"Deafblind poet Clark serves up passionate meditations on the Deafblind Protactile movement... Clark’s bracing perspectives are sure to stimulate... Lucid and incisive, this is not to be missed."
? Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"In these compelling essays, [John Lee] Clark warmly welcomes us into this ‘new world’ [of Protactile], and his charm graces nearly every page. The author is a character in his own essays, weaving fables and legends together with undeniable craft. Funny, angry, and heroic, Clark is an amiable guide... Throughout this lively journey, Clark...relishes his ability to tell tales, break rules, and possibly change the world. An epic and riotous book. Ignore it, and you might get left behind."
? Kirkus Reviews
"John Lee Clark’s fervent manifesto for the Protactile language and movement will blow your mind, enliven your body, and connect you to other people in unexpected ways. Touch the Future is a book that enlarges the human world."
? Edward Hirsch, author of Stranger by Night
"John Lee Clark writes against the grain with intellectual ferocity and dry wit; with linguistic playfulness and unsparing precision; and above all, with an expansive, curious, tireless compassion. Society may ignore and isolate DeafBlind people, but as Clark shows us again and again, it is the sighted and hearing world that is marginalized by its failure to understand DeafBlind life, and never the other way around."
? Andrew Leland, author of The Country of the Blind
"John Lee Clark’s essays radiate with excitement and urgency. Tenderly documenting the emerging social movement of Protactile, they call upon us all to think about distance, power, and access in much bolder ways. To read Clark is not simply to be taught something by him, but to find yourself immersed and seeking alongside him?you don’t just learn, you come away changed."
? Katie Booth, author of The Invention of Miracles
"Touch the Future opens doors to the multiple worlds of disability…This is a book for anyone who is interested in the life of the imagination and the mind."
? Stephen Kuusisto, author of Eavesdropping
"John Lee Clark is equal parts master storyteller, wry comedian, erudite historian, and brilliant teacher... At times urgent, often hilarious, and always illuminating, Touch the Future will touch readers’ hearts while opening their minds to a whole new world."
? Robert Sieburt, coauthor of Deaf Utopia