WISCONSIN BRAILLE 8,wis,brl0 Volume 23, Issue 1 Winter 2022 A Short and Sweet Newsletter to Start the Year Special Book Project: An Update By Sandy Adams, Coordinator of the Special Book Project As many of you may recall, our current book project was announced in the fall edition of this newsletter. Customer orders were due in early January. By the end of that month, orders were tallied. The print copies needed for braille production are currently being collected by Interstate Books4School, our partner in this project ever since its inception. Once all the print copies have arrived here in Madison, they will be shipped to OSCI for braille production. It is hoped that customer copies can be sent out, to all of our customers, by late spring or early summer. Contributors to this issue are: Sandy Adams, Cindy Collins, Julie Sumwalt, Judy Sherry, Alison McKee ________________________________________________________ Wisconsin Braille Board Meetings Are Always Open to the Public Please join us for our next virtual meeting, March 19, 2022, from 10:00-11:45 a.m. The Annual Meeting of WisBrl will follow the general meeting at 12:00 p.m. and will include voting on the Wisconsin Braille Board of Directors Nomination Slate. To receive an email invitation to the meeting, Please Contact: ljdieck@madison.k12.wi.us ******************************************************************* Wisconsin Braille Board of Directors Nomination Slate 2022-2024 Officers President: Leanette Dieck (2021-2023) Vice-President: Sandy Adams (2022-2024) Secretary Cindy Collins (2021-2023) Treasurer: Linda Bailey (2022-2024) Directors David Grulke (2021-2023 Alison McKee (2022-2024) Faith Kelly (2021-2023 Kevin Jones (2022-2024) Kurt Pamperin (2021-2023) Judith Sherry (2022-2024) Connie Risjord (2021-2023 William Dieck (2022-2024) The election of these nominees will occur during the General Membership meeting (immediately following the regular business meeting) on March 19, 2022. Nominations are still open for an additional two directors. *** Again, if you would like to attend, please contact Leanette Dieck by email at: ljdieck@madison.k12.wi.us She will send you the link to the meeting the day before the meeting. THE BRAILLE CORNER Dear Ms. Perkins, Would you please review the rules about representing print page numbers for blank pages in a manuscript? I’m transcribing a book, and all the chapters start on a new right-hand page. If the previous chapter ends on a right-hand page, then the next page is blank in print. Should that blank page number be combined with the previous print page number or with the following print page number? And what should the braille print page number be if a braille page with combined print pages runs over to a second braille page? Thanks for your help! Confused Dear Confused, This is a little technical, but the answer can be found in Braille Formats Principles of Print-to-Braille Transcription, 2016, section 1.11.8(d), which says “When a page is blank or has only an uncaptioned illustration, combine that/those page(s) with the next page on which text occurs.” So, then, the blank page on the left-hand side is combined with the next page containing text. Suppose a chapter ended on page 97, leaving page 98 without text or page number, and the next chapter started on page 99. The finished chapter would end with the print page number 97. The new chapter would start with a print page numbered 98-99. If the text needs to be continued onto another braille page, section 1.11.8(a) explains that the print page will be a99. The blank page has already been accounted for and is not continued. (Continued page numbering such as a98-99 is reserved for facing pages of text, as explained in section 1.12). Sincerely, Ms. Perkins Blind Man’s Bluff: A Memoir by James Tate Hill Reviewed by Cindy Collins When James Hill turned 16, he received a diagnosis of Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy. He describes his vision this way: “Picture a kaleidoscope … a time-lapsed photograph of a distant galaxy... Imagine a movie filmed with only extras, a meal cooked using nothing but herbs and a dash of salt, a sentence constructed of only metaphors.” Currently, James is teaching writing online and at North Carolina A&T State University; he pens the audiobook column for Literary Hub; and is the fiction and reviews editor for the literary journal Monkeybicycle. In 2015, he became a novelist with the publication of Academy Gothic. His memoir is disarmingly honest and funny. He shares his journey from denial to acceptance, from pretending to be fully sighted to acknowledging the truth he worked so hard to hide. He writes about his internalized shame and the stigma that had a hold on him for almost 15 years. He shares the pain of his loneliness and isolation, and the clever strategies he used to try to pass for sighted. His attempts at covering up his vision problems included: feigning eye contact, asking restaurant waitstaff for recommendations rather than attempting to read a menu, and, when he began teaching college classes, telling students to go ahead and speak without first raising their hands. An example of his humor is, “In New York City, most people didn’t drive. I wasn’t blind; I was a New Yorker.” When asked what made his secret-keeping seem like the right response, he answered: “It was definitely the social element, when I realized, ‘OK, I’m different, and I don’t like the ways I’m different.’” He thought that skipping over his grief at his diagnosis was a sort of solution without “knowing for a very long time that there was anything problematic with that.” He details many of the ways he took dangerous chances by not revealing his visual impairment. For example, instead of asking for help when crossing a busy street, he goes it alone and says, “Each zooming vehicle is your natural predator deciding capriciously not to eat you.” Hill does come to the conclusion that “Wisdom, it turns out, is acknowledging where I cannot go without help.” He hopes his readers will come away with the realization that “accepting yourself for who you are is a choice … I think your relationships deepen exponentially when you’re no longer hiding parts of yourself.” As for himself, Hill says, “I acknowledge as blind. I identify as disabled. It may be trite to say this, but: It’s very liberating.” This funny, enlightening, and endearing memoir is available in print, as an audiobook, and on BookShare. **** The Annual General Membership meeting of Wisconsin Braille Inc. will convene at 12:00 p.m. On March 19, 2022 If you wish to attend, please contact ljdieck@madison.k12.wi.us prior to the meeting so she can send you the Zoom link. *** Membership Application Date ______ Use this form to join WisBrl, or to renew membership. Regular membership, annual dues $10 ____ Sustaining membership annual dues $30 ____ Lifetime membership $200 ____ Additional donation ____ Total amount enclosed ____ Check ( ) cash ( ) money order ( ) Donations to WisBrl are tax exempt.   NAME: _____________________________ ADDRESS: ___________________________ ____________________________________ PHONE: ____________________________ E-MAIL: _____________________________ 2022: (. ) New member ( ) Renewal   Make checks or money orders payable to WISCONSIN BRAILLE INC.  Newsletter format requested (choose one) Regular type _____ E-mail _____ Braille _____ What is your affiliation with the braille reading community? (Check all that apply.) Teacher _____ Producer _____ Ed. Assist. _____ Transcriber _____ Proofreader ____ Parent ____ Administrator _____ User _____ Other (specify _______________________   Return application payment to: Membership Chair 557 Milky Way Madison, WI 53718