Discussion

This page is for discussion, rather than more instant stuff on News & Comment If you have any items you think will interest other Lit-Net users please click here. We can't guarantee all items will be included, but we'll do our best.

(If you just want to talk to the lit-net team, and don't necessarily wish others to know, just mark your e-mail to info@lit-net.org accordingly. Ta.)

Manchester Poetry Festival are looking for visually and hearing impaired performers for this year's Festival 4 -13 October.  If you are interested or know of someone who may be interested we would love to hear from you/them.  Please contact Karen Hay 0161 907 0031

International Day of Disabled People   3rd December 2000

“Sex and drugs and rock’n’roll; that’s all my brain and body needs.” Ian Dury

27th November
Below this entry is what I wrote eight months ago to initiate a discussion and hopefully some positive action about disabilities and literature, especially in the West Midlands. It evoked just two responses..... The easy way out of disappointment is not to bother. There is something odd about sitting in front of a vdu which seems to make most people think everyone else is physically fully able, understands English perfectly and is probably white, if not male. Why else are there no literature websites apart from Honno (Welsh Women's Press established 1986)in the UK that include languages beyond English? Why, when I started Lit-Net last winter I discovered not one literature event listing site included access details? Of course we all are politically correct and aware, but I'll admit in the rush to post events on Lit-net I don't also remember to ask for or receive access details. Perhaps it's because we can't see the person who is blind, deaf or can't walk while we're at the vdu.

Here is a tip. Put a spare chair beside yours and believe there is someone sitting there who can't see or walk. Then imagine what you see on the screen is for them.

Literature is no better or worse than any other art form - but click West Midlands Arts for access to Right of Way to see how it could improve by 2002. Last February I received a training needs analysis from Metier, the DfEE ESF funded, Investors In People Awarded, National Training Organisation of the Arts & Entertainments Sector. Disability Awareness was not listed among the possible training needs. I pointed this out by fax, twice, without reply. Two weeks ago the draft Workforce Development Plan was put out for consultation, again without any mention of Disability Awareness. This time I e-mailed them, so far without reply. The details regarding consultation meeting venues make no mention of access, hearing loops .....If Metier can't be bothered, why should Lit-Net?

Anyone who has hummed a Blockheads' number must have felt a little part of them die when Ian Drury died earlier this year. Unquestionably the best post-war UK lyricist and perhaps the best of the twentieth century, including Noel Coward. There seems to be a tendency to see disablity art as being separate, maybe not quite as good as other art, whatever that is. Try telling that to Ian Drury. Especially when he's dead.

That's why we should bother. That's why A Crocus Selection, and Like Running in a Hurdle Race were written and published, and reviewed here. Why Harold Wonham and Shropshire Libraries' work in Care Homes is so important. Why The Drum in Birmingham are celebrating International Day of Disabled People this week.

Before you click here for more details, let me tell you about the book I chanced across while checking the Scott Fitzgerald reference in the Literary Review Bad Sex Award piece on the home page. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullars (1943) is one of the first Penguin Modern Classics. It is a truly beautiful book, (and a touching b&w film with a very young Alan Arkin as one of the two main protagonists.) Read it. It begins

"In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together. Early one morning they would come out from the house where they lived and walk arm in arm down the street to work."

These people exist in literature. They deserve as much freedom to access it as well.

click here for a review of "A Crocus Selection" click here for details of a book of poems about a deaf woman click here for review of "Like I'm running in a hurdle race" -  reflections on caring in Sandwell, in the words of carers themselves click here how to foster reader development in care homes

Then e-mail your views to info@lit-net.org  

You might also want to send them to Lexikon

Francis Anderson, Lexikon's editor, has kindly let Lit-Net to reproduce his editorial on Literature and The 1995 Disability Act and the comments it aroused. Click here for more

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From: David Fine 20 February 2000

You'll have noticed the odd reference here and there on Lit-Net to Leon Trotsky and National Chip Week. It's fair cop, guv, but society is to blame. I work a day a week co-ordinating Lit-Net, and I want to hear from you what you want from and want to give to the site. This is the start of a major revamp and design, so any comments, suggestions and ideas, however left-field are more than welcome. Go for info@lit-net.org

To get the ball rolling, what do you think about access to literature?
Do people with disabilities get a fair deal?
What would you like to see happen on Lit-Net or elsewhere?

For starters I'll include venue access details if people supply them to me.

Do people want a separate page for disability and access. Or integrated. Or both. Have your say here!

To get a taste for this area, scroll through these excerpts about literature from this year's EtCetera, the weekly online magazine from the National Disability Arts Forum:-

____________________________________________________________________________________

* West Midlands Arts: Right of Way *

Copies ordered free of charge from WMA Information Services, Tel 0121 624 3200 minicom 0121 2815

or for access to download click http://www.arts.org.uk/directory/regions/west_mid/consultation/consultation_intro.html

*Arts 365K *

* Free Books *

HemiHelp, Malcolm Sinclair House, 31 Ulsterville Avenue, Belfast BT9 7AS.

____________________________________________________________________________________

What Do You Think?

Is this enough action?                   Is this action enough?

Keep the ball rolling: to send in your views click here

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This is a short missive to raise the issue of access to literature readings and other similar live events for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired.

I think this is an issue that should be given some serious thought.

If you have any questions or this issue is of interest, I can be contacted on defman.sign@mcmail.com

Cheers

Tony Nicholas

From Lexikon Newsletter 56 October 2000 Its editor Francis Anderson writes:-

The Right to Read   A Look at the Disability Act and The Publishing Industry

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From Lexikon Newsletter 57 November 2000

Last issue's article, The Right to Read: A Look at The Disability Act and The Publishing Industry, prompted
Wendy Webb of Wendy Webb Books to write:

Thanks for latest issue of newsletter. v. informative as always. My conscience was stung by your article on disability access to literature. We do our best, budgets permitting, but I could do with getting up to speed on where we stand legally. Can you fill me in on details, or point me to a useful source of info?

Francis: Please telephone the Royal National Institute for The Blind's Equal Opportunities Dept. on +44 (0) 345 023153, or visit www.uk-legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts.htm

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From Lexikon Newsletter 58 November 2000

FINGERSPELLING: poems & drawings by Aidan Baker published by Penumbra Press ISBN 1894131002
distributed in Canada by The Literary Press Group & in the U.S. by General Distribution

For more info, samples, and links please feel free to surf his website:http://www.yesic.com/~abaker/home.htm

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