A fabulously gay blind author.
This won't be a lengthy post. It will consist of a small update and a brief explanation regarding why I am no longer publishing Sightless Scribbles to YouTube. For those that do follow my YouTube channel, you might have noticed that I began streaming again. I won't stream every day. My one hobby is reading and writing. I'd much rather publish new blog entries about what I've read or enjoyed…
Throwback notes. This was previously published on the Libro FM blog. I've edited one word, and have chosen not to link to the audiobook I am mentioning because of what surfaced about this author in 2026. I’ll be the first to tell you that I have a list of audiobooks for almost any reading taste. Comic books are a different story, though. Because I’m totally blind, and am just now learning…
Mood: Wanting to throw a $30,000 prototype into a lake. There is a feel-good genre of viral video that I call "The Inspiration Porn Industrial Complex." You know the one. It usually features a college engineering team, a dramatic piano soundtrack, and a disabled person strapped into a machine that looks like a Transformer having a panic attack. The caption usually reads: “Students invent…
This was previously published on Writer's Digest. The column instructed us to be a clueless literary agent. This was accepted, and I was so happy my satire was accepted, I bragged about it to the grass and to gravity itself. The rejection letter. Dear Mr. Snicket, I am writing to you from the comfort of my office that isn’t tied with any secret organizations or any dastardly deeds such as…
Read the story here Read the backlash background on this Wikipedia page here I’m sitting here remembering a short story published before the pandemic this year, in 2020. My god, that seems so long ago, but the story is still in the back of my mind, even if it feels like I’m the only one that read it sometimes. Let’s back up, though. Clarkesworld Magazine, a very tough market to break into,…
The thought of changing the world comes to me quite often, when my friends and I are deep in a Dungeons and Dragons campaign and we’re playfully bantering about what direction we should head, as I’m quietly munching on a yummy chocolate chip cookie. The thought of making the world better has risen to my mind more than once. More so, ever since I began my journey of writing letters to prisoners all…
Mood: Functioning at 1000% efficiency. I often feel a deep, confusing pity for sighted computer users. I know, I know. You have your high-definition monitors and your colorful icons and your wallpapers of tropical beaches you’d rather be sitting on. But I have listened to you work. And frankly? It sounds exhausting. It sounds like this: Scrape. Scrape. Drag. Lift. Scrape. Click. Pause. Scrape.…
The website that hosted this review is no longer online so I would like to keep it here. The below review was written when I was sighted. I am fully blind now. Side note, nearly 15 years later, this game seems like some serious fun now! I’d gladly go back and time and tell my younger year old self, hey, trust me, when AAA games get flooded with AI junk in the future, a game like this will be very…
Sadly, the review hosting this isn’t online anymore so I decided to publish it here, on my own website. This was back when I had vision. I’m fully blind now. Game details Version tested: PC Also available on: iOS Developer: BeautiFun Games Publisher: BeautiFun Games Genre: Puzzle platformer The review. When I’d wake up from a terrible nightmare ranging from Stephen King to Donatello from the Ninja…
I experienced a trauma that my fellow disabled people encounter on a daily basis. It was early in the morning, and I was checking my email. I got an email from someone that wanted me to consider writing about their disabled business or whatever it was. They weren’t important, so I was just about to dismiss it, but something got the better of me and I opened the email and skimmed the first line out…
This was published on Vice. It was a good journalism piece, I feel, even though I am no longer a journalist. Still, this was great because I got paid well above what I was expecting. It was my first publication where I negotiated my salary so it will always hold a special place in my career. Now that Vice is no more, enjoy this snapshot in time. Finally, there’s a comic book store for the blind.…
A type of access in the publishing industry began swimming around my brain for the past week and I wanted to highlight why there should be more of it. It began when I was recommending a book to a sighted friend. They wanted some book recommendations. I recommended some books, they tried the books, then they reported back, “These were hard for me to read because of my reading struggles.” I…
Sadly, the website that hosted this review is no longer online, so I am posting it here. This was also back when I had some vision. I am fully blind now. Game Details Version tested: PS3Also available on: PC, PS Vita Developer: Mike Bithell Publisher: Mike Bithell Genre: Puzzle Platformer The Review Review April 4th 2014 Robert Kingett There’s a definition to many different words tucked away in a…
Another small update from me today. I have news! It's small news, but still, I hope the Bear Blog community can take this and use it. I finally have a theme based on my blog in Bear Blog's theme directory! It's called Low Vision Reader. Of course, it was made with low vision readers in mind by having large text by default, a relatively high contrast base, and more accessibility goodies. Herman,…
Short email today because I have some amazing news! My podcast tip jar is finally fixed! My podcast tip jar is where people can listen to my audiobooks in the podcast app of their choice. For a while, there were some account issues I did not know about but all of that should be fixed now. Now, you can enjoy serialized audiobooks right in your favorite podcast app! After you donate, you will get a…
The first time I heard about Passkeys I was about to email one of my dashingly swoon worthy friends. In this case it was Sean Crisden. I was about to detail the intricate specific joy of crunching down on a slice of freshly baked Apple Pie when my phone dinged. "Hey," my friend said, "since you're a tech person, explain Passkeys to me." And so, here I am. Think about passwords. I mean, really…
This was previously published in the Artificial Divide anthology I remember the first out-and-proud fiction book I read that included an openly gay character. Actually, this book had gone above and beyond. It was a gay utopia for me because some of the characters are also openly trans and proud of who they are. What made this book so special to me was the fact it was a safe space before I knew…
There is a comforting, tactile safety in the old fashioned way of using a phone. You press the phone to your ear, the device emitting a heat signature that's instantly grounding. This heated device creates a seal of warmth and assurance. It is an act of self preservation. No one is staring at you. No one is gauging how your looks contrast with their put together appearance. The voice on the other…
Mood: Melted. There is no other word for it. There is a practiced but familiar rhythm to my life that usually only I can hear. It is the rapid-fire thwip-thwip-click of a screen reader, the frantic, synthetic heartbeat of my phone as I navigate the world at five hundred words per minute. To anyone else, it sounds like a droid having a panic attack. To me, it is just the sound of access. I know…
Mood: Maliciously compliant. I can't express how much I utterly hate the "Continuing Disability Review." It is a letter that arrives every few years from the government, asking a question that is medically absurd and philosophically insulting: "Are you still disabled?" As if my blindness were a seasonal allergy. As if I might have woken up last Tuesday, blinked, and realized that my optic nerves…
Book censorship is very, very, important to me, so when I see libraries that directly challenge book censorship, well, I love them! I’ve written many times in my blog about why I love libraries and detest book censorship. I’m here to promote a free nationwide library for the USA! Queer Liberation Library is a digital library that uses the Libby app as their library platform. It’s free for anyone…
Listen to the audio version of Grieving Alongside Water You think you know what crying is. You think it's water from your eyes, a tremor in your voice, a hitch in your breath. That's not crying. That’s a leak. That’s a controlled demolition. I'm talking about the flood. I'm talking about the architectural failure of the whole damn building. It happened in the shower. The shower is a good place for…
The gaming website that had this article is no longer online anymore so I wanted to add it here, to my website. The below was penned in 2012, way back when I was a young journalist! Everybody has memories that we all cherish and hold dearly to our hearts. Some people have voicemails from years ago. Others have artifacts belonging to the deceased. Lastrogu3 , a user on Reddit, has a different way…
I’ve always been ineligible for residencies. Either I haven’t published enough, I don’t have enough professional contacts in the industry to give me letters of recommendation, or, well, I just don’t publish that often, which immediately disqualifies me for severely competitive residencies. I did attend a few writers retreats, but that was for like a weekend, and under a scholarship. I have always…
Mood: System Overload (Cute Variation). > WELCOME TO ZORK: DISABILITY EDITION (v 2.4) > Copyright (c) The Universe Is A Glitch. > All rights reserved. No visual drivers installed. Audio/Haptic Engine set to MAXIMUM. > BRIEFING You are ROBERT. You are a white Level 30 Mage of the Written Word with a constitution score of "Fragile" and a charisma score of "Weaponized Adorableness." Your QUEST is to…
Where Home is Not Safe. writings on Domestic Verbal, Emotional and Physical Abuse Edited by Judith Skillman and Linera Lucas ISBN: 9781476683928 Description Even if you haven’t been hurt by domestic violence, someone you know has and wishes they could tell you about it. Perhaps you are a therapist, teacher, academic, or social worker who wants to help those who are suffering. Or maybe you are in…
Mood: Feeling like an archaeologist of breakfast foods. Also, smug. If a wealthy racialized friend asks me to dinner—I say yes because I am poor and I need all the luxuries I can get. My country hates artists more than cockroaches, so I have no poverty pride at all when someone far wealthier than I says he will pay for me to go out with him and eat with him. It began like this. A wealthy porn…
The world always has a unique way of slapping me when I least expect it. Things go really well, and then, SMACK. The universe has plans for me. I can't decide if spirits read Sightless Scribbles and my life is a tragic vat of content they love to consume, or if they have joyous fun making sure things happen to me when I least expect them. It happens at Jarvis’s bookstore. The floorboards of…
Mood: Tired. Ranty. In need of a hunk of a man to bake me cookies so I can stress eat. There is a specific, suffocating hell to a conversation with a leftist who has decided that voting is a moral failing. It feels like trying to explain the concept of "drowning" to someone who is standing on dry land, criticizing the aesthetic quality of the life raft. They talk about "purity" and "burning it all…
Authors note. This little something was supposed to bloom into something else, but it never did. Still though, I think it captures a moment, which is equally as smashing! We slowly draw closer in the enveloping blackness. My porch light illuminates his questioning, but oh so eager, face as we draw closer, collapsing the distance of our feelings. Crickets cheer us on in this game of chance. The…
Mood: Firery, cozy, and currently plotting the overthrow of capitalism via Romance tropes and cookies. I have a confession to make. A secret that sits in the center of my chest like a warm, purring cat. I write Fanfiction. I also read Fanfiction too. I have been doing it for years, under a handle that has absolutely no connection to my government name, building a quiet little kingdom on the…
Mood: Intellectually combative but wishing I could have a masculine man hold my face. I was listening to a literary podcast the other day—a mistake, usually, as they tend to discuss books that don't have an audiobook version written by people who wouldn't look at me on the street—and the host let out a long, beleaguered sigh. "I just can’t do Romance," he said, his voice dripping with that…
Listen to The Acoustic Signature of Weather. Sighted people have a casual, almost dismissive relationship with the weather. They glance out a window or check an app. The weather is a visual fact, a piece of data. For me, the weather isn't data. It’s a symphony. Or, more accurately, it's a language I've learned to interpret, spoken in a dialect of sound and pressure. Every weather system has a…
Listen to A Field Guide to the Personal Space Violations of Public Transit Public transit is a marvel of modern engineering and a complete failure of human social design. It is a rolling testament to our species’ profound inability to be aware of anyone but ourselves. As a daily commuter, I have become an unwilling naturalist, documenting the various species of sensory offenders in their native…
Listen to The Cartography of an Open Palm I have written about hands before. I’ve written about them as weapons, as tools, as instruments of casual violence and clinical detachment. My memory is a museum of the hands that have done me harm, a collection curated by pain. The clenched fist that taught me the sound of bone meeting cartilage. The proprietary grip that dug bruises into my arm like…
Listen to A Map of My Scars, Read by Your Fingertips. My body is a secret atlas. Beneath my clothes, my skin is a map of a war I survived, with its topography etched in scars. There are small, circular burns, like angry, faded constellations. There are thin, silvery lines from the edges of things that were sharper than they should have been. They are a hidden geography of pain, a record of another…
Listen to Third Grade Letter to Santa Hi everyone. Some context before we begin. This was a writing assignment by my then third grade teacher. Obviously, I took the assignment a tad too seriously. All the same, even if you don't celibrate Christmas, never snuff out a child's imagination. Besides, that imagination could give way to empathy in the future. One other small note before we begin. I did…
There's a texture to grief very few examine. People talk about the loud grief—the kind of grief that shatters your soul and rattles your cage of will—but there's another kind of grief that's rarely explored. Watching and listening to your friends losing who they are. I think the climate is foreshadowing for my life. The bitter cold of the winter is a warning sign I don't pay attention to as I sip…
Mood: Like finding a bird that can finally sing. The morning felt like a bruise. Not the sharp, immediate kind, but the dull and aching throb that settles into your bones and makes the air feel smothering. I canceled all my accessibility meetings for the morning. I didn't have the bandwidth to explain-for the millionth time-why you should label a button or why you should make your menu navicable…
This essay was published in the local college newspaper when I attended-- what was then known-- as TCC. Tallahassee Community College. I can vehemently say—given some slight word changes perhaps—I am, overall, still proud of this essay. I hope you enjoy this snapshot in time. When I was little, I did not wander as a cloud. I floated on one. I have to admit, when the assignment was given to me, a…
This was previously published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Making me Time. Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary. ~Jim Rohn "I noticed something," my friend Ashley said. "Your bookshelf is empty." I nodded absently, listening to the various park sounds around us. Kids were running and laughing, the wind was blowing, and the sun was keeping a warm day bright. I could…
Listen to the First Snowfall here. At this time of the year, my world always begins to lose its voice. Not because the crushing weight of bureaucracy muffles it, but because the elements are putting the acoustics of my soundscape to sleep for a little while. At least, until the summer. It does not happen instantaneously. It happens gradually, like a weary mother that wants to put her young ones to…
Listen to A Bridge Made of Ableism The air in the bank was thick with the scent of old money and new anxiety. It's a smell I know well. But today, another element was added to the mix: fear. It wasn't my fear. It was coming from the teller's window, and it was pointed, like a weapon, at a man whose only crime was his refusal to be invisible. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him. He was a…
Listen to An Open Letter to the Future Man Who Will Hold My Face Mood: Daring to hope that a man will read this and heed it like a religious text. To You, I don't know your name yet. I don't know the specific music of your voice. But I know that one day, you might perform an act of profound and sacred intimacy. You might hold my face in your hands. I need you to know what this means. For a face…
Listen to The Cruelty of Many, The Grace of One Mood: Like a found object, after being lost for a very long time. Some days, the world is a conspiracy of sharp edges. Today was one of those days. It started with my two hours of sleep. I didn't get sleep last night because my neighbor decided she would blast country music at such a loud volume until this morning, I couldn't sleep, even when I put…
Listen to The Gift Horse's Mouth is Full of Terrible Braille There is a special kind of terror reserved for the moment a well-meaning, sighted friend says, with a voice beaming with pride, “I got you something! I saw it and thought of you.” My friend, Lorenzo, is one of the kindest people I know. His heart is a vast, open territory of good intentions. So when he placed a large, shrink-wrapped box…
This was a previously published short story. Listen to the audio version here Introduction. We all have writing that we look back on and think, hmm, this was fun, but it didn't age well. This story features subtle psychological abuse. In a way, it mirrors what I went through. The only difference is, I didn't have a Rodger to come and rescue me. I wish I did, though. No abuse story is the same.…
Since I am having a bit of a drafting slump, you all get to read an essay I did way back in college. In truth, it wasn't my best work. The citations are incorrect, and my thesis was not very strong. Still, I believe it's really good to look back and see how much we've grown as artists and writers. Begin Essay. A coffee cup sat a few inches to the right of my laptop. There was a pinched…
Listen to The Gospel of the Public Library In a world that screams, that demands, that sells, that commodifies every waking second of your attention, the public library is a quiet and profound act of rebellion. It is one of the last true sanctuaries, a temple dedicated to a god that the market has tried very hard to kill: the god of the freely shared idea. I came here today to escape the noise,…
Listen to A Requiem for My Dignity, Sacrificed at the Altar of AI via my podcast I consider myself a technologically competent person. I can navigate the internet's darkest corners and wrestle with code that would make a lesser mortal weep. So when I decided to try a geek's attempt at an, ahem, "AI" screen reader, after having known me for about three months and assuming he knew better than…