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In this moving episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA speaks with author, poet and Friends in Art president Ann Chiappetta about a life rebuilt three times over. Ann describes being diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa in 1993 at 28, while expecting her first child, losing her job, her acrylic furniture design career, and for a while her sense of herself, and the “angels” who pulled her back: her ophthalmologist, her rehab counselor, and eventually writing itself, which she calls a catharsis for everything she could not say about going blind. She talks about the ten years she spent delivering the Building Bridges disability awareness program to children in kindergarten through second grade, and the payoff of overhearing a child in a supermarket teach their own parent not to touch a guide dog.
The second half turns to work and craft. Ann recounts her nine years as a readjustment counselor with combat veterans at the White Plains Vet Center, where not being able to see her clients made them disclose sooner, and where a federal system’s inaccessible tools kept her permanently catching up, and the three-year fight simply to sit her licensing exam with accommodations, a fight she won and an exam she then failed twice before deciding she had given it enough. Donna, mid-fight with CompTIA and Pearson over her own cybersecurity certification, tells her plainly: “I totally understand what you’re telling me.” They close on independent publishing, the screen-reader barriers that nearly killed Ann’s first book Upwelling, how she writes by ear with text-to-speech, and her advice to anyone adjusting to sight loss, don’t give up, fight the good fight, and ask for help, including mental health help.
TRANSCRIPT
Podcast Commentator: Greetings. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, and MBA invites you to listen to her bi-weekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, sight loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills, and expertise in access, technology, and information. As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of The Remarkable World Commentary. I’m Donna J. Jodhan, a lifelong disability advocate and one who sees the world mainly through sound, through touch, and through stubborn optimism. I am a law graduate and accessibility consultant. I am an author of several books and a lifelong barrier buster who also happens to be blind. You may know me from a few headline moments, as in November of 2010, I won the landmark Charter case that forced the Canadian government to make its websites accessible to every Canadian, not just to sighted ones. And in July of 2019, I co-led the Accessible Canada Act with more than two dozen disability groups to turn equal access into federal law. And most recently, on June the 3rd, 2022, I was greatly humbled by Her Late Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee Award for tireless commitment to removing barriers. When I’m not in a courtroom or in a committee room or in a pottery studio, you’ll find me coaching kids with vision loss, producing audio mysteries, or helping tech companies to make their gadgets talk back in plain language. Everything I do circles one goal: to turn accessibility from an afterthought into everyday practice. I invite you now to think of this show as our shared workbench, where policy meets lived experience and lived experience sparks fresh ideas. Now, before we jump into today’s conversation, let me shine a spotlight on today’s guest, a change maker whose work is every bit as remarkable as the world that we are trying to change. And welcome to my Remarkable World Commentary podcast. I am pleased and I’m privileged to have you with us. I’ve heard a lot about you and now we get to meet. So welcome.
Ann Chiappetta: Thank you very much for having me on today. I look forward to our conversation.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right? All right. So let’s start with this question. I want to begin in 1993. You were just 28 years old and you were expecting your first child, and you were told that you had retinitis pigmentosa and you would be legally blind. I have been blind since birth, so I have never had to grieve a way of seeing the world. But you did. And you did it while becoming a mother. Please take us back to that year. What did that diagnosis take from you and what did it eventually hand you that you never, ever expected?
Ann Chiappetta: Well, when I was first diagnosed, it changed my world forever and I didn’t know what to expect. I was scared, and I didn’t know how to explain what was going on to myself, let alone my family. And I ended up losing my job because I couldn’t see well enough. Eventually I had to just leave that job. My husband was deployed on and off, so I was a lot of times just by myself. It was me, my kid. And if it wasn’t for my mother-in-law and father-in-law just helping out when I needed to go somewhere or something, I probably would have been way more isolated, but I was depressed and didn’t know it. But I did have these people in my life who came and helped me, and I call them my angels, because the first one was my ophthalmologist. He was the one who got me in touch with blind services where I lived. And then my rehab counselor, she was another angel in my life. And the things I didn’t expect was, I didn’t expect to go back to school post blindness. I didn’t expect to earn my master’s degree post blindness. I didn’t expect to dive into the parts of myself that I didn’t know I had, to be able to just not take no for an answer. So if I was going to go blind, I was going to learn how to do it. And at some point, being scared and afraid went to the bottom of the list, and the top of the list was, I have to do this for me and my children. And that’s what I learned. I learned I had resiliency. I learned I could do things I didn’t think I could. So that’s what I learned. In the beginning at least.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: A truly remarkable story. And I do thank you for sharing this. And I could hear it in your voice as well. I mean, yes, I could feel your pain. Like I said, I never knew — I knew another world in a different way, but not like you did. And my goodness. Something I find remarkable about your story is that it has three distinct creative lives in it. Before you lost your sight, you were designing acrylic displays and furniture. Then when you could no longer see your own drawing, you turned to writing. And a decade later you came back to visual art. Walk our listeners through those [terms? 00:07:51]. What made you put the pencil down and pick up the words? And how did you make peace with that trade?
Ann Chiappetta: Well, I was always a creative person as a kid. I loved art and music and photography and writing and singing and dancing. So I was very creative kid. So I wrote poetry in school and did some acting and things like that. But when I got into the acrylic furniture design, I didn’t realize I could make a living out of it, and I did. So that was a gift. Yeah.
Ann Chiappetta: And then when I realized I wasn’t going to be able to do that anymore, in a way that I thought I could do it, I started writing more, and the writing became a catharsis for me. All of my thoughts about my self-worth and going blind and the not knowing, all of that came out in my poetry. And if I didn’t have that way to create, I think I would have probably suffered more in terms of my mental health, but I was able to put all of that in my poetry and my writing. And then people liked it. I took another chance and someone said, well, why don’t you try to get it in a journal or something. So I did that, and it worked. I was shocked that people wanted to put my writing in a journal. I was shocked. But that was like the beginning of that life for me. That creative spark that kept me seeking more.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: This just simply blows me away. Like, you were 28 years old. You received this devastating news. And you don’t give up. You keep on going. And you’re here today to tell this story. And I think many, many listeners would love to take your story of inspiration and make it a story of inspiration. I mean, you have written something that I wish that every person in this field would hear, and it is very simple. You do not want to be called the blind lady. I have said I have a name and my name is Ann. You also spent about ten years delivering a disability awareness program called Building Bridges to children in kindergarten through second grade, which is exactly where I believe this work has to start. What did most children understand immediately that the adults around them have to unlearn?
Ann Chiappetta: So when I first got approached to do this program, I was like, I don’t know. I don’t know. But then I was invited to just watch some of these other people, people in wheelchairs who use wheelchairs, people who were deaf, people who had CP, but they were looking for someone who was blind to join their cadre. And so I went. And then I realized, I want to do this. I want to do this. So I think the adults have to unlearn things. And the kids are fresh, they’re new, they’re blank slates. They see me walk in with my guide dog. They’re like, oh, what is — and then they’re chit-chatting around, and they tell me. And so we finally get them settled down and their questions are great. And they’re so attentive, so attentive, these little kids that people say children have only ten minutes to get their attention and keep them there. They’re there for 45 minutes or an hour, just watching and listening and asking questions. And so the payoff for me is when I go into a supermarket or into a store or a movie theater, I often hear a child say, mommy, mommy, or dad or whatever, that’s a guide dog. You’re not supposed to touch it. You’re not supposed to do anything to it. Just leave it alone. And when I hear that, that is the payoff of all that educating children to educate their parents.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So isn’t it awesome that it is the kids who educate the parents? They’re such innocent little guys. Yes, they are sponges that know everything. It’s marvelous to hear that. Absolutely marvelous.
Ann Chiappetta: Yeah, it’s really cool.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. For some nine years, you were a readjustment counselor therapist at the White Plains [Vet 00:13:45] Center sitting with combat veterans and their families. And you have said that you were the only blind counselor among 3,000 people in the readjustment program. Tell our listeners, what was that work like? And be honest with us. What did your blindness bring into that counseling room that sighted therapists could not have brought?
Ann Chiappetta: Oh, well, let’s see. So I think, go to what you just said about what did I bring to the counseling — the counseling of veterans and their families — that a sighted counselor couldn’t. Is that I couldn’t see people, so they tended to disclose with me more, probably sooner and with less fear or anxiety, because I couldn’t see them. And I often got to places in people’s disclosing that maybe other counselors wouldn’t get to as quickly. I can’t prove that, there’s no data for that, but that’s just how I felt, after doing it for so long. And the other thing about being a counselor with a guide dog is that it seemed to put people at ease. As soon as they walked in to my room, my dog would go and greet them and then go lay down and ignore them. And they were like, oh, okay. So for them, it put a lot of people at ease. And then there were other people who would often rely on my guide dog to help ease their nervousness or anxiety while we were in session, which I allowed because it was like a natural thing. I didn’t push it. I didn’t make it not happen.
Ann Chiappetta: If it happened, I let it happen, if it was appropriate. So those are the two things I brought into the counseling room that no other sighted counselor could bring. And the other part about this is that being in a big federal system and having a visual disability, there were a lot of challenges, a lot all around accessibility or the lack of it, all about people’s lack of awareness or disinterest in bringing me the tools that I needed. And it was a struggle all the time to be in a constant state of catching up to everybody else. And it was hard, it was really hard to be a counselor and have to feel like I was behind on everything, because everything took me so much longer than everybody else. And I’m talking about the reporting, all of our tools and measurements that we have to put in the computer, all that stuff. It was just not the way it should be. And I hope it improves for other counselors with disabilities, because we can bring things into that counseling room that people without disabilities just can’t do.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So were you one of the first ones? Vision impaired persons?
Ann Chiappetta: No, there were other visually impaired people in this. I knew a psychologist who worked for the VA for years. She was actually one of my mentors. I actually contacted her. I was like, can I do this job? And she’s like, of course you can. So that was — and there were sporadically all over. Yeah. I mean, I’m sure there’s counselors there who are legally blind. My former director was probably legally blind. But he was only partially sighted, but he had special glasses and all that stuff. So I’m sure there was a spattering of people with visual impairments. But definitely it’s difficult in any big system to be an employee with a disability. You just have extra challenges and extra things. I mean, I just think about the transportation back and forth to work. I couldn’t be sporadic about things. I couldn’t be called in at the last minute. I had my limitations. So it’s a give and take. But I learned so much there about myself, about other people, about how my guide dog could be like an impetus to something better in terms of counseling. Right. Another tool. So many things.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: What kind of dog did you have?
Ann Chiappetta: Well, my first dog was a black lab, and then, in between — the dog, excuse me, that I had when I retired from the VA was a big yellow Labrador named Bailey. And I have wrote a book about my dogs. So I have a memoir out there. So.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You are just an inspiration. And I hope people are listening and paying attention. Like, God. All right. So before you could practice, you had to fight simply to sit the licensing examination with accommodations. Okay. A fight that took you three years and that had you writing to the president of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and to the New York State Regulatory Board. As someone who has spent a good part of my own life in exactly that kind of fight, I would like our listeners to hear what it actually cost. What did those three years take out of you and what finally moved them?
Ann Chiappetta: Well, first of all, it’s a long time ago. It was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away and struggled to get her MFT [00:21:14]. Yes. But so I was new at the VA at the time. I was still learning about everything in terms of my employment status and all these things, learning about so much. So when I started to apply for my — to take my test, at first the only thing they said was, well, we can give it to you in large print. I’m like, well, that’s not going to work for me. No. And so that was the first year of fighting them. The second year of fighting them, I asked the AAMFT to help me out and they didn’t help me out very much. They honestly, I think they passed the buck on it a bit. And they said there was excuses. They didn’t have the equipment, they didn’t know what JAWS was. All they could offer it in Braille. I said, but I am not a Braille reader. That is not the format that I’m most accustomed with. And that would be a barrier for me. And that took another year. And then in the third year, the former director of the state education, whatever, whoever was in charge of the testing accommodations or whatever, she retired and somebody took over, and he actually called me and he said, I’m seeing all of this correspondence you had.
Ann Chiappetta: And he said, I am so sorry that you went through that. What can we do to make it better for you? And so he did. He made it better. And I took the test and I failed, but it was almost five years later. Right? So I was like, oh. And then I took it again and I failed again. And by then I was like, that’s it. I’m done. I did not have the emotional resilience to go through all of that again and then possibly fail a third time, and then that would be it. I wouldn’t be able to reapply for years after that. So. Right, right. I just couldn’t do it. And for a long time, it really got me down. And then I realized, you know what, I can’t allow myself to identify myself with failure about something like that when I did so much good, so many other places in my life. So I came to terms with it. But it took a long time. And it was hard. Really hard.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I know what it’s like because I’m presently going through the cybersecurity exam with CompTIA and Pearson and others. And yeah, it’s not easy. And if you don’t have the emotional strength after doing it twice, who’s going to blame you for saying no? No more? I mean, that’s where I’m at right now. I totally understand what you’re telling me.
Ann Chiappetta: Well, it is a tough thing. It’s a tough thing. Because you have to be able to get past it.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You have to.
Ann Chiappetta: Put it in a healthy place. So. Yeah. Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I know you’re going to have people every now and then saying, why is she putting herself through this?
Ann Chiappetta: That’s what I kept asking myself. Why am I doing this?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: We do it for our kids of the future. In my personal opinion, we have to do it for our kids. We have to show them that you must not give up. You can’t. But then again, it emotionally. Yeah. Yeah. Now, you trained in marriage and family therapy at I— sorry, Iona. And you have said that counselor training taught you how to listen, how to remember, and how to break a conversation down into its parts. Now, you have written novels. How much of the therapist is sitting there when you build a character, and can you always tell where the counselor stops and where the novelist begins?
Ann Chiappetta: So this is a great question. So first of all, I think having had all that training allows me to delve into personality traits, the psychology of characters and things like that, that are very beneficial to writing fiction. And I’m very, very much aware of that. However, when you’re writing fiction, you can’t write it dry, you’re not doing reporting. You need to allow yourself to fly your creativity, your imagination, your seeking, your curiosity. So that’s also part of writing. If you can get those two parts together and kind of work together, then it’s super cool. And especially when I write poetry, I’m writing it first and foremost as a person who cannot see, but you don’t know that when you read my poetry. You don’t know that I can’t see, because I present other aspects of the whole person or the sensory to you. Once in a while I might want to disclose that in a poem or something, but usually I don’t. And the same thing with my fiction. So all of me is there in some way or shape or form. And I don’t necessarily even — I’m not even aware anymore where one part of my training forms over into my creativity. It’s just a whole thing that I do together, all in one big thing. So but I’m glad I had my training. I’m glad I went to college. I’m glad I pursued what I wanted. I’m glad I did what I did, and I wouldn’t do it over.
Ann Chiappetta: But I mean, I wouldn’t change anything. That’s what I mean.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right. But did you purposely not disclose that you were blind, or it just came naturally to you, the flow of everything.
Ann Chiappetta: It’s interesting. Some of these poetry — I belong to a poetry group and we do a generative workshop. We get 6 or 8 of us together, and we all share poetry and we focus on something. And sometimes I just [disclose? 00:28:43] to these people we meet over Zoom. Sometimes I say right at first I’m blind, sometimes I don’t. And it’s interesting how people handle it. I don’t automatically come and say, oh, yeah. Maybe the second or the third time we meet, I might say something in response to another of the poets, because they point something out that indirectly or directly affects my poem. And then I tell them. I don’t like coming out like all that. I don’t like that. I don’t think it’s — I don’t know.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: But are people surprised when you say that you are blind? Yes they are. Ha. Good.
Ann Chiappetta: Yes. Yes they are. They’re like, oh, how do you do this? And how do you do that? What do you do? Because sometimes I’ll read one of the poems, like we read other people’s poetry. Sometimes we read whatever. And I can get things done on my computer. I’m pretty accomplished that way. I like technology and it helps me. And sometimes they’re surprised I can do what I do.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: They always are. But I’m wondering whether poetry written by someone who started out with no vision is different from someone like yourself who had vision and now you’re into another world. Do you think it makes a difference?
Ann Chiappetta: No, I think your creativity is your creativity. And I know other poets who have been blind from birth and their poetry is beautiful. Nothing lacking in it. It’s just wonderful. So.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay, so your first book, what is it called? Upwelling. Is that the name of it?
Ann Chiappetta: Yes.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Upwelling. What a very unique title. This [almost? 00:30:54] did not happen. Not because of the writing, because the desktop publishing tools that you needed were not accessible to a screen reader. I think that a great many people listening assume that self-publishing is the accessible option. What did you run into and how did you get around it? And what should a blind author know before they start down that road?
Ann Chiappetta: So this was in 2016. I think we’re in 2026 now. I think we’ve made some great inroads in accessibility in terms of desktop publishing and technology. But back in 2016, it wasn’t quite the way I thought it would be. I mean, I could use my tools on my computer, like Microsoft Word and that kind of thing. But when I went out of the Microsoft realm and started to try to go to formatting things in like Adobe, things like that — not accessible at all. And I could not format it for desktop publishing. And I kept asking for favors from people and they were like, oh yeah, we’ll do it for you. And that never worked. And it was like six months went by, eight months went by, and like, I really want to get this done. And I know I have a good manuscript. I’ve had people tell me that. And I went to traditional route. I tried to get this, you know, [poems? 00:32:53] published through journals, poetry journals, but they all denied me. They said, no, it’s not. And whatever. I mean, you got to have a thick skin when you’re a writer or an artist. So I was just frustrated more than anything else. And then I said, okay, I’m going to go back and read books on the National Library Service’s BARD service. I’m going to go read some books by other blind authors and see what they have to say about how they got published. So I did that and I found an email address at the back of this other author’s book. And I emailed them and they got back to me right away and said, yes, we publish independently published books. We’ll help you out. We’re a book preparation service with editing, and they’re called https://dldbooks.com. And they’ve been my editors and publishers ever since.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Wow. I wish I knew all this when I wrote my books.
Ann Chiappetta: I wish I did, too. I mean, I had to go through this. Oh, this was so frustrating. I really felt like there was no help in the world for me at the time. And then suddenly I was like, oh, look what I found. So that’s not giving up, right? We talked about not giving up.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: No, we can’t give up. But like in my day, I wrote a bunch of books on [unclear 00:34:17] Untapped Wealth and Secrets to Financial Success. But I went through the BookSurge publishing company on AuthorHouse, and after a while I just said, you know what? I’m going to go to a different route. But you cannot give up. You must keep on fighting.
Ann Chiappetta: Yes.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right. I mean, what else can I say?
Ann Chiappetta: Yes. And the other thing is, don’t be afraid to ask other authors what they do or how they do things. There’s a huge networking opportunities out there to avail yourselves of, and you build on that. And your first book might be a big struggle, but your second book might be easier. Your third book might even be easier than that. And then before you know it, you’ve got it. You’ve got a system. You’ve got the people you know you can go to to help. And that’s what I found, more than anything else, is I learned so much about just independent publishing, what that means, how it affects me as a person, and all these other wonderful people that I’ve met. That’s just great.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I can hear it in your voice. Now you work across four different platforms, and there are not many blind authors doing all four: poetry, memoir, short fiction, and novels. And your short story appeared in The Artificial Divide, and this is an anthology written entirely by blind and visually impaired authors. And this past May, you featured as a poet at the Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books. Do those four forms come from the same place inside of you, or does each one ask for different kind of attention?
Ann Chiappetta: Wow. So yeah, they do ask for different types of attention. I have to be in the right state of mind to pursue poetry or short fiction or even my creative nonfiction, writing essays or blog posts. I’ve learned to switch my brain pretty quickly between them. It wasn’t always like that. Like I would struggle switching from one to the other. And some people just can’t do that. They stick in their genre and that’s it. They love reading other genres, but they wouldn’t write in other genres. But I mean, I like to do everything. Wow. Yeah, I’m like, well, maybe this week I’ll finish that short story and send it off for editing. And then I’ll send a couple of poems to my poetry editor. And then it just — I don’t know, I don’t think about it. I don’t have expectations with it. I just listen to what my creativity tells me and what my instincts tell me, and I just go with it.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I would love our listeners to understand how you physically make a book. Okay. You compose using text to speech, then you will listen to your own words as you type them. You have said that this helps you to write prose and poems that sound good and read aloud. Tell us about that. Has writing by ear changed the actual shape of your senses [00:38:37]?
Ann Chiappetta: So yes, the answer to that is yes. When I use my computer and I use text to speech and types and I hear it, eventually when I go back and I go to have it read all in one shot, like the whole page or something, I will know from the way things sound whether it’s balanced or whether there’s an awkward sentence, or let’s face it, we all have typos. Those are also something, right? Yeah. I just know by the way, the cadence of the words and everything, after doing this for so long you have an ear for it. Just like you had to learn to have an ear for a screen reading software program like JAWS when you first lose your vision and you’ve got to learn those tools. It’s the same thing. So I’ve trained my ear to listen. And the same thing with poetry. Let’s say I write a poem, like a five stanza poem, and I let JAWS read it for me all in one shot, and it sounds like [unclear 00:39:55]. I know if I read it out loud, it’s also going to sound — I’m also going to stumble on things, or that line might be too long or that meter might not be right. So if my screen reading equipment is telling me, oh, maybe it doesn’t sound so good, then when I go to perform it or someone else is going to read it, they’re going to also most likely go, something’s — yeah. So that’s how I do self evaluations in my writing and my editing and my content, and that’s just — that takes time. Just like anything else. You want to put yourself in there and have a quality product, you’ve got to put the work in. And all my technology helps me do that and I love it.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I can tell in your voice you really love it.
Ann Chiappetta: I do.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yes. The clock is ticking down, but I wanted to squeeze this question in for you. Follow Your Dog is a story of love and trust. And this was picked up for professional audio production through the National Library Service and Perkins, where put it into the hands of readers who could never have picked it off of a shelf. You have also wrote the introduction to Guide Dog Users Handbook for people considering their very first [guide dog? 00:41:44], and Guide Dog Users honored you with its Lieberg— Is that the way? Sorry.
Ann Chiappetta: Lieberg-Metz.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Lieberg-Metz Media Award for exactly that kind of work. What did you most want a prospective handler to understand? Something you wish that somebody had told you before. Veronica.
Ann Chiappetta: Verona.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Verona. I’m sorry.
Ann Chiappetta: That’s okay. Well—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Well, that’s a nice name. I like that Verona girl.
Ann Chiappetta: I think what the hardest part about training with a guide dog is not giving up. And that there are going to be times where you’re going to want to just go, why did I even do this? And when the beginning of training, it is tough. It’s probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life as a person who is blind. But it’s the best thing ever. If you can’t see and you get a guide dog, it’s like seeing again. That’s all I can say. It is, it’s just beautiful. But it’s a hard one thing to do and to keep. I’ve had three dogs now, and each one of them has had my challenges with them at first. And then we just keep on working at it. And you get to a place where it’s just beautiful and you know each other. You’re a team and you flow and it’s like you don’t even have to talk anymore. You just do things together. Like it’s almost like mind meld. But it’s hard work. It’s really hard work. And you’ve got to decide whether you want a white cane or you want a responsibility.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: That’s a great way of putting it. I’ve never had a guide dog in my life. I travel a lot, but that’s no excuse for not having a dog. But no. Do you want to work hard or do you want a responsibility? I love that. I love that.
Ann Chiappetta: Thanks.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So in closing, I’d like to ask you this. What words of wisdom or words of inspiration would you like to impart to our listeners based on your own story, based on how you have dealt with being told? At age 28, you had retinitis pigmentosa and you were pregnant. I never asked you, how many children do you have?
Ann Chiappetta: I have two.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, wow. Tell us.
Ann Chiappetta: Give us [00:44:36]. So my son lives in Florida. He’s 35. My daughter is 30, 31, and she lives here with us. And works in the postal service in Pennsylvania where we retired, so it’s great having her around.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Any words of wisdom for.
Ann Chiappetta: Words of wisdom?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Inspiration. Don’t give up.
Ann Chiappetta: Fight. Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Don’t fight [crosstalk 00:45:06].
Ann Chiappetta: Don’t give up. Fight the good fight. And ask for help. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. And don’t be afraid to say, I’m uncomfortable with this. And can we try a different way? There’s always another way to do things. And the other thing is get help, mental health help. If you really feel you’re struggling with your adjustment, if it’s affecting you dramatically in your life, ask for help. It’s out there.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: This is a wonderful story of inspiration, motivation, commitment. And it’s very, very refreshing. And I want to thank you, Ann, for having agreed to be our guest on this interview. I would love to keep in touch with you to find out what — what else is on your horizon? What are you doing? Please reach out to us and let us know.
Ann Chiappetta: Yes, yes, yes, I have another book I’m working on. So when it’s out, I’ll let you know.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. Please do. And if I don’t hear from you in a month or so, I’ll come looking for you.
Ann Chiappetta: Okay.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: All right.
Ann Chiappetta: Yes. Thank you so much.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Thank you, Ann. And listen, keep up the great work and don’t give up. All right. Thank you very much. And you have a great rest of the day.
Ann Chiappetta: Thank you.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay. Bye. Bye now. Bye bye.
Ann Chiappetta: Bye.
Podcast Commentator: Donna wants to hear from you and invites you to write to her at donnajodhan@gmail.com. Until next time.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA
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Turning policy into progress for people with disabilities.
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Related
Remarkable World Commentary Episode #107: Interview with Ann Chiappetta, Author, Poet and President of Friends in Art
🎙️ Listen to this Podcast.
In this moving episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA speaks with author, poet and Friends in Art president Ann Chiappetta about a life rebuilt three times over. Ann describes being diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa in 1993 at 28, while expecting her first child, losing her job, her acrylic furniture design career, and for a while her sense of herself, and the “angels” who pulled her back: her ophthalmologist, her rehab counselor, and eventually writing itself, which she calls a catharsis for everything she could not say about going blind. She talks about the ten years she spent delivering the Building Bridges disability awareness program to children in kindergarten through second grade, and the payoff of overhearing a child in a supermarket teach their own parent not to touch a guide dog.
The second half turns to work and craft. Ann recounts her nine years as a readjustment counselor with combat veterans at the White Plains Vet Center, where not being able to see her clients made them disclose sooner, and where a federal system’s inaccessible tools kept her permanently catching up, and the three-year fight simply to sit her licensing exam with accommodations, a fight she won and an exam she then failed twice before deciding she had given it enough. Donna, mid-fight with CompTIA and Pearson over her own cybersecurity certification, tells her plainly: “I totally understand what you’re telling me.” They close on independent publishing, the screen-reader barriers that nearly killed Ann’s first book Upwelling, how she writes by ear with text-to-speech, and her advice to anyone adjusting to sight loss, don’t give up, fight the good fight, and ask for help, including mental health help.
TRANSCRIPT
Podcast Commentator: Greetings. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, and MBA invites you to listen to her bi-weekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, sight loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills, and expertise in access, technology, and information. As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of The Remarkable World Commentary. I’m Donna J. Jodhan, a lifelong disability advocate and one who sees the world mainly through sound, through touch, and through stubborn optimism. I am a law graduate and accessibility consultant. I am an author of several books and a lifelong barrier buster who also happens to be blind. You may know me from a few headline moments, as in November of 2010, I won the landmark Charter case that forced the Canadian government to make its websites accessible to every Canadian, not just to sighted ones. And in July of 2019, I co-led the Accessible Canada Act with more than two dozen disability groups to turn equal access into federal law. And most recently, on June the 3rd, 2022, I was greatly humbled by Her Late Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee Award for tireless commitment to removing barriers. When I’m not in a courtroom or in a committee room or in a pottery studio, you’ll find me coaching kids with vision loss, producing audio mysteries, or helping tech companies to make their gadgets talk back in plain language. Everything I do circles one goal: to turn accessibility from an afterthought into everyday practice. I invite you now to think of this show as our shared workbench, where policy meets lived experience and lived experience sparks fresh ideas. Now, before we jump into today’s conversation, let me shine a spotlight on today’s guest, a change maker whose work is every bit as remarkable as the world that we are trying to change. And welcome to my Remarkable World Commentary podcast. I am pleased and I’m privileged to have you with us. I’ve heard a lot about you and now we get to meet. So welcome.
Ann Chiappetta: Thank you very much for having me on today. I look forward to our conversation.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right? All right. So let’s start with this question. I want to begin in 1993. You were just 28 years old and you were expecting your first child, and you were told that you had retinitis pigmentosa and you would be legally blind. I have been blind since birth, so I have never had to grieve a way of seeing the world. But you did. And you did it while becoming a mother. Please take us back to that year. What did that diagnosis take from you and what did it eventually hand you that you never, ever expected?
Ann Chiappetta: Well, when I was first diagnosed, it changed my world forever and I didn’t know what to expect. I was scared, and I didn’t know how to explain what was going on to myself, let alone my family. And I ended up losing my job because I couldn’t see well enough. Eventually I had to just leave that job. My husband was deployed on and off, so I was a lot of times just by myself. It was me, my kid. And if it wasn’t for my mother-in-law and father-in-law just helping out when I needed to go somewhere or something, I probably would have been way more isolated, but I was depressed and didn’t know it. But I did have these people in my life who came and helped me, and I call them my angels, because the first one was my ophthalmologist. He was the one who got me in touch with blind services where I lived. And then my rehab counselor, she was another angel in my life. And the things I didn’t expect was, I didn’t expect to go back to school post blindness. I didn’t expect to earn my master’s degree post blindness. I didn’t expect to dive into the parts of myself that I didn’t know I had, to be able to just not take no for an answer. So if I was going to go blind, I was going to learn how to do it. And at some point, being scared and afraid went to the bottom of the list, and the top of the list was, I have to do this for me and my children. And that’s what I learned. I learned I had resiliency. I learned I could do things I didn’t think I could. So that’s what I learned. In the beginning at least.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: A truly remarkable story. And I do thank you for sharing this. And I could hear it in your voice as well. I mean, yes, I could feel your pain. Like I said, I never knew — I knew another world in a different way, but not like you did. And my goodness. Something I find remarkable about your story is that it has three distinct creative lives in it. Before you lost your sight, you were designing acrylic displays and furniture. Then when you could no longer see your own drawing, you turned to writing. And a decade later you came back to visual art. Walk our listeners through those [terms? 00:07:51]. What made you put the pencil down and pick up the words? And how did you make peace with that trade?
Ann Chiappetta: Well, I was always a creative person as a kid. I loved art and music and photography and writing and singing and dancing. So I was very creative kid. So I wrote poetry in school and did some acting and things like that. But when I got into the acrylic furniture design, I didn’t realize I could make a living out of it, and I did. So that was a gift. Yeah.
Ann Chiappetta: And then when I realized I wasn’t going to be able to do that anymore, in a way that I thought I could do it, I started writing more, and the writing became a catharsis for me. All of my thoughts about my self-worth and going blind and the not knowing, all of that came out in my poetry. And if I didn’t have that way to create, I think I would have probably suffered more in terms of my mental health, but I was able to put all of that in my poetry and my writing. And then people liked it. I took another chance and someone said, well, why don’t you try to get it in a journal or something. So I did that, and it worked. I was shocked that people wanted to put my writing in a journal. I was shocked. But that was like the beginning of that life for me. That creative spark that kept me seeking more.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: This just simply blows me away. Like, you were 28 years old. You received this devastating news. And you don’t give up. You keep on going. And you’re here today to tell this story. And I think many, many listeners would love to take your story of inspiration and make it a story of inspiration. I mean, you have written something that I wish that every person in this field would hear, and it is very simple. You do not want to be called the blind lady. I have said I have a name and my name is Ann. You also spent about ten years delivering a disability awareness program called Building Bridges to children in kindergarten through second grade, which is exactly where I believe this work has to start. What did most children understand immediately that the adults around them have to unlearn?
Ann Chiappetta: So when I first got approached to do this program, I was like, I don’t know. I don’t know. But then I was invited to just watch some of these other people, people in wheelchairs who use wheelchairs, people who were deaf, people who had CP, but they were looking for someone who was blind to join their cadre. And so I went. And then I realized, I want to do this. I want to do this. So I think the adults have to unlearn things. And the kids are fresh, they’re new, they’re blank slates. They see me walk in with my guide dog. They’re like, oh, what is — and then they’re chit-chatting around, and they tell me. And so we finally get them settled down and their questions are great. And they’re so attentive, so attentive, these little kids that people say children have only ten minutes to get their attention and keep them there. They’re there for 45 minutes or an hour, just watching and listening and asking questions. And so the payoff for me is when I go into a supermarket or into a store or a movie theater, I often hear a child say, mommy, mommy, or dad or whatever, that’s a guide dog. You’re not supposed to touch it. You’re not supposed to do anything to it. Just leave it alone. And when I hear that, that is the payoff of all that educating children to educate their parents.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So isn’t it awesome that it is the kids who educate the parents? They’re such innocent little guys. Yes, they are sponges that know everything. It’s marvelous to hear that. Absolutely marvelous.
Ann Chiappetta: Yeah, it’s really cool.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. For some nine years, you were a readjustment counselor therapist at the White Plains [Vet 00:13:45] Center sitting with combat veterans and their families. And you have said that you were the only blind counselor among 3,000 people in the readjustment program. Tell our listeners, what was that work like? And be honest with us. What did your blindness bring into that counseling room that sighted therapists could not have brought?
Ann Chiappetta: Oh, well, let’s see. So I think, go to what you just said about what did I bring to the counseling — the counseling of veterans and their families — that a sighted counselor couldn’t. Is that I couldn’t see people, so they tended to disclose with me more, probably sooner and with less fear or anxiety, because I couldn’t see them. And I often got to places in people’s disclosing that maybe other counselors wouldn’t get to as quickly. I can’t prove that, there’s no data for that, but that’s just how I felt, after doing it for so long. And the other thing about being a counselor with a guide dog is that it seemed to put people at ease. As soon as they walked in to my room, my dog would go and greet them and then go lay down and ignore them. And they were like, oh, okay. So for them, it put a lot of people at ease. And then there were other people who would often rely on my guide dog to help ease their nervousness or anxiety while we were in session, which I allowed because it was like a natural thing. I didn’t push it. I didn’t make it not happen.
Ann Chiappetta: If it happened, I let it happen, if it was appropriate. So those are the two things I brought into the counseling room that no other sighted counselor could bring. And the other part about this is that being in a big federal system and having a visual disability, there were a lot of challenges, a lot all around accessibility or the lack of it, all about people’s lack of awareness or disinterest in bringing me the tools that I needed. And it was a struggle all the time to be in a constant state of catching up to everybody else. And it was hard, it was really hard to be a counselor and have to feel like I was behind on everything, because everything took me so much longer than everybody else. And I’m talking about the reporting, all of our tools and measurements that we have to put in the computer, all that stuff. It was just not the way it should be. And I hope it improves for other counselors with disabilities, because we can bring things into that counseling room that people without disabilities just can’t do.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So were you one of the first ones? Vision impaired persons?
Ann Chiappetta: No, there were other visually impaired people in this. I knew a psychologist who worked for the VA for years. She was actually one of my mentors. I actually contacted her. I was like, can I do this job? And she’s like, of course you can. So that was — and there were sporadically all over. Yeah. I mean, I’m sure there’s counselors there who are legally blind. My former director was probably legally blind. But he was only partially sighted, but he had special glasses and all that stuff. So I’m sure there was a spattering of people with visual impairments. But definitely it’s difficult in any big system to be an employee with a disability. You just have extra challenges and extra things. I mean, I just think about the transportation back and forth to work. I couldn’t be sporadic about things. I couldn’t be called in at the last minute. I had my limitations. So it’s a give and take. But I learned so much there about myself, about other people, about how my guide dog could be like an impetus to something better in terms of counseling. Right. Another tool. So many things.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: What kind of dog did you have?
Ann Chiappetta: Well, my first dog was a black lab, and then, in between — the dog, excuse me, that I had when I retired from the VA was a big yellow Labrador named Bailey. And I have wrote a book about my dogs. So I have a memoir out there. So.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You are just an inspiration. And I hope people are listening and paying attention. Like, God. All right. So before you could practice, you had to fight simply to sit the licensing examination with accommodations. Okay. A fight that took you three years and that had you writing to the president of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and to the New York State Regulatory Board. As someone who has spent a good part of my own life in exactly that kind of fight, I would like our listeners to hear what it actually cost. What did those three years take out of you and what finally moved them?
Ann Chiappetta: Well, first of all, it’s a long time ago. It was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away and struggled to get her MFT [00:21:14]. Yes. But so I was new at the VA at the time. I was still learning about everything in terms of my employment status and all these things, learning about so much. So when I started to apply for my — to take my test, at first the only thing they said was, well, we can give it to you in large print. I’m like, well, that’s not going to work for me. No. And so that was the first year of fighting them. The second year of fighting them, I asked the AAMFT to help me out and they didn’t help me out very much. They honestly, I think they passed the buck on it a bit. And they said there was excuses. They didn’t have the equipment, they didn’t know what JAWS was. All they could offer it in Braille. I said, but I am not a Braille reader. That is not the format that I’m most accustomed with. And that would be a barrier for me. And that took another year. And then in the third year, the former director of the state education, whatever, whoever was in charge of the testing accommodations or whatever, she retired and somebody took over, and he actually called me and he said, I’m seeing all of this correspondence you had.
Ann Chiappetta: And he said, I am so sorry that you went through that. What can we do to make it better for you? And so he did. He made it better. And I took the test and I failed, but it was almost five years later. Right? So I was like, oh. And then I took it again and I failed again. And by then I was like, that’s it. I’m done. I did not have the emotional resilience to go through all of that again and then possibly fail a third time, and then that would be it. I wouldn’t be able to reapply for years after that. So. Right, right. I just couldn’t do it. And for a long time, it really got me down. And then I realized, you know what, I can’t allow myself to identify myself with failure about something like that when I did so much good, so many other places in my life. So I came to terms with it. But it took a long time. And it was hard. Really hard.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I know what it’s like because I’m presently going through the cybersecurity exam with CompTIA and Pearson and others. And yeah, it’s not easy. And if you don’t have the emotional strength after doing it twice, who’s going to blame you for saying no? No more? I mean, that’s where I’m at right now. I totally understand what you’re telling me.
Ann Chiappetta: Well, it is a tough thing. It’s a tough thing. Because you have to be able to get past it.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You have to.
Ann Chiappetta: Put it in a healthy place. So. Yeah. Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I know you’re going to have people every now and then saying, why is she putting herself through this?
Ann Chiappetta: That’s what I kept asking myself. Why am I doing this?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: We do it for our kids of the future. In my personal opinion, we have to do it for our kids. We have to show them that you must not give up. You can’t. But then again, it emotionally. Yeah. Yeah. Now, you trained in marriage and family therapy at I— sorry, Iona. And you have said that counselor training taught you how to listen, how to remember, and how to break a conversation down into its parts. Now, you have written novels. How much of the therapist is sitting there when you build a character, and can you always tell where the counselor stops and where the novelist begins?
Ann Chiappetta: So this is a great question. So first of all, I think having had all that training allows me to delve into personality traits, the psychology of characters and things like that, that are very beneficial to writing fiction. And I’m very, very much aware of that. However, when you’re writing fiction, you can’t write it dry, you’re not doing reporting. You need to allow yourself to fly your creativity, your imagination, your seeking, your curiosity. So that’s also part of writing. If you can get those two parts together and kind of work together, then it’s super cool. And especially when I write poetry, I’m writing it first and foremost as a person who cannot see, but you don’t know that when you read my poetry. You don’t know that I can’t see, because I present other aspects of the whole person or the sensory to you. Once in a while I might want to disclose that in a poem or something, but usually I don’t. And the same thing with my fiction. So all of me is there in some way or shape or form. And I don’t necessarily even — I’m not even aware anymore where one part of my training forms over into my creativity. It’s just a whole thing that I do together, all in one big thing. So but I’m glad I had my training. I’m glad I went to college. I’m glad I pursued what I wanted. I’m glad I did what I did, and I wouldn’t do it over.
Ann Chiappetta: But I mean, I wouldn’t change anything. That’s what I mean.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right. But did you purposely not disclose that you were blind, or it just came naturally to you, the flow of everything.
Ann Chiappetta: It’s interesting. Some of these poetry — I belong to a poetry group and we do a generative workshop. We get 6 or 8 of us together, and we all share poetry and we focus on something. And sometimes I just [disclose? 00:28:43] to these people we meet over Zoom. Sometimes I say right at first I’m blind, sometimes I don’t. And it’s interesting how people handle it. I don’t automatically come and say, oh, yeah. Maybe the second or the third time we meet, I might say something in response to another of the poets, because they point something out that indirectly or directly affects my poem. And then I tell them. I don’t like coming out like all that. I don’t like that. I don’t think it’s — I don’t know.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: But are people surprised when you say that you are blind? Yes they are. Ha. Good.
Ann Chiappetta: Yes. Yes they are. They’re like, oh, how do you do this? And how do you do that? What do you do? Because sometimes I’ll read one of the poems, like we read other people’s poetry. Sometimes we read whatever. And I can get things done on my computer. I’m pretty accomplished that way. I like technology and it helps me. And sometimes they’re surprised I can do what I do.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: They always are. But I’m wondering whether poetry written by someone who started out with no vision is different from someone like yourself who had vision and now you’re into another world. Do you think it makes a difference?
Ann Chiappetta: No, I think your creativity is your creativity. And I know other poets who have been blind from birth and their poetry is beautiful. Nothing lacking in it. It’s just wonderful. So.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay, so your first book, what is it called? Upwelling. Is that the name of it?
Ann Chiappetta: Yes.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Upwelling. What a very unique title. This [almost? 00:30:54] did not happen. Not because of the writing, because the desktop publishing tools that you needed were not accessible to a screen reader. I think that a great many people listening assume that self-publishing is the accessible option. What did you run into and how did you get around it? And what should a blind author know before they start down that road?
Ann Chiappetta: So this was in 2016. I think we’re in 2026 now. I think we’ve made some great inroads in accessibility in terms of desktop publishing and technology. But back in 2016, it wasn’t quite the way I thought it would be. I mean, I could use my tools on my computer, like Microsoft Word and that kind of thing. But when I went out of the Microsoft realm and started to try to go to formatting things in like Adobe, things like that — not accessible at all. And I could not format it for desktop publishing. And I kept asking for favors from people and they were like, oh yeah, we’ll do it for you. And that never worked. And it was like six months went by, eight months went by, and like, I really want to get this done. And I know I have a good manuscript. I’ve had people tell me that. And I went to traditional route. I tried to get this, you know, [poems? 00:32:53] published through journals, poetry journals, but they all denied me. They said, no, it’s not. And whatever. I mean, you got to have a thick skin when you’re a writer or an artist. So I was just frustrated more than anything else. And then I said, okay, I’m going to go back and read books on the National Library Service’s BARD service. I’m going to go read some books by other blind authors and see what they have to say about how they got published. So I did that and I found an email address at the back of this other author’s book. And I emailed them and they got back to me right away and said, yes, we publish independently published books. We’ll help you out. We’re a book preparation service with editing, and they’re called https://dldbooks.com. And they’ve been my editors and publishers ever since.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Wow. I wish I knew all this when I wrote my books.
Ann Chiappetta: I wish I did, too. I mean, I had to go through this. Oh, this was so frustrating. I really felt like there was no help in the world for me at the time. And then suddenly I was like, oh, look what I found. So that’s not giving up, right? We talked about not giving up.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: No, we can’t give up. But like in my day, I wrote a bunch of books on [unclear 00:34:17] Untapped Wealth and Secrets to Financial Success. But I went through the BookSurge publishing company on AuthorHouse, and after a while I just said, you know what? I’m going to go to a different route. But you cannot give up. You must keep on fighting.
Ann Chiappetta: Yes.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right. I mean, what else can I say?
Ann Chiappetta: Yes. And the other thing is, don’t be afraid to ask other authors what they do or how they do things. There’s a huge networking opportunities out there to avail yourselves of, and you build on that. And your first book might be a big struggle, but your second book might be easier. Your third book might even be easier than that. And then before you know it, you’ve got it. You’ve got a system. You’ve got the people you know you can go to to help. And that’s what I found, more than anything else, is I learned so much about just independent publishing, what that means, how it affects me as a person, and all these other wonderful people that I’ve met. That’s just great.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I can hear it in your voice. Now you work across four different platforms, and there are not many blind authors doing all four: poetry, memoir, short fiction, and novels. And your short story appeared in The Artificial Divide, and this is an anthology written entirely by blind and visually impaired authors. And this past May, you featured as a poet at the Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books. Do those four forms come from the same place inside of you, or does each one ask for different kind of attention?
Ann Chiappetta: Wow. So yeah, they do ask for different types of attention. I have to be in the right state of mind to pursue poetry or short fiction or even my creative nonfiction, writing essays or blog posts. I’ve learned to switch my brain pretty quickly between them. It wasn’t always like that. Like I would struggle switching from one to the other. And some people just can’t do that. They stick in their genre and that’s it. They love reading other genres, but they wouldn’t write in other genres. But I mean, I like to do everything. Wow. Yeah, I’m like, well, maybe this week I’ll finish that short story and send it off for editing. And then I’ll send a couple of poems to my poetry editor. And then it just — I don’t know, I don’t think about it. I don’t have expectations with it. I just listen to what my creativity tells me and what my instincts tell me, and I just go with it.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I would love our listeners to understand how you physically make a book. Okay. You compose using text to speech, then you will listen to your own words as you type them. You have said that this helps you to write prose and poems that sound good and read aloud. Tell us about that. Has writing by ear changed the actual shape of your senses [00:38:37]?
Ann Chiappetta: So yes, the answer to that is yes. When I use my computer and I use text to speech and types and I hear it, eventually when I go back and I go to have it read all in one shot, like the whole page or something, I will know from the way things sound whether it’s balanced or whether there’s an awkward sentence, or let’s face it, we all have typos. Those are also something, right? Yeah. I just know by the way, the cadence of the words and everything, after doing this for so long you have an ear for it. Just like you had to learn to have an ear for a screen reading software program like JAWS when you first lose your vision and you’ve got to learn those tools. It’s the same thing. So I’ve trained my ear to listen. And the same thing with poetry. Let’s say I write a poem, like a five stanza poem, and I let JAWS read it for me all in one shot, and it sounds like [unclear 00:39:55]. I know if I read it out loud, it’s also going to sound — I’m also going to stumble on things, or that line might be too long or that meter might not be right. So if my screen reading equipment is telling me, oh, maybe it doesn’t sound so good, then when I go to perform it or someone else is going to read it, they’re going to also most likely go, something’s — yeah. So that’s how I do self evaluations in my writing and my editing and my content, and that’s just — that takes time. Just like anything else. You want to put yourself in there and have a quality product, you’ve got to put the work in. And all my technology helps me do that and I love it.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I can tell in your voice you really love it.
Ann Chiappetta: I do.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yes. The clock is ticking down, but I wanted to squeeze this question in for you. Follow Your Dog is a story of love and trust. And this was picked up for professional audio production through the National Library Service and Perkins, where put it into the hands of readers who could never have picked it off of a shelf. You have also wrote the introduction to Guide Dog Users Handbook for people considering their very first [guide dog? 00:41:44], and Guide Dog Users honored you with its Lieberg— Is that the way? Sorry.
Ann Chiappetta: Lieberg-Metz.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Lieberg-Metz Media Award for exactly that kind of work. What did you most want a prospective handler to understand? Something you wish that somebody had told you before. Veronica.
Ann Chiappetta: Verona.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Verona. I’m sorry.
Ann Chiappetta: That’s okay. Well—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Well, that’s a nice name. I like that Verona girl.
Ann Chiappetta: I think what the hardest part about training with a guide dog is not giving up. And that there are going to be times where you’re going to want to just go, why did I even do this? And when the beginning of training, it is tough. It’s probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life as a person who is blind. But it’s the best thing ever. If you can’t see and you get a guide dog, it’s like seeing again. That’s all I can say. It is, it’s just beautiful. But it’s a hard one thing to do and to keep. I’ve had three dogs now, and each one of them has had my challenges with them at first. And then we just keep on working at it. And you get to a place where it’s just beautiful and you know each other. You’re a team and you flow and it’s like you don’t even have to talk anymore. You just do things together. Like it’s almost like mind meld. But it’s hard work. It’s really hard work. And you’ve got to decide whether you want a white cane or you want a responsibility.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: That’s a great way of putting it. I’ve never had a guide dog in my life. I travel a lot, but that’s no excuse for not having a dog. But no. Do you want to work hard or do you want a responsibility? I love that. I love that.
Ann Chiappetta: Thanks.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So in closing, I’d like to ask you this. What words of wisdom or words of inspiration would you like to impart to our listeners based on your own story, based on how you have dealt with being told? At age 28, you had retinitis pigmentosa and you were pregnant. I never asked you, how many children do you have?
Ann Chiappetta: I have two.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, wow. Tell us.
Ann Chiappetta: Give us [00:44:36]. So my son lives in Florida. He’s 35. My daughter is 30, 31, and she lives here with us. And works in the postal service in Pennsylvania where we retired, so it’s great having her around.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Any words of wisdom for.
Ann Chiappetta: Words of wisdom?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Inspiration. Don’t give up.
Ann Chiappetta: Fight. Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Don’t fight [crosstalk 00:45:06].
Ann Chiappetta: Don’t give up. Fight the good fight. And ask for help. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. And don’t be afraid to say, I’m uncomfortable with this. And can we try a different way? There’s always another way to do things. And the other thing is get help, mental health help. If you really feel you’re struggling with your adjustment, if it’s affecting you dramatically in your life, ask for help. It’s out there.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: This is a wonderful story of inspiration, motivation, commitment. And it’s very, very refreshing. And I want to thank you, Ann, for having agreed to be our guest on this interview. I would love to keep in touch with you to find out what — what else is on your horizon? What are you doing? Please reach out to us and let us know.
Ann Chiappetta: Yes, yes, yes, I have another book I’m working on. So when it’s out, I’ll let you know.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. Please do. And if I don’t hear from you in a month or so, I’ll come looking for you.
Ann Chiappetta: Okay.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: All right.
Ann Chiappetta: Yes. Thank you so much.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Thank you, Ann. And listen, keep up the great work and don’t give up. All right. Thank you very much. And you have a great rest of the day.
Ann Chiappetta: Thank you.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay. Bye. Bye now. Bye bye.
Ann Chiappetta: Bye.
Podcast Commentator: Donna wants to hear from you and invites you to write to her at donnajodhan@gmail.com. Until next time.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA
Global Leader In Disability Rights, Digital Accessibility, And Inclusive Policy Reform
Turning policy into progress for people with disabilities.
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Published in Remarkable World Commentary