Ryan Knighton
On his 18th birthday, Ryan Knighton was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a congenital disease marked by a progressive pathology of night-blindness, tunnel vision, and eventually total blindness. The book COCKEYED was shortlisted for several awards, including the Stephen Leacock medal, Canada’s national award for humor. Knighton has written numerous satirical and comic essays for The New York Times, Salon, The Believer, The Sunday Telegraph, The Utne Reader, and The Globe and Mail.
Ryan Knighton won the Script Development award at The Sundance Film Festival in 2008, and the Sloan Filmmaker Fund at the Tribeca Film Institute in 2009 for Cockeyed