Lynn Manning is an award-winning poet, playwright, actor and former world champion in blind judo. He accomplished all of this after being shot and blinded in a bar fight at age 23. His autobiographical one-man play, Weights, received three NAACP Theater awards for 2001, including Best Actor. He performed Weights at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art as part of Bodies of Work: The Chicago Festival of Disability Arts and Culture in 2006. Manning’s poetry is featured in the 2006 anthology Voices from Leimert Park.

Based in Los Angeles, Lynn is a member of The Screen Actors Guild, Actors’ Equity Association and The American Federation of Radio and Television Artists. He has acted in numerous TV shows and plays in the U.S. and Europe. Manning’s poetry has been published in several magazines and literary anthologies.

Recorded Friday, May 01, 2009 at Access Living.