The following is a newsletter I wrote for VSA FL artist members. Besides being a great freelance gig, this VSA newsletter gives me the excuse to go out and meet interesting artists with disabilities across Florida Apropos, Winter 2013 Conversation, at it's best, is a kind of dance or musical score. I have interviewed many disabled artists, thinkers and doers in the past-but I always felt bound to hurriedly scribbling down their ideas in my notebook. As a low vision writer/reporter, it never occurred to me to really use technology to accommodate myself-even though I was an assistive tech counselor in previous jobs! So this time, when I sat down to talk with two performers who also have disabilities, I used a recording app on my digital tablet and speech-to-text features, so that I could keep my hands free and listen with my whole body. I hope a little bit of the dance in our conversations comes through in these Q & A's. --Amber DiPietra Paul E. ...

There's a lot of buzz about the nightlife in downtown St. Petersburg. There are funky dives, upscale gastro pubs, hipster hang-outs, punk bars, drag show venues, dance clubs, galleries, and day -time street festivals. But maybe you don't have a lot of going-out type friends or you just haven't figured out how you want to be part of the pulse of this creative, urban area. Perhaps you've heard of places like Painting with a Twist --studio lounges where you can be social over cocktails and have fun painting on canvases like a kid or would-be master. This kind of socializing-meets-art-project really tends to open things up for people. Well, Write To Connect's answer to that is Wine and Refine. Wine and Redefine is a fun night out, sipping vino and experimenting with words. Our starting point will be keeping journals--if only as a springboard for conversation about our creative impulses and as a way to share our lives, stories, funny daily thoughts, and more. Who kn...

Autumn is replete with skeleton imagery--from the funny, caricatured, glow-in-the-dark bones of a Halloween costume to the ornate and joyous depictions in Dia de Los Muertos alters and festivals. The light! The fire! Sometimes, with seasonal shifts, my rheumatoid arthritis flares. RA is not your granny's arthritis, mind you. It begins in youth as an autoimmune disorder and chronic inflammation burns away cartilage. Without cartilaginous padding, bones grind together, grow spurs, become unhinged, knees or wrists or all joints simply stop moving altogether. For years, I thought my fascination with skeletons was rather morbid, but now I realize I identify with them! Since I am always aware of my bones grinding together, I am always reminded of the fact that I am a skeleton. Here is a skeletal college Assembled and pasted into my journal when I was trying to do some writing about a knee surgery I had. I eventually wrote the story--it turned into a longer, fictional pie...