Rusty Marks

Blind Braxton County author and fellowship winner pursues her love of literature

BURNSVILLE - A narrow black ribbon of asphalt hugs the steep bank of Oil Creek, winding its way up the hollow in the shadow of steel-gray railroad tracks.

A red clay driveway peels itself from the main road and works its way up the hillside to the small house where Becky Conrad lives, surrounded now by the dusty browns of midwinter in Braxton County.

It must be lush and green in high summer, but Conrad sees none of it. Blind for more than 20 years, she lives in a world of perpetual shades of gray, where color is only a memory.

Blindness hasn't stopped Conrad's love of writing, although for a time it slowed it down.

The 41-year-old author tells much of her story in an essay titled "A Creative Dream," which helped her to win a recent $3,500 grant from the state Division of Culture and History's Fund for the Artist Fellowship.

"I discovered my passion for writing in the sixth grade, when my teacher gave the assignment to write a short story," her nine-page "Creative Dream" essay begins. By the eighth grade, Conrad was writing about anything and everything.

Then, the teen-ager began to notice she had trouble seeing, but she didn't think much of it.

"I thought I was just a bad ballplayer in school. I couldn't see the ball," she recalls. She sat in the computer-equipped office of her Braxton County home, where she lives with her husband, Bobby, and son, Joshua.

Tests confirmed that Conrad suffered from retinitis pigmentosa, a deterioration of the retina. Doctors said she would eventually go blind, but probably not until she was in her 40s or 50s.

That isn't the way it worked out.

*  *  *  *  *

"It seemed like overnight, I couldn't see. Words floated around on a page, and I struggled to read. I had to drop out of doing the speed exercises in typing class because of swimming letters. When I looked at the chalkboard, the yellow chalk seemed to blend into the green board, so I had to sit beside a friend from whom I could copy notes."

*  *  *  *  *

By the end of her senior year, Conrad was blind. It was a fact she was reluctant to face.

"I never cried about it," she remembered. "I never worried about it. I just ignored it. When I had to get a cane I refused to get a white cane, because that meant you were blind."

Eventually, Conrad began to accept her blindness. She took correspondence classes for the blind. She got a guide dog.

Hoping to continue her love for writing, she bought herself an electric typewriter. Though she had taken typing classes in high school, with no way to check for mistakes her efforts were disastrous. Discouraged, she gave up on writing.

Conrad opened a greenhouse and concentrated on being a wife and mother. But the urge to write refused to go away.

Around 1995, Conrad received a grant to buy a special word-processing keyboard that talked. She hoped that by being able to hear what she was typing, she would be able to write again. But the keyboard's rows of buttons intimidated her. It stayed in a drawer for months.

*  *  *  *  *

"One day I sat down at my desk and removed the machine from the drawer. Turning it on, its robot-sounding voice further terrorized me. ... My fear quickly turned into love for this little machine with all its buttons and weird voice. I'd been waiting years for it."

*  *  *  *  *

Today, Conrad has an even better speech program on her computer. The software, called Jaws, allows her machine to tell her what keys she's pushing and what programs she's calling up.

"Everything is keystrokes," she said. "It just takes a lot of memory to remember what does what."

Now, when Conrad wants to type, her computer tells her when she has a new file open. It says the letters as she types, and reads back her sentences and punctuation marks. When she makes a mistake, it helps her find it. She can also use the computerized voice to read e-mail.

Conrad writes a regular column for EnableLink.com, a Web site for the hearing and visually impaired. She's working on her first novel, a murder mystery about a man who stalks a blind author.

"I think it's got some real possibility," said Wilma Acree, former president of West Virginia Writers Inc., a friend of Conrad's who is helping Conrad with the manuscript.

"I can't imagine writing a whole novel and being blind," Acree said. "It would be so hard to check back and see what you had written previously.

"I have a lot of admiration for her. I have seen people who had disabilities before just give up, and she certainly isn't one to do that."

Conrad still struggles with punctuation. She said the physical act of writing isn't always easy. But she doesn't plan to stop.

*  *  *  *  *

"Regaining the ability to write opened up a door that I thought was once closed forever. This wonderful new technology gives me opportunities that didn't exist in the past. I'm grateful for the chance to reach for my creative dream."

*  *  *  *

Thanks to reporter Rusty Marks for giving us a glimpse into Becky's triumphant spirit.

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