BOOKS BY
DEAF AUTHORS September is Deaf Awareness Month and what better way to spread awareness about the Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing community than through books? When Deaf Utopia: A Memoir by Nyle DiMarco (HarperCollins Publishers, 2022) was published and gained national attention, it was a ray of hope that, finally, more books on deafness and by authors who are deaf were receiving the kind of national recognition they deserve.
BY DAWN COLCLASURE
HELP SPREAD DEAF AWARENESS
A lot of other authors who are deaf and their books may not also receive that same kind of attention, but this is not stopping them for marching on with their words, their work, and their books.
My own book, Parenting Pauses: Life as a Deaf Parent (Gypsy Shadow Publishing, 2014), was submitted to a publisher only because, at that time, I could not find any similar books anywhere. There were many books about being a Deaf parent of Deaf children, as well as a hearing parent of Deaf children, but hardly any about being a Deaf parent of hearing children.
There are a variety of books which were written by authors who are deaf. As someone who is deaf myself, I’m always on the lookout for books by Deaf authors, as well as books containing characters who are deaf.
85 For nonfiction, the most common type of book by an author who is deaf is the memoir or autobiography. For example, Helen Keller wrote her autobiography, titled My Life (W.W. Norton & Company, 2003). Biographies have been written about the famous inventor Thomas Edison, who became deaf at a young age. Among these books are the titles The Wizard of Menlo Park (Crown Publishing Group, 2008) and Edison (Random House, 2019).
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