Friday from the Archives: “Auditioning for the Role of Myself: James Tate Hill on Voice, Disability, and (Dis)embodiment in Blind Man’s Bluff” by Audrey Jennifer Smith with art by RaeAnn MacDonagh in NCLR 2024
Our Alex Albright Creative Nonfiction Prize Contest is open now for submissions and will close March 1! Share your CNF story with us!
Our Final Judge for the 2023 Contest was author James Tate Hill. Audrey Jennifer Smith, who won the Albright Prize for 2022, interviewed Hill for our 2024 issue featuring “North Carolina Disability Literature.” Hill wrote both a fiction novel and his memoir featuring a blind main character, himself. When Smith asked him about working through his self-acceptance in both forms, Hill replied, “I think anything we write is us, but in fiction we know how to hide the parts of ourselves that we want to hide – whereas in the best creative nonfiction we’re revealing more than we’re hiding.” The pair talked about writing, about all ways to read, about society and personal challenges, and how to own your own story.
ASJ: So, in closing, I want to ask about how you’re thinking about these inspiration narratives, and some of the ways you’re challenging them through Blind Man’s Bluff.
JTH: Very early on, I learned not to go on Goodreads or read customer reviews on Amazon. But before that, I encountered a couple of people who were disappointed by the end of Blind Man’s Bluff, because they did not understand that self-acceptance could manifest in different ways. They thought the only rightful ending of this journey of self-acceptance would be me seeking out a guide dog or a cane and then standing in the town square, hoisting the cane in the air with some grand celebratory song and dance.
But as Leona says, “There are as many ways of being blind as there are being sighted.” And there are as many experiences of disability as there are of being able-bodied. There’s no narrative that’s one-size-fits-all. And that’s something I think you can say for any number of marginalized groups – that we’re going to have full acceptance when the breadth of those stories and voices gets to be told. We can’t just have this one type of journey, or one type of happy ending, be the single narrative that the mainstream culture accepts.
Listen to their interview on our website. Add the 2024 issue to your collection today!
