Almost Live episode #145
Tell us what you really think, Leona Godin!
Blind author and performer, Leona Godin, shares excerpts from her hilarious and irreverent new solo storytelling show and other recent work that explores living the art of blindness in an ocularcentric world.
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Resources
Dr. M. Leona Godin (pronounced like French sculptor Rodin) is a writer, performer, speaker, and editor. Her nonfiction debut is There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness (Pantheon Books, 2021), which The New Yorker called a “thought-provoking mixture of criticism, memoir, and advocacy.” Her writing can be found in such diverse publications as The New York Times, Playboy, O Magazine, Electric Literature, and Catapult, where she wrote the column A Blind Writer’s Notebook. For more of her fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, check out her list of publications.
She received her PhD from NYU in Early Modern Literature and promptly turned around and wrote two plays: The Spectator & the Blind Man, about the very sexy history of the invention of braille, and The Star of Happiness, about Helen Keller’s time on Vaudeville. You can learn more about her performance adventures here
Besides her many years teaching literature and humanities courses at NYU, she has lectured on art, accessibility, technology, and disability at such places as Tandon School of Engineering, Rice University, Baylor College of Medicine, and the American Printing House for the Blind. For a list of keynotes, classes, and conversations, visit Talks & Teaching.
Godin is the founding editor of Aromatica Poetica, an online magazine exploring the arts and sciences of smell and taste.
M. Leona Godin was born with the birth name Michelle Leona Goodin, but if you call her by the “M” word, she’ll not talk to you anymore. Check out “Me by Any Other Name,” for more on the momentous name shift.
Visit Leona’s website, find her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, or email her at leona@drmlgodin.com
