Hello readers and listeners,

My name is Allison Nastoff, and I want to personally welcome you and thank you for reading and/or listening to my writing. In my substack newsletter and podcast, I will be publishing essays I have written over the years, and continue to write today about my life as a blind woman, as well as my Christian faith and how it shapes my perspective regarding current events.

Most of the essays will be free, as they have been previously published on my wordpress website, gilbertandme.com. For those who don't know, Gilbert was my first guide dog who was given to me when I started college in 2008, and had to be put to sleep on December 2, 2020. I was sad to lose him, but he lived to be 14, a long happy life. Someday, I hope to have another guide dog, but ever since resigning from my paralegal job at the start of the pandemic, my daily routine does not get me out of the house often enough to have a service dog. I live with my parents in a suburb with no sidewalks, and take graduate-level seminary courses online. But eventually, I hope to have a job outside the house--possibly as a chaplain--and my parents would like to move to a house with a smaller yard to manage, in a community with sidewalks which will be convenient for me as a blind person, and them as they age.

For just $5 a month or $50 for a year, you can access some more polished essays that were originally published in The Rivers of My Life, a memoir I self-published last summer. I also plan to add more personal essays, including several that were workshopped in some online courses I took through the Creative Nonfiction Foundation. Asking for money takes me a bit out of my comfort zone, but if you could support me, I would be so appreciative.

Most of my articles will be read by an artificial voice. I had noble intentions of recording everything myself, and I will be the first to agree that human voices are so much more enjoyable to listen to. But I quickly discovered that recording yourself reading is harder than you might think. I could not get through chapter 1 of The Rivers of my Life without tripping over my words. So I think you will actually enjoy my articles more with a synthetic voice. I tried to pick one that was as expressive and pleasant as a synthetic voice can be. Occasionally though, I will read essays myself, especially a couple which are especially personal for me, or which quote the words to songs that a synthetic voice could not read properly.

Thanks again for listening and reading my thoughts, and feel free to comment with questions or feedback.

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Personal essays about life and Christian faith

People

I am 32 years old and live in Wisconsin. I hold a Bachelor’s degree in communication and am currently pursuing a Masters of Theological Studies. I am also totally blind, the result of a brain tumor when I was seven months old.