceived or self-created fences. I shared a personal story about a date I was recently on and read aloud an ee. cummings poem that the date had sent me. Some the teens wrote about their girlfriends or boyfriends, others expressed their excitement in having com...

Every year, Independent Living Resource Center San Francisco , the disability advocacy/peer counseling agency that I work for, hosts an e vent in honor of the Americans with Disabilities Act. ADA Day is today, July 26 th . It is a day to mark civil rights victories for people with disabilities and, also, a time to consider how far we still have to go. This year,   ILRCSF is celebrating the day by offering a literary event at the San Francisco Public Library. Disabled writers and poets will be presenting their work and there will be a wine and cheese reception. See the preceding post for details. ILRCSF has also called for a virtual action to commemorate the day. Bloggers and users of Facebook and Twitter have been asked to Blog for Access today. Put up a post or tweet or status update about what access means to you. This virtual action on ADA Day reminds us that we live in a time when technology is enabling people with disabilities to go beyond   physical, intellectual or e...

An event in honor of the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act Access Services of the San Francisco Public Library in association with Independent Living Resource Center San Francisco presents  Writers with Disabilities ,  Lives Explored:  Tuesday, July 26, 2011 Main Library, 100 Larkin St. - Lower Level Reading: 6–7:30 p.m., Koret Auditorium Belo Cipriani - Author of Blind: A Memoir Bridgett Brown - Slam Poet/Disability Rights Advocate Derek Zarda - Slam Poet/Disability Rights Advocate Amber DiPietra - Poet/Teacher/Disability Rights Advocate David Fish - Artist/Writer/U.S. Military Veteran Michelle Puckett - Poet/Poetry Ark Grand Prize winner/Disability Rights Advocate Jennifer Kathleen Gibbons - Blogger/Novelist Book sale by Readers Bookstore follows the program. The Library is wheelchair accessible. Assistive listening devices and real-time captioning will be pro-vided. To request other accommodations, call  (415) 557-4557  or contact...