Books published by Handtype Press

Ghosts are everywhere.The Deaf community today doesn't seem to be what it used to be, so a small group of people must decide whether to sell the last Deaf club in America. As its board of trustees reflects on what it means to be Deaf, a few ghosts return to share stories of what it was like when Deaf clubs truly mattered: Mabel Hubbard Bell, the wife of the Deaf community's nemesis Alexander Graham Bell; Nellie Zabel Willhite, the first Deaf woman to earn a pilot's license; Olof Hanson, the first Deaf architect in America; and George Veditz, a charismatic activist who defended the Deaf community's right to sign. Raymond Luczak offers a compelling look into the Deaf community then and now.Raymond Luczak is the author and editor of over 20 books, including The Kinda Fella I Am and A Babble of Objects. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Using a mixture of prose and poetry, Angie C. Orlando shares indelible stories about growing up in a small Ohioan town, complete with posing for family pictures, watching high school football games, and playing saxophone in a marching band. Yet she is equally funny and unflinchingly honest about how classmates, medical professionals, and others have viewed her multiple disabilities, all of which had gradually became apparent over time. Through it all, she leaves her abusive husband and endures her brother's suicide to become her own person."Angie C. Orlando's prose is poetic and plainspoken at the same time. It slips into your heart and settles there to tell an unforgettable tale. Through the Tunnel bears testimony to our capacity for coping with change and transcending trauma." -John Lee Clark, author of Where I Stand: On the Signing Community and My DeafBlind Experience

This celebration of short stories, poems, and essays gives us a glimpse into the Deaf signing community, something that literature by hearing authors featuring deaf characters has rarely done. Between these covers, a Deaf couple fights over their son's language use, an Australian woman joins the community as an adult, a Deaf woman's body is fished out a dumpster, and a British Deaf poet wants to keep "zombies"-hearing people-out. The range of perspectives is astonishing, including opposing views. In one story, a hearing journalist tells us about the infamous Milan congress of educators who banned sign language in 1880, while in another story, a Deaf woman tells us what it's like to have a hearing journalist interview her and her husband for a "human interest" story. Even in pieces that are about just one Deaf person, readers get a powerful sense of life in one of the most vibrant and least understood communities.

In 2002, Raymond Luczak handed us his call to arms for deaf artists everywhere. Ten years later, he revisits the book that challenged assumptions about being an artist. Has anything changed? Yes and no. Luczak's meditations on what makes art "art" and deafness "deaf" asks artists everywhere to rethink their work and live differently. This tenth anniversary edition incorporates new observations made over the past decade. "Written in the form of quick bursts of opinion arrived at over his many years as a poet, playwright, and filmmaker, Luczak seeks to shake deaf artists out of the cages built by the hearing world . . . There are plenty of opinions to argue with in this volume. Yet Luczak calls us to ask important questions of ourselves." - Emily Drabinski, Out