Blair Fell Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Blair Fell is a gay and lesbian, memoir and fiction author from Jackson Heights in New York that is best known for his novel “The Sign for Home.”

The author also wrote on the television series “Queer As Folk” on which he won a Shine Award. He won an Emmy for “California Connected” the Public Television series which earned him a Golden Mic award for political commentary.
Over the years, Blair has penned dozens of plays including “Burning Habits” the downtown cult miniseries, and the award-winning plays “The Tragic and Horrible Life of the Singing Nun” and “Naked Will.”

He has also won many other awards for his plays including The NY Fringe Festival Best Ensemble Award, The HX Camp comedy award, the Dublin LGBT Theater Festival Best Playwright Award, and the 7 Dramalogue awards among others.
Blair has also penned personal essays that have been featured in the likes of “Daly News,” “Out,” and “HuffPost” among many others. Fell has won the Doris Lippman Prize two times which is quite an achievement. He was awarded the creative writing award for his unfinished manuscript for his blockbuster work “The Sign for Home.”

Apart from his writing, he has also worked as an ASL interpreter for the Deaf for more than three decades. He has also worked as a director, producer, and actor at various times.

Unlike many authors, Blair Fell never wanted to become an author but instead needed a lover that was a writer. When he was young, he wanted to be an actor but something happened when he was 29 that changed his life.
For a time he was very brave and started thinking of what he would have loved to do if he was unafraid of anything. He discovered that the bravest thing he could do was try his hand at becoming an author.
Initially, he did not consider novels as they seemed too complex. As such, he started out writing plays given that he was an actor and knew a lot about writing good dialogue.

He wrote plays and people loved them and he asserts that he had a combination of a wonderful and stressful time. It was this very informal type of writing that led him to web writing and ultimately to writing for TV in California.
Since he never liked Hollywood, he soon moved back to New York City. Ultimately, he got back into ASL interpreting and dabbled in other forms of writing. In New York, he also got into an MFA program and became a member of a writing group, which then led to the writing of his debut novel “The Sign for Home.”

It would take Blair Fell 9 years before he published his debut novel. He spent much of that time writing as the publication which involved publicity, pitching, and marketing took about one and a half years.
The manuscript for the novel was actually Fell’s master’s thesis while he was studying at New York City’s City College where he graduated in 2020.

Blair has acknowledged that it took him a lot of time before graduating. For the most part, this had to do with the fact that he tended to overwrite and at some point had more than 800 pages for the work.
He had written about 300 pages about the lead and another 300 about how he met his new interpreter Cyril. This was supplemented by about 200 pages of extraneous detours such as the history of Alma who is Arlo’s mother.
Upon handing in his thesis, he cut it down to 600 pages, which was then ultimately reduced to three drafts. He credits his editor at Sterling Lord Literistic for giving him terrific notes, which made it possible to edit his work which was finally published in 2022.

Blair Fell has said that his work as an ASL interpreter which saw him work and make relationships with many blind and deaf people was the main inspiration for his novel. While he has only been working as an interpreter since 1993, his first encounter with the deaf was in 1980 when he started studying at Gallaudet University.

He went to Gallaudet since the girl he liked at the time was taking ASL at his college and he needed to get away from her when things went wrong. It turns out that there was also another guy that he was crushing on who also liked the girl and they all were taking sign language studies.

He wanted to spend more time with his crush shuttling between campuses and he was massively brokenhearted when he got together with the girl he also fancied. Rather than spend time moping, he transferred to Gallaudet as a special student who was interested in experiencing the deaf world, even if he was not deaf.

Blair then lived with deaf roommates and was taught by deaf teachers who he found brilliant. It was also at the institution that he officially became gay and he credits Gallaudet for changing his entire perspective on life.
Still, the biggest influence was working as an interpreter for more than thirty years.

Blair Fell’s work “The Sign for Home” is the story of the handsome and young Arlo Dilly that cannot wait to meet the right girl. He is a blind and deaf Jehovah’s witness that lives with his controlling and very strict uncle.

To many observers, the chances of finding someone who will become his lover seem very slim. However, he had once met the love of his life while living at a boarding school for the deaf. His girlfriend had been an onyx-eyed and very beautiful girl with expressive hands.
But their love was lost forever following a terrible tragedy. However, it turns out that he was wrong and the love he had all those years in the past might not be lost forever after all. He starts wondering if he might find his lost love and if his most trusted people have been lying to him for years.

He is no longer willing to accept everything he is told and soon convinces a few friends to join him on a journey to go learn the truth. After all who would be better to bring on the quest than the wildly inappropriate gay interpreter who is also his best friend?
Despite the many challenges, Arlo is determined to find the love he lost so that he can experience the joy and possibilities available to him.