Slate and Style: The Magazine of the National Federation of the Blind Writers' Division 
Fall, 2021
Phone: (940)249-2517 
Email: S-andS-@nfbnet.org
Queenofbells@outlook.com
Web Site: writers@nfb.org
Follow us on Twitter: @nfbwd
National Web Site: nfb.org 
National Phone: (410)659-9314
Content Editor: Shelley J Alongi
Poetry Editor: Barbara Hammel 
Your 2021/23 Leadership
Shelley Alongi, President
Chelsea Cook, Vice President 
Katelyn Sipple, secretary 
Shawn Jacobson, Treasurer 
Board Members 
Barbara Hammel
Miss Ruth Williams
Tiffany Smith 
***
Table of Contents 
Editor's Musings, Shelley J Alongi 
Presidential Bell Notes, Shelley J Alongi 
Convention Debrief, Shelley J Alongi 
2021 Contest Winners, Shelley J Alongi 
2022 Writers' Division Contest Guidelines, Staff Writers 
Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Shawn Jacobson 
Help the Writers' Division Achieve its 2021/23 Goals, Staff Writer 
Sands of Creativity, April Enderton 
The Strange Animal Farm, Dr. Lashawna Fant 
Bookshare: An Indispensable Tool and a Wonderful Experience, Anthony R. Candella
Membership Profile: Peggy Chong the Blind History Lady, Peggy Chong 
How he Told Me, Wesley Simms 
Ready, Set Going for an Anthology, Shelley J Alongi
It is Me/or I, Miss Ruth Williams 
Writers' Resource: BARD: Stylized Fun for your Writing Edification, Shelley J Alongi
Slate and Style Guidelines
Join the Division 
***
To search for an article, search for *** and the title will appear on the next line.
You can live the life you want. Blindness is not what holds you back.
***
Editor's Musings Shelley J Alongi
Finally, I have achieved my sixth summer in Texas and I may have some inkling of what  a normal summer in Texas is like. All summer I've heard that this summer is not normal. Rain in June, still mowing the lawn in July, and August is just august. What is normal anyway? Whatever your summer has been like and I know it has been harrowing on many fronts for all kinds of people, get ready to enjoy this fall issue of Slate and Style. I think we are all ready for the fall. You can look forward to a story about a talking panda,  get a preview of a childrens' book,  read poetry by our 2021 poetry contest winners, review our goals for 2021/23, and learn about an experience promoting Bookshare. You'll meet the blind history lady. In short, you'll learn what a productive group the Writers' Division is. Our contributors this issue are experienced, knowledgeable, thoughtful, humorous and reflective. So, enjoy your favorite beverage, your pet, kick off your shoes and indulge.  
***
Presidential Bell Notes 
Shelley J Alongi
Welcome to the 2021/23 NFB Writers' division year. This year celebrates expanded leadership, your voice in elections, support of each other in writing projects, and our continuing meetings and concentration on self-publishing. It's going to be a great year. We're on our way to putting together an anthology of work and we will have more information further along in the issue. The Writers' Division is filled with people working on great projects. Sometimes those projects take time to mature and come to fruition. Be sure and let us know what you're working on and send in your articles on your work for the magazine and our anthology. 
Don't forget our next Zoom conference on Sunday September 26, 2021 at 7:00 PM central, 6:00 PM mountain, 5:00 PM pacific. Be thinking about names we can attach to our Zoom conferences. We will have a conference on Sunday October 24. We will taked a break in November and December from our Sunday night meetings. Meetings will resume on Sunday January 9. 
To join our conference, click on  
Pu0PKqFmKOjq
Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/97824170833

NEW!!!
Join us on the third Thursday of each month at 8:00 PM eastern for Barbara Hammel and her Writers' Workshop/Round Table. Any month with a third Thursday will have a workshop. We are currently using our conference call line for the Thursday meetings.   
Dial (605)313-5637, access code 330803 plus pound sign. 
Our next three meetings will be on Thursday October 21, Thursday November 18 and Thursday December 16. 
***
Convention Debrief
On Wednesday July 8 the Writers' Division held its annual meeting via Zoom. We held elections, announced our 2021 contest winners, recapped the activities for 2021 and talked about goals for our next two years. Look below for a listing of those goals and help us make our division strong and successful.  
***
2021 Contest Winners
In the year 2021 we had a small number of entries in our adult and youth contests. There were no winners in any of the youth contests. There were no winners in the adult fiction or essay contests. There was a good amount of poetry entered in the adult poetry contest. Many of the registered members express a continuing interest in poetry and so this is not surprising. The poetry according to our judges this year was very good. I think the offerings you read in this issue will bear out that sentiment. 

Our 2022 contest will begin on January 1 and end on April 30. We will provide the guidelines below and also we will distribute them two more times before the end of the contest. Please look at the guidelines carefully and prepare your work for submission. Please distribute the guidelines to chapters, affiliates, and especially to schools where you know blind children are learning Braille. Note that our youth contest emphasizes Braille. Most of all, good luck!  
***
2022 Writers' Division Contest guidelines 
Once again in the year 2022 we will be holding our annual Writers' Division contest for youth and adults. Do you know a VI teacher? Distribute these guidelines to any teachers or those in the blindness field especially anyone who works with youth who are learning or are proficient in Braille. Please consult the guidelines below for age groups and ways of payment. Feel free tocontact us using our email or phone above with questions. 
Note that adults need not submit contest entries in Braille. In fact, we encourage only electronic copies of entries submitted by adults. Please include a cover letter with your entries. See guidelines for cover letter requirements. 
***
2022 Writers' Division Contest guidelines 

The annual youth and adult writing contests sponsored by the NFB Writers’ Division will open January 1st and close April 30th for all aspiring writers whether blind, sighted or visually impaired. 

Adult contest categories are: short Fiction, nonfiction including personal essay and memoir, and poetry.

Youth contest categories are: Short fiction and poetry. The youth contest is divided into three groups, determined by grade level – elementary, 1st through 4th grade, middle, 5th through 8th grade, and high school 9th through 12th grade. 
As always, in both adult and youth contests, there may be up to three prize winners (1st, 2nd, 3rd), and one or more receiving honorable mention. Additionally, a prize winning entry may be published within the Writers’ Division’s magazine, Slate & Style. 
All contest winners will be announced during the 2021 national convention. Stay tuned for the 2021 location. 

PRIZES 
*Youth contest winners will receive cash and prizes up to $30 for 1st place, $20 for 2nd place, and $10 for 3rd place. 
*Adult contest winners will receive cash and prizes up to $75 for 1st place, $50 for 2nd place, and $25 for 3rd place. 

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

YOUTH CONTESTS
This is a contest for students who use Braille. 
If you are 18 years old, or older, you must enter the adult contest.
Entries must be submitted in hand embossed Braille, either with a slate and stylus or Perkins Braille writer, and there are no exceptions.
Submissions must be Brailled by the entrant. 
All submissions, no matter the grade level, must be in contracted Braille. Let us know if you “know” or are “learning” contracted Braille. Additionally, let us know if you have chosen to use UEB, or not.
Each entrant must provide an identical electronic copy of the cover letter and contest entry as a Microsoft Word file [doc or dox] or as a Rich Text Format [rtf] file).
*Attach the electronic copies to an email and send them to Shelley Alongi, Queenofbells@outlook.com. 
*Send your hardcopy Braille and cover letter to:
Chelsea Cook
901 Englewood Parkway, Apt. J304, Englewood, CO  80110 

COVER LETTER 
Entries must be accompanied by a cover letter containing the following information for each entrant: Your name, mailing address, phone number, and e-mail address. 
List the titles of all submissions, including the category in which they are being entered.
List your school and grade level.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
*We will consider only unpublished original entries. Please do not submit entries that have been previously submitted on a web site or blog. 
*Youth short fiction stories submissions cannot be more than 1,000 words, and poetry of no more than 50 lines. 
*Authors of either poetry or fiction are encouraged to submit multiple pieces.

Youth ENTRY FEES – None

Are you the best Brailler in the contest? Be sure to double check your work for spelling and grammatical errors. Remember to use Braille paper so the Braille is easy to read. Good luck!

ADULT CONTEST
This contest is for everyone 18 years old, or older. One need not be blind to enter.
We will consider only unpublished original entries. Please do not submit entries that have been published on a website or blog.  
Fiction and nonfiction categories can be of any main stream genre, and cannot exceed 3,000 words. 
Poetry: We will accept poetry of any length 
Authors of either poetry and/or prose are encouraged to submit multiple pieces.
Adults are required to submit all poetry, fiction and nonfiction as attachments to an E-mail message. 
The attachments must be in either Microsoft Word (doc) or Rich Text Format (rtf). 
Fiction and nonfiction should be written in a normal prose style, with paragraphs being left justified, lines being single spaced, and having a 14 point font of Aerial, regular. 
 Be sure to double check your work for spelling and grammatical errors
No hard copy submissions will be accepted.

COVER LETTER 
Along with your entry or entries, include a cover letter providing the following information: 
Your name, mailing address, phone number, and e-mail address. 
List the titles of all submissions, including the category in which they are being entered.
State your method of payment for the entry fee (check or PayPal). 
*Finally, the cover letter could be your e-mail message, or a separate document attached along with your submissions.

CONTEST ENTRY FEES PAYMENT AND METHODS
Adult Fees: 
The fee for each short story is $15.00 for members and $20.00 for non-members.
The fee for each nonfiction entry is $15.00 for members and $20.00 for non-members.   
The base fee for poetry will cover up to three poems, if the combined line-count of all three pieces does not exceed 108 lines - additional poems require a second fee, following the same fee payment scheme. Base fees are $15.00 for members and $20.00 for non-members.

PAYMENT
*You may use PayPal from the Writers’ Division website, http://writers.nfb.org
*Alternatively, you may mail a check made out to NFB Writers’ Division, with a note in the memo line relating to the contest. Send to:

Shawn Jacobson
19541 Olney Mill Rd.
Olney, MD 20832.

*E-mail submissions should be sent to Shelley Alongi Queenofbells@outlook.com.  

We look forward to seeing your words. 
*** 
Eats, Shoots, and Leaves
by Shawn Jacobson
[Shawn's work has been published in Bewildering Stories.com. He is a regular contributor to Slate and Style.]
“Double order of bamboo chicken,” he said, “hold the chicken.”
I looked around the restaurant. If anyone was surprised to see a talking panda, they didn’t show it; I credited general indifference. Most of the folk here were buried in their phones beyond the reach of anything outside of their cyberworld. As for the couple exploring each other in the corner booth, they didn’t look interested in anything beyond their intimate space. I’d expected the wait staff to notice, yet they continued their work as if no unusual being ate at their restaurant.
“Double bamboo chicken,” the waitress repeated as she’d done with my order. She made notes on an old-fashioned paper notepad.  “Hold the chicken,” she continued as she walked to the counter with the order.
People, and I’m no exception, think pandas are cute/ I’m sure some scientists believed that they would be even cuter if they could walk and talk, and some scientists found a way to make pandas cute in that way. I never followed the story closely enough to get details on how the project went from wild speculation to reality. All I know is that Di Di had walked, though it was more of a waddle, in here and ordered a big plate of bamboo.
I’d not eaten here before, but I planned on eating here in the future. The place was close to the Cleveland Park metro, just a couple of blocks up from the zoo. This put it on the homeward end of my commute. Though the place was humble, it served good food. At least the kung pao chicken I’d ordered was good, and having a talking panda just made it that much more special.
I was so busy thinking of the restaurant’s special nature that I accidentally ate a hot pepper. As a result, I was too busy cooling my mouth to notice the woman as she walked in. By the time I asked the waitress to re-fill my water, she’d sat down next to the panda.
My first impression was that it was rude to sit at his table without asking. Di Di might not be human, but the panda deserved its space as much as anyone else. Since Di Di didn’t worry about the intrusion, I decided to let it go.
While eating, I realized that I’d seen her face on the news. She’d been the scientist who’d given speech and the necessary muscles to, sort of, walk upright to the panda.  At least she’d been the face of the project, the scientist who’d done the press conferences. To the extent that the project had a star other than the panda, she was it.
I tried to get back to my meal, but I couldn’t ignore the strange goings-on across the room. The panda was eating his bamboo with his paws and the scientist was trying to get him to use the silverware. The scientist Kept at Di Di with a lot of too cute commentaries on his eating. It was “Darling this” and “Honey that,” as the panda got increasingly frustrated. Though it just couldn’t be, I could’ve sworn the scientist was coming on to Di Di.
The panda, who knew this couldn’t be, was having none of it. Finally, his frustration erupted as he screamed, “why can’t you leave me be?”
Whoever had given him speech had given him one of the great cartoon voices ever. It had maxed out cute, going beyond to a cloying place that should have never been explored. Even so, you could hear his anguish through the cuteness.
“I was happy the way I was,” he continued. “Life before was better. At least I had those of my kind around me, now I’m alone.”
“But as you learn….”
“Learn what?” the panda asked, “to wear this vest that scratches my pelt, to use this fork that doesn’t fit my paws?”
“But” the scientist started before being cut off again.
“And when will I ever get to love again? What mate will have me now, now that I look deformed and act strange. I don’t even smell right; no mate will have me. I’ll die alone unloved.”
“But I love you,” the scientist said, “and so will everyone else.” It was the wrong thing to say.
“Love,” the panda said with disgust as he pulled something from a vest pocket that was not happiness to see her.
If the argument had not disturbed the phone junkies, the shots should have. But no one stopped the panda as he lifted himself from the table and waddled back out the door. One of the wait staff tried to get him to pay; but the panda bowled him over on the way out the door. Finally, the waitress who’d served me called 9-1-1.
#
“I see that all our pandas were returned to China,” the policeman said.
He was one of the first policemen on the scene. He’d interviewed me, along with everyone else there. Finally, sometime in the dead middle of the night, I’d gotten back to my apartment.
At the time, I’d resented the questioning; now, after the court procedures, the lost sleep no longer mattered. Indeed, we’d developed a friendship adequate to support shared drinks at the bar next to the Chinese restaurant where the panda mess had happened.
"I know,” I said.  “I was just at the zoo this afternoon; they have the whole panda exhibit blocked off.”
“Can’t blame them,” the policeman said.  “Not after Di Di was put down. That was a nasty business. Seeing as the panda could talk, it was less like clean euthanasia than like an execution, one of those police killings that start protests, the kind that ruin our image out on the streets.”
“Why do you think he did it,” I ask. “Why do you think the panda shot her?”
“You ever been married?” the policeman asked.
“No, but what does that have to do with it?”
“Well,” the policeman said, “when I was married, my wife wanted me to do all sorts of things, do yoga, be a vegetarian, stop hanging around with the guys, all of that.  It’s like she couldn’t love me unless she changed me, made me into something cute, you know, something presentable so her friends could admire her handiwork. I had moments when I wanted to grab my service revolver and start shooting. The divorce probably saved both our lives.”
The policeman paused, then continued.  “The poor panda didn’t have a civilized way out.”
“Especially with people encouraging violence,” I said remembering the zoo worker who’d modified a handgun so the panda could use it. "If you troll the more radical animal rights websites, you’ll see his twelve-page manifesto, the one he wrote in jail before his trial."
“Yeah,” the policeman said. “I’m sure that guy who altered the gun is a hero to a lot of his friends. Some people just love blood and thunder in defense of their cause.”
“It was a bad business,” I said.
“Indeed,” the policeman said. “I just can’t get away from it. Even in my writing class.  The one I was encouraged to take so that I’d write better reports.”
Why?” I asked.
“It’s that example of comma use,” the policeman said. “it’s the one where the panda eats shoots and leaves.  If you stick in a comma, the whole meaning changes. Anyway, our teacher mentioned Di Di and what happened to him during the class; made it sound like some sort of joke.”
“Yes,” I said.  “I guess it was sort of funny if you didn’t live through it.”
“The zoo guy, the one who modified the gun, I guess he was right about one thing,” the policeman said. “We should have just let it be.”
We talked a while longer but the next day was a workday for both of us. We left early to prepare for the coming morning.
As I walked to my apartment, I thought about the zoo and its empty panda exhibit.  Then I thought about Di Di, who didn’t deserve what happened to him.
And I thought about cuteness, cute talking pandas, and cute writing examples. I think that there are some cute things that just shouldn’t be possible, even if we think it would be fun to make them so.
*** 
Help The Writers' Division Achieve its 2021/23 Goals
Staff Writer 
At the 2021 national convention we set forth our goals for the Writers' Division for the next two years. They mirror those of the last two years. We will continue to support each other in writing projects. We will continue to let people know we still exist. We have as a matter of fact been in continual business since 1982, which means in New Orleans next year we deserve to have a celebration. One of our charter members who takes credit for naming our magazine at the very beginning hopefully will be with us to celebrate. In addition to planning a party we will have our nine monthly meetings via Zoom, breaking in July for convention and in November and December to accomodate those who are involved in other holiday-related events. Any other events such as our Writers' Workshop will be set out by those running them, in the case of the workshop started this year, that person would be Barbara. 

As written earlier, we will continue with our 2022 writing contest for adults and youth. Spread the news far and wide. 

On the self-publishing front, we continue to gather experiences from blind self-published authors with accessability or lack of it. The idea this year is to continue to gather experiences and locate resources to help spread the word and inform more self-publishing sites that we are asking for more accessability. I know that no one writes a book without a team, and I know that we must pick our battles. I think as a blind writer that access to self-publishing sites is critical for growth and confidence-building. Help is nice. Anyone can obtain it. It is an acceptable wish to want to upload one's own files. To that end we will continue to locate resources. Please contribute your thoughts and ideas either by email, or at the monthly meetings. We need experiences to cooroborate our wishes. We must have evidence that says we want accessability. That is not beyond the realm of possibility or achievement.  
*** 
SANDS OF CREATIVITY 
by April Lynn Enderton  
[This poem took first place in the 2021 adult poetry contest. April has served at various times as an officer in the Writers' Division. Currently she is a member at large of the division.]
Creativity is akin to grains of sand: 
Subtle, 
Shifting, 
Timeless, 
Tempered. 
It slips through your fingers, And squishes between your toes. 
It moves from clay to castle, In the craftsman's tiny hands. 
From particles to dunes, With a puff of the wind. 
Some beaches are barren, Swept clean by high-stepping waves, 
While other beaches are a little boy's dream, 
As he eagerly bounds forward, 
His pail and shovel in hand. 
*** 
The Strange Animal Farm
By Dr. LaShawna Fant
[Dr. Lashawna Fant is part of our Mississippi affiliate.]
	After minimally working 40-hours each week, there are things I like to do to relax. I enjoy being outside and going for walks. I also delight in sitting in my recliner for a few minutes to clear my mind. Yet, one of my top leisure interests is writing.
	Writing allows me to stroll into the past, present, and future. It squeezes the issues of life out of my heart as if someone is ringing water from a towel. It allows me to become more scholarly as I research and read lots of books. This hobby allows me to script memories that will still be tangible and alive after I have gone to Heaven.
	In July of 2021, I released my first book. This children's book is titled "The Strange Animal Farm." It is about animals who reside on a farm and have larger-than-life personalities and traits. Each animal's extraordinary characteristics are customized to keep you smiling and laughing.
	I am more than excited to have launched this book. It is a great feeling to do what you are created to do in life. It gives peace and joy that overflows and propels you into deeper and unchartered sweet waters. If you are interested in learning about a pig who plays the drums, a skunk who dunks, and other fascinating animals, please visit: 
http://www.lfantbooks.com
*** 
Bookshare: An Indispensable Tool and a Wonderful Experience
by Anthony R. Candela

From 2018-2021, I worked as an outreach coordinator for Bookshare in the New York Metropolitan Area. My tenure at Bookshare was quite enjoyable. Not only did I get to promote a wonderful service, the job afforded me the opportunity to reconnect to friends and colleagues in New York I had not seen for 15 years while living and working in California, returning to New York after retiring late in 2015.

Bookshare’s mother organization (Benetech, short for Beneficent Technologies) is an ingeniously conceived endeavor and the people who work for it are smart, warm, and generous of spirit. Bookshare was created by Jim Fruchterman in the early 2000s after observing that many blind people used his Arkenstone OCR device to scan entire books. In the  1990s, the Kurzweil and Ad Hoc systems were also being used by many blind people for their scanning needs. Jim realized that collecting scanned books into a library might be helpful to many blind people, especially if he had staff proofread and clean up the scans and distributed them free of charge.

He certainly was right. Today, most of the books in the library come directly and electronically to Bookshare from hundreds of publishers with which Bookshare has signed agreements. Occasionally, books are requested that Bookshare cannot get from the publishers. In those cases, Bookshare obtains the books and scans them. This is especially important for students who always need books sooner than later.

Benetech has several other projects. It produces software to defend human rights around the world and is working hard in partnership with many industry leaders to make diagrams accessible to the blind.

My Outreach Coordinator position and that of two partners I worked with during my tenure was funded by a grant from the Lavelle Fund for the Blind, Inc., a New York based organization that provides grants to entities serving the blind in an around New York City and elsewhere. The grant period ended in June 2021.

In 2019, I managed to get two books of my own published. I was privileged to speak about the book writing and publishing experience at the Writer’s Division meeting at the 2020 NFB convention, also putting in a plug for Bookshare. I didn’t know then that Bookshare would be the only service to convert my memoir and sci-fi novella into accessible formats for people with reading barriers, but with the pandemic closing down most NLS recording facilities, that’s where we landed. I still hold out hope my NLS branch in New York City will catch up to my books. Their titles are listed at the end of this article.

Each semester during my tenure at Bookshare, I visited and sent messages to colleges in the New York City Metropolitan area reminding them of the Bookshare service. I said things like Bookshare is the largest library of eBooks for people with reading barriers. It is a tool all students and adults with reading barriers (blindness, visual impairment, dyslexia, cerebral palsy and other physical disabilities that prevent handling regular books) should have at their fingertips. I continually updated the message to keep pace with Bookshare’s ever-growing library. When I started, Bookshare had around 750,000 books; as I closed out my Lavelle Fund contract with them, the library had surpassed a whopping 1 million volumes! I also visited agencies for the blind, delivering the Bookshare message to adults. We especially had fun presenting to youth transition and pre-college training programs during the summer.

We told everyone that books can be downloaded in various formats: audio, audio with highlighted text, large font, or braille; that they can be read on-line using Bookshare web tools; and that they can be downloaded to a wide variety of devices from computers to smartphones and special portable devices used by people with disabilities. Much more information and the sign-up screens are available at

https://www.bookshare.org/cms/

One of my major principles has always been that blind people need lots of tools in their toolbox and that although Bookshare is a valuable tool, it must be used in concert with other tools such as NLS, Learning Ally and in many colleges, AccessText. Our goal especially for college students, is that when given assignments, they begin reading right away, do not fall behind in their classwork, learn well, and graduate on time. I also remind them that they should use scanning devices and good old-fashioned human assistance when necessary.

In 2020 and 2021, I made it my business to remind staff of college disabled student services offices to be especially vigilant during the COVID19 pandemic when virtual learning was the only way students could take their courses. I reminded them that many of their students with reading barriers might face problems accessing learning platforms, on-line library facilities, and professor-generated learning materials due to the limits of their technology and sometimes, their computer skills. Toward the end, I even reminded them that their students might also face difficulty getting appointments or otherwise negotiating the COVID19 vaccination process.

Needless to say, during this period, all of our outreach work was done via virtual platforms, a tool I avoided at first, preferring to use alternate dial-in numbers. With encouragement from colleagues and a growing sense of shame, I forced myself to get comfortable with Zoom, Google Meets, and I think even once, Microsoft Teams. It was easier to work this way, but not quite as fulfilling as in normal times when we made personal appearances at colleges, libraries, conferences, agencies for the blind, and for a while, New York City community Boards.

You will be happy to know that Bookshare Customer Service now covers the 48 contiguous States beginning at 9:00 a.m. Eastern time. Some of my California-based colleagues stand by at the phone lines at 6 a.m. their time. Speaking of which, the phone number there is:

(650) 352-0198

You can also go to the Bookshare Help Center at

https://www.bookshare.org/cms/help-center

As for me, I recently finished up not one, but two part-time jobs, the other being with the American Foundation for the Blind which in 2021, I am proud to say, conferred  upon me its Stephen Garff Marriott Award for lifetime achievement as a blind person in a blindness profession. I have slipped from “semi-retirement” to “three-quarters retirement”. My major purpose in life these days is to resume book promotion activity stalled during the lost pandemic months. I have a promotion coach, Patty Fletcher

patty.volunteer1@gmail.com

In fact, I was introduced to her by members of the Writers’ Division. With Patty’s help and the assistance of a second publicity expert, I created a Facebook page

Anthony R. Candela Author

a web site,

https://www.anthonyrcandela.com/

And an Amazon author’s page

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Anthony+Candela&i=stripbooks

I am also connected to Twitter and  Instagram at

anthonyrcandela

as well as Goodreads, and other services and have expanded my publicity activity as the world has begun to open up. You can most easily see my books on my Amazon author page.

The first book is a memoir,:

Stand Up Or Sit Out: Memories and Musings of A Blind Wrestler, Runner, and All-around Regular Guy

The memoir Focuses on life lessons learned through athletics.

My second book is a sci-fi novella,

Vision Dreams: A Parable

Begun shortly after 9-1-1 and the U.S. entry into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the book is set in a dystopian society that drives four blind people to extreme lengths to obtain artificially produced eyesight and what happens next.

Both books were published by Christian Faith Publishing in 2019.

Finally, here is a blind author’s challenge for which many readers might identify and hopefully, a few have worked out. How does one handle the task of reading passages at book readings and other presentations when one is not a fast Braille reader? Suggestions I have received include: ‘Get someone else to read your selected passages.’ ‘Memorize your passages.’ ‘Use your portable device to listen to your passage and enunciate it line by line.’ I like the first option. It is the most natural and places the least stress on me, but it seems discussion and perhaps debate might be in order.
 
If you wish to weigh in, my e-mail address is

Anthonycandela66@gmail.com

I will be happy to report on your comments in a subsequent article.
***
Membership Profile: Peggy Chong, the Blind History Lady
by Peggy Chong
[Peggy Chong is a long time member of the National Federation of the Blind. She has recently joined the Writers' Division. Welcome.]
Peggy Chong’s first book in print, Don Mahoney: Blind Television Star is on the shelves at many book sellers. She writes and lectures as The Blind History Lady. Her infatuation with stories she heard of those she now calls her “Blind Ancestors” surprised and inspired her to learn more, for herself at first and then bring their light to the world. Peggy researches their stories and brings to life the REAL struggles of what it was and is still, to be a blind person in the United States.
To purchase her works, visit:
Don Mahoney: Television Star: Chong, Peggy: 9781098082956: Amazon.com: Books
See other works at:
Smashwords – The Blind History Lady Presents–a Series by Peggy Chong
Her works have been published in The Iowa History Journal, Dialogue Magazine, The Farmington Daily Times, The Braille Monitor and Future Reflections. Each month she sends to her email followers another story of a blind ancestor to inspire blind and sighted alike.
To subscribe to her monthly email list, send a note to theblindhistorylady@gmail.com
Currently, Peggy Chong chairs the Preservation of Historical Documents for the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado, to save the single-source files, records, news clippings and correspondence of the blind of Colorado dating back to 1915.
She has been an active part of the blind community for more than forty years. Determined to imbue the service delivery system for the blind with a more positive and forward-looking philosophy, Peggy joined with other blind people in Minneapolis, Minnesota to establish Blindness: Learning in New Dimensions (BLIND, Inc.), a training center for the blind designed to encourage its students to achieve self-sufficient and productive lives. In 1985, Peggy Chong accepted the position of President of the Board of BLIND, Inc., a position she held for ten years. During that time, she worked with many students of all ages and varying levels of vision, encouraging them to learn the alternative nonvisual techniques of blindness and fueling their imaginations to dream of a life where each of them could live and work in their communities on a basis of equality with their sighted peers. She also helped many of them to make intelligent decisions about their vision--when it would be helpful and when it would hinder progress toward independence.
After moving to Baltimore Maryland in 1997, Peggy secured a position with BISM as an outreach/instructor. In 1998, Peggy left BISM accepting a position with the Job Opportunities for the Blind program at the National Center for the Blind in Baltimore, Maryland. For more than a year, she led a succession of intensive two-week training sessions designed to teach computer and other important job-readiness skills to blind individuals seeking employment. She also worked individually with each job candidate to refine the job search according to the unique needs of each, and she worked with numerous employers to ensure that the characteristic of blindness was accurately perceived and the blind job applicant treated fairly. When a job was offered to any of her students, she provided assistance before and after securing the job to ensure that each of them had the tools needed to succeed in the new position. Sometimes this involved connecting her student with other blind persons doing that same job somewhere in the United States. At other times, she provided information and advice about new, non-traditional techniques that could be used to perform the job successfully.
Later, Peggy served for three years as the National Program Manager for NFB-NEWSLINE®, out of the Baltimore MD offices. In this position, she formed valuable relationships with national and local newspapers, community-based service delivery organizations and rehabilitation programs, and literally thousands of blind men and women--many of them newly-blind--across the country.
After moving to Iowa in 2002, she became a private contractor providing consulting services and employment training to governmental agencies and nonprofit organizations. Her work involved the dissemination of job-search, résumé creation and distribution services designed to help individuals--with or without disabilities--to secure competitive employment. She also taught independent travel to the Blind. She also served as the NFB-NEWSLINE Coordinator for the state of Iowa for several years.
For more than forty years, Peggy has been active in a variety of community organizations: the National Federation of the Blind, the American Cancer society, the Hawthorn Area Community Council, the Cooperating Fund Drive, Iowa and Albuquerque Genealogical Societies, Friends of the Iowa Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, The Friends of the Colorado Talking Book Library, State Rehabilitation Council for the Commission for the Blind of New Mexico, board member-ADA Advisory Committee for the City of Albuquerque Iowa Shares and Oasis of Albuquerque. 
*** 
How he Told Me
Wesley Simms
[Wesley Simms took third place in the 2021 writing contest. Mr. Simms has placed in each of the last three poetry contests.]
A warm and pleasant June day,
sun shining, flowers blooming,
had me beaming with buoyed mood
on the way to the appointment.
The doctor arrived at my exam room,
not like a southerner drawling Good day,
not stammering like a young man
trying to propose to his girlfriend,
not hesitating and reaching
for precise words like a teacher
trying to explain some esoteric concept,
not with awkward conversation like a boss
struggling how to fire someone,
not like a professional
reluctant to deliver bad news.
But like a man with a mouthful
of sour seeds he needed to expel.
He jerked the door open
and before he stepped all the way inside,
he spit the bitter words right out
into the unexpected atmosphere,
You’ve got cancer.
***  
Ready, Set, Going for an Anthology 
by Shelley J Alongi
If you have published work in Slate and Style, if you have work that you are looking to finish, if you don't have work started and would like to be published in the Writers' Division newest anthology, please consider submitting it for publication in our newest Writers' Division anthology of poetry, fiction and personall essays/memoirs. Be sure to consult our Slate and Style guidelines for submission standards. Submit your finished, edited work to the emails above through June 30, 2022. We will consider a publication date when we determine how much work we have received. The goal will be to publish the anthology by the time of the 2023 NFB national convention. We will publish more details about the anthology in future issues. We will also be considering a title for our anthology. So get your thinking caps on and most of all Good luck! 
***
It is I (and/or Me)
by Miss Ruth Williams
[This poem took second place in the 2021 adult poetry contest.]
1.
Come as you are,
said the party invitation
and that
really threw me. 
One might think: I could nail that role.
But years of taking the temperature of the room
left me in limbo. Am I deep this time?
Or only as shallow as a swizzle stick can stir?
Maybe a pirate
with some colorful idiosyncrasy,
say a peg leg or a patch on me aye.
I’d barrrrge in and commandeeerrr
ye converrrsation,
to the delight of those who are rogues at heart
and the dismay of the decorous.
2.
As a child, I was myself inadvertently,
and, finding my instincts uncalibrated,
shifted gears/adopted personas.
“Fake it till you make it”

they say--whoever they are.
Perhaps it was The Joneses,
who have long since
moved, left no forwarding address.
3.
Boxes envelop us:
crib to cubicle to coffin,
we stay in our lanes.
Keeping in a holster things
considered weapons in some settings:
a mind of one’s own,
an opinion/against the grain,
a witty comeback.
4.
I may RSVP, asking the hostess
for more intel:
And who will you be wearing?
Oh, I can be like you.
That doesn’t mean I don’t like me.
I’m all that God created me to be.
I just think: the play’s the thing.
Some days, I want to wear your hat.
5.
But I’m an apple thief
with a Christian core
I steal what I need but nothing more.
Affectation? No; affection.
Consider it an homage,
for what you are at your best
informs my cast of characters.
One might think:
This could be the role of a lifetime.
*** 
Writers' Resource: Bard: Stylized Fun for your Writing Edification 
by Shelley J Alongi 

If you are at all faamiliar with the NFB of Pensylvania you will know that they have been hosting a series of Zoom conferences on various subjects. Recently they hosted one on BARD (Braille and Audio Reading Download. You know I am an avid reader and so I signed up to attend one of the conferences not thinking I would learn anything new but wanting to stay up-to-date. The newest nugget came to me almost at the last of the conference. I learned that if you swipe down on a book title on your bookshelf you can find other books in the collection by the same author. There are other ways to locate books by an author. You can look up the author's name by letter from the page where you search for books. This tends to be tedious but can yield some findings you may have never discovered if you hadn't gone exploring. 

Returning to the subject of your bookshelf, Swipe down on a book title in your Audio or Braille book list and you can delete the book, get a list of books in the same genre of the book currently highlighted, get a list of the books in the series if you are reading one. How wonderful is that? 

If you are looking for a book on writing and you have an author in mind, locate that book in the BARD collection and see if there are other books in the collection by that author. You can also look at book titles if you are on the list of books that you pull up from the web site itself. You don't necessarily need to be in your own list of books downloaded from BARD. What fun!  

Just for kicks,  I looked up a popular highly recommended staple of the writing world. The Elements of Style by William Strunk. It is there. There is also a book which promotes the use of that book, quoting letters by authors who have used it. The name of that book is Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style DB71377.  
And if there wasn't enough fun, there is a book called The Elephants of Style: A Trunkload of Tips on the Big Issues and the Gray areas of Contemporary American English (DB59150) for young adult readers and a lot of fun for the rest of us. Play around with BARD sometime and see just how much fun it is.  
*** 
Slate and Style Guidelines
Here are the guidelines for Slate and Style
They include submission deadlines, contact information, requirements for your bio and cover letter, general information and word counts for genres. Enjoy. 

Submission Dates 

Spring Issue: March 21st---Submissions close February 28th

Summer issue: June 21st---Submissions close May 31st

Fall issue: September 23rd----Submissions close September 2nd

Winter issue: December 21st---Submissions close November30th

Please read through all the guidelines carefully. Submissions that do not follow these guidelines may not be considered for Slate & Style. 

Submission guidelines are as follows:

Length requirements are: articles, 1500 words or less, fiction and memoir/personal essay, 4000 words or less, book reviews, 1000 words or less, poetry, 36 lines or less.

Again, send ALL submissions as email attachments no matter the genre. Include a cover letter along with your submissions with author's name, title of piece(s) and contact info-phone, email and address included. Also include a bio with your submission(s). Your bio should be no more than 150 words. Do not send an entire history, just include key items you feel are important for readers to know. Send as an attachment as well. More than one submission is allowed per email but do list all submissions in the required cover letter. 

Send submissions to s-and-s@nfbnet.org 

In the subject line of your email, write: Slate & Style submission, your name, and number of submissions. Example: “Slate & Style submission, Myrna Badgerow, 3 submissions”.

Use Microsoft Word or create an RTF document for all submissions. No other formats are accepted, and therefore will not be considered. 

Proofread and check your grammar and formatting before submitting. 

Slate & Style will consider all submissions for publication. However, please be careful with graphic sexual and violent content as well as language and -religious, anti-gender, anti-racial and anti-homosexual orientation content. Characterization and plot often require this type of material, but it must serve a purpose. Gratuitous material with no purpose or meant only for derogatory reasons, will not be considered. Material will be published according to the discretion of the editing staff.

Please direct questions and comments to the email address listed above for submissions, in your subject line, please include your name and simply write: “QUESTION”. Then write your question in the body of the email.
***
Join the Division
Join a group of creative, active writers involved in all aspects of writing: educational reviews, poetry, short stories and novels. We have writers in
all phases of the craft. We have some who enter contests, some who self-publish, and some who have worked with mainstream publishers. We are always looking
for writers with new ideas.

It’s only $10 to join. Pay online by going to 
writers.nfb.org our division web site. Click on the button that says “PayPal”. If you’re new to a screen reader, you can search for the word “pay” on the site till you find PayPal and
then click on that button. The PayPal information encourages donations, but this link can also be used to pay dues.
The End.