BIO-SHORT
Maribel Steel: vision-impaired author, international speaker, award-winning blogger and Toastmaster, helping people to keep sight on the possible.
BIO-MEDIUM
Maribel Steel is an Australian author, international speaker and educator who encourages people to look beyond limitations and create opportunities. She is legally blind, an award-winning blogger, Toastmaster and Visionpreneur.
BIO-LONG
Maribel Steel is an Australian author, international speaker and educator who began to go blind in her teens with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP). She went on to raise four children and trained as an Aromatherapist and Masseur. She was a children’s choir leader for two primary schools in Melbourne and continues to enjoy being a singer and lyricist with her life-partner, musician and CD producer for Spring Studio.
Maribel launched into writing full-time in 2011 with her blogs, At the Gateway to Blindness followed by Touching Landscapes, and as the vision loss ‘expert’ for the about.com network in 2016. She has written over 200 non-fiction articles and short stories, personal essays and anecdotes that have been published online, in print journals, in anthologies and as audio podcasts. She is an award-winning blogger and Toastmaster, and a peer advisor for VisionAware (USA).
She is an international speaker, having presented at the American Foundation for the Blind Leadership Conference in 2018. She was awarded a High Commendation in the WriteAbility Fellowships (Vic) and received an ‘Inspire’ Award in the Lynette Rowe Best Achievement in Community Service 2017. She also sits on the selection panel for the Accessible Books Consortium (UK) to judge the annual winners of the International Excellence Awards in Accessible Publishing, presented at the London Book Fair.
Maribel loves to make new connections, to travel and to encourage people to reach for their ambitious dreams – whether they are ‘blind’ or sighted!
