Claire Howell Blatchford was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Connecticut. Owing to a case of mumps, she became deaf at the age of six. After attending regular schools and graduating from Bennington College, she studied at Gallaudet University, the Waldorf Institute for Liberal Education, and Teachers College. She has taught the deaf for many years. She now lives with her husband in northwestern Massachusetts and works at the Clarke School for the Deaf. Claire is the author of several books on being deaf, as well as her books on inner sight: Turning: Words Heard from Within (1994, 2001); Friend of My Heart: Meeting Christ in Everyday Life (1999); Becoming: A Call to Love (2004); and Experiences with the Dying and the Dead: Waking to Our Connections with Those Who Have Died (2007).