Research project
I want to explore how blind and visually impaired authors write creative texts, and what their writing practices might reveal about literature. While literary studies usually look at the finished work, I'm interested in how literary decisions emerge in the act of writing itself, especially where writing isn't shaped by sight. The image that sighted people have of literature is far more visual than they realise, and researching blind authorship opens up a new way into it. My project builds on Heather Tilley's historical study 'Blindness and Writing': on the one hand I want to bring her perspective into the present, on the other to make lived experience visible. This largely unexplored topic turns attention to an often overlooked group, and holds the potential to tell the research community more about literature and our previous understanding of it.
