Audio description brings the visual world to life, making theater productions, television shows, films, visual art and events accessible to people who are blind or have low vision. Describers employ succinct, vivid, imaginative words to convey visual images those with sight take for granted. Although countries worldwide have taken up the cause, the United States has fallen short on research and institutions to study the field. Dr. Snyder’s book helps fill in some of those gaps, to include cultural attitudes toward the blind, a brief history of AD in the US and aborad, the fundamentals of the profession (what [not] to say and how), the role of AD in creading literacy, supplemented with exercises and images for practice in different context and advice on how to spread the practice of audio description in the communities.

For decades, Joel Snyder has combined his astonishing command of language with his keen attention to detail to create word pictures that stir the mind’s eye, especially for patrons of the arts whose physical eyes cannot see. […] His book has been long-awaited, and no doubt will become the standard for prospective audio describers around the world.

—Kelsey Marshall, Founding Director of Accessibility, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC.