Jul 21, 2022
Dennis is joined via Zoom by author Blair Fell to discuss is terrific debut novel The Sign For Home, which is about the friendship that develops between a headstrong deaf blind Jehovah Witness college student and the stuck-in-his-life, middle-aged gay man who is hired to be his interpreter. Blair talks about the eight years it took to write the book, the bidding war that unfolded when it went out to publishers, crying while recording the audio version, the times he almost gave up and the writers group that saw him through. Blair also talks about his “Plan B” career; working as an interpreter for the deaf and deaf blind, and how that experience not only inspired the book but informed his entire life. Other topics include: his favorite sign, why he loves being around deaf people, writing on the original Queer as Folk and being high on drugs when he got notes on a script, putting his G. I. Joes in drag when he was a kid to act out stories and why he’ll never get Botox.
(Audio excerpt courtesy of Simon & Schuster Audio from SING FROM HOME by Blair Fell, read by the author. Copyright © 2022 by Blair Fell. Used with permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.)