M. Leona Godin, author portrait
© “Leona Godin Faces Her Portrait” © 2020, photograph by Alabaster Rhumb, painting by Roy Nachum

M. Leona Godin

M. Leona Godin (pronounced like French sculptor Rodin) is a writer, performer, educator, and the author of There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural history of Blindness (Pantheon, 2021). Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Playboy, O Magazine, Electric Literature, Catapult, and other print and online publications. She produced two plays: “The Star of Happiness” about Helen Keller’s time performing in vaudeville, and “The Spectator and the Blind Man,” about the invention of braille. Godin holds a PhD in English, and besides her many years teaching literature and humanities courses at NYU, she has lectured on art, accessibility, technology, and disability at such places as Tandon School of Engineering, Rice University, Baylor College of Medicine, and the American Printing House for the Blind. Her online magazine exploring the arts and sciences of smell and taste, Aromatica Poetica, publishes writing and art from around the world.
There Plant Eyes

Books

There Plant Eyes

Books for Black History Month

In honor of Black History Month this February, we are highlighting essential fiction and nonfiction for students, teachers, and parents to share and discuss this month and beyond. Join Penguin Random House Education in celebrating the contributions of Black authors and illustrators by exploring the titles here: BLACK HISTORY – MIDDLE SCHOOL BLACK HISTORY –

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Reading A DROP OF PATIENCE Through a Blind-Culture Lens

Written by By M. Leona Godin, author of There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness   In William Melvin Kelley’s A Drop of Patience, we follow the life of a young Black musician named Ludlow Washington, who is placed in a school for the blind when he is five and remains there until he is

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