Last winter, Susan Krieger got on the phone to a florist in Wisconsin. “I said, ‘I want flowers—big, dramatic flowers.’ ” Sent to? The compositor and managing editor of the University of Wisconsin Press.
For Krieger, a lecturer in the program in feminist studies, Humanities and Sciences Fellow at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and author of four previous books, having another book published typically wouldn’t have been such a huge event. But this title was different. Things No Longer There: A Memoir of Losing Sight and Finding Vision includes an account of how Krieger lost her sight over a period of five years to a rare disease called birdshot retinochoroidopathy. She had worked with the press for months to ensure that a digital version for blind readers would be published simultaneously with the print book. “For me, the book came out when I got the e-book,” she says. “I felt like I could navigate it, and I was elated.”
Krieger’s new work is at home on several bookstore shelves: memoir, disability studies, or gay and lesbian studies. Personal stories about a former summer camp, birdwatching and lesbian lovers are collected with essays that address the nature of blindness and sight. Krieger’s loss of vision began after she’d written some of the pieces, but not before she’d settled on the title. “I was writing very pictorially,” she recalls. “I was looking for clarity.” Then she was diagnosed. “And I thought, ‘Well, that fits with my theme.’ ”
For the past three years, Krieger has taught a course called Seminar in Women’s Health: Women and Disabilities. She says teaching and writing about her loss of vision have given her an outlet that many blind people don’t have. “I feel fortunate that in the past I’ve had to deal with so many emotional things that I’m prepared for this. Losing my vision is not the worst thing in the world, and I’m going to be fine.”
