Hi. I’m K.E. Buckley, and I happen to be blind.

I love creating stories. I enjoy teaching my children life lessons intertwined with entertaining tales. They are imaginative kids, and I get a thrill feeding that imagination. Story creation comes somewhat naturally to me as a father, and that ability is very needed, since I can’t read books to them. Due to my sight impairment, I have to simply tell stories.

At first, I just told true tales about my childhood, butt that got old rather quickly. Plus, my kids didn’t find their dad to be an interesting enough subject. So I started making up stories with characters based on my children. My kids kept asking for more. A few individuals other than my children eventually heard some of my stories and suggested I should write them down into books. I was largely opposed to it, mostly because I didn’t consider myself a writer, but rather a nerd. In high school, I dreamed about becoming a movie maker. However, a curve ball that life threw me in my early twenties kind of changed my dreams.

I am now an author. How did I get here? Well, let’s start at the beginning.

I had an uneventful and normal childhood, except when it wasn’t. There were the occasional trips to the ER, seizures caused by fever, and a trauma that left the macular vision in my left eye completely useless. I had food poisoning and food allergies frequently enough that I was often able to practice vomiting for both distance and accuracy.

There was also the occasional event that caused the slightest bit of emotional trauma, like seeing my older sister’s leg getting run over by a lawn mower, my baby sister being burned and rushed to the ER, and my dad crashing into a dock while water skiing at a fantastic speed which caused all sorts of mayhem and carnage. But things slowed down a bit once I was ten.

In between sicknesses and traumas, I expanded the power of my imagination by participating in the childhood games of pretend. No matter what the theme, while playing pretend with my group of friends, I was always for some unknown reason cast in the role of the nerd. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I wore thick glasses, was allergic to just about everything in nature, knew how to build computers, and played the piano.

When I entered middle school, I concluded that the best way to increase my level of cool was to become a mega Star Wars fan, and to join the school’s concert band playing the trumpet. I made a friend in band who was even more cool than I. He had a pocket protector, and endless supply of floppy disks for his computer, and he frequently played the game Dungeons and Dragons.

Okay, I admit it, I was a nerd. If my wife was reading over my shoulder right now, she would ask, “Was?!”

I was and am a nerd. That has given me a vast amount of time and opportunity to explore the world with my mind and imagination. I spent lots of time reading, in awe of stories, in awe of the glories of nature, God, and science, and experienced the life changing role of music.

In high school, performing in marching band, symphonic band, jazz band, and pep band created a tremendous energy in me that is very difficult to describe. I loved the music, I loved the hard work of marching formations, I loved the reward of moving others emotionally due to the music performed by me, my fellow band members, and my stellar director. I realized that I was participating in the creation of art. It was life altering.

After high school, I decided to become a missionary and was away from home for two years. Shortly after returning home, something began occurring to my right eye, which was the only eye that had any useful vision. I suddenly had blind spots where there were none before. I would see peculiar light sensations, even with my eyes closed.

I went to my family doctor and she immediately referred me to an eye doctor. I was seen the very next day. The eye doctor took one look at the retina of my right eye, let out an expletive, and quickly left the room. My healthy imagination went into overdrive. I honestly had no idea what the doctor had seen, but my mind went through many scenarios and outcomes. All that I knew for sure was that my only good eye showed the doctor something he wasn’t too thrilled about.

The doctor came back into the room, obviously uncomfortable and hesitant. He swallowed hard, and said, “You have a detached retina, and it will get worse.” He went on to explain that the only retina doctor worth anything in my area had just had a heart attack and was out of commission for the time being. Portland was the only option for surgery.

Over the period of the next four months, I had four eye surgeries. Two in Portland, and two in my home town. The details as to why so many surgeries and the hows are far to involved and lengthy for this page. Suffice it to say, it was taxing. I learned a lot though. I had nothing but time to be alone with my thoughts for four months. Literally.

What about my right eye after the surgeries? I could see a dark, dark blur. That’s it. That is what it was then, and that is what it is now. Ain’t nothing I can do about it.

Today, the only useful vision I have is the little amount of peripheral vision of my left eye. I can’t read without the aid of a computer, or cumbersome tools. I can’t drive, I can’t write with a pen or a pencil very legibly. I don’t have the ability to look people in the eye when I talk to them. I think the lack of eye contact and the lack of the ability to read to my children are the worse things about being blind.

I miss driving. I miss seeing the details of nature. I miss the ability to read music and play it. I miss sitting down with a paperback and reading. I still remember the last printed book I read before my retina rebelled against me: “How The Irish Saved Civilization.”

After my les than successful surgeries, it didn’t take long before I realized that my life was going to be a lot different than what I had dreamed. It was going to be a challenge to find out what my talents could be with such a debilitating handicap. I knew that there had been many other people with much more debilitating conditions that had made a lot out of their lives. So I figured I could find something for me.

A lot has occurred between then and now. Most importantly was meeting my wife and having four children. I have no idea why my wife agreed to marry me. I really wasn’t all that charming, and I had nothing to offer her. She may have been drunk, or she might have merely been a bad decision maker. But in the ten years we have been married, I have yet to witness her consuming any alcoholic beverage, and the only bad decision she has made was the time she asked me to fix dinner. It’s a mystery why she chose me.

God’s fingerprints are all over my past. Looking back, I experienced many epiphanies in which I knew I was going to be a writer. But, I ignored them at the time. Even in my teenage years, there was God, trying to lead me to write. I wrote several short stories in high school, most of them about my adventures as an idiot. They got decent reviews from the group of friends which read them. While attending college, I had more than one professor declare, after reading my papers, “You are a writer!” I tossed those reviews and comments aside, for reasons I don’t recall. Probably fear.

Here I am now. There have been many bumps in the road, figurative lightning strikes from God, but I am an author. I have written books for young readers and still writing more. I’m also working on novels for older audiences. Creating tales is a rush. It gives me a similar joy I had in high school when I realized I had the ability to move people’s emotions with music.

Hobbies I enjoy are studying history, spending time with my wife and children, wood working (yes, blind people can use power tools safely), gardening, watching movies, and reading. My favorite hobby without question is ham radio. My call sign is W7KBX.