Can a deaf writer write about being deaf?

A Guest Post by Dawn Colclasure

Sometime after my book Parenting Pauses: Life as a Deaf Parent was published, I came across a website that featured my book on it. Underneath the picture of my book and a brief description about it, I saw that there were comments.
 
I cringed.
 
In the past, I have had some rough experiences with comments, especially with something either about me, my writing or, if my picture was included, the burn scars on my face. Yes, I know; “haters gonna hate.” But dealing with hate about my writing, my deafness, or my burn scars is not easy.
 
So, I braced myself as I read the comments. Most of them were positive. However, one comment left me confused: “This author doesn’t know anything about being a deaf parent!”
 
Um, what? Excuse me? It says I am deaf and that I’m a parent. The picture on the cover shows my school-aged children.
 
Their comment was really inaccurate!
 
Still, it made me wonder. Was there somewhere in the book in which I inaccurately portrayed how a person who is deaf would act/respond to a situation?
 
When I started that column, it was as a hobby. When it was turned into a book, I thought I was making a valid contribution to the deaf/hard-of-hearing community. Maybe not?
 
Then I thought about the other kind of writing I did at that time, which focused on deaf education and deaf parenting. I was a writer for the newspaper SIGNews, a newspaper for the deaf/HOH community. Not once did I ever receive criticism from a reader that my writing was ableist or “wrong.” I only received notes and comments of gratitude and appreciation.
 
Still, that comment made me wonder: Can a writer who is deaf accurately write about being deaf?
 
Of course, writing about something we know and understand can be done well if we experience it ourselves. I have written about the paranormal because I have experienced the paranormal. In my novel Shadow of Samhain, my character struggles through a dream experience that lasted for years. I based my character on myself because I have been there.
 
So, can the same be said of a writer with disabilities?
 
Other writers I know have been able to write about their experiences as a person with disabilities. Empish Thomas has written about being a writer who is blind. John Lee Clark and Raymond Luczak both have written deaf poetry, poetry that I not only enjoy reading but can relate to as well. They got it right with their work.
 
Perhaps the bigger question is, Can a writer with disabilities accurately write about what it’s like to live with a disability?
 
There are stories all over the internet of nondisabled writers doing a poor job of portraying characters with disabilities. Those of us who have such disabilities can only shake our heads and think that we could do a better job since we have those disabilities ourselves. However, this isn’t always true. Only recently, for example, a writer who uses a wheelchair received backlash for including ableist language in her novel.
 
So, apparently, the bottom line seems to be that we must not only accurately portray our disabilities in our writing, but we must also be careful of the words we choose.
 
Writers are told to write what they know. It’s only natural that those of us who are writers with disabilities would write about experiences with our disability. We know that readers in our community would not only appreciate seeing these efforts but also hold us to a high standard of getting it right.
 
I hope I am able to do this with a series of children’s books I plan to write that portray young deaf characters. I also hope to get it right when I introduce a deaf character in a forthcoming book in my middle-grade paranormal mystery series, The GHOST Group. I’m sure readers who are deaf will let me know if I screw up, but as a writer who is deaf myself, I can only try to portray a fictional deaf person in the best possible, and positive, way that I can.

Dawn Colclasure is a writer. Her articles, essays, poems and short stories have appeared in several newspapers, anthologies, magazines, and e-zines. She is the author and co-author of over two dozen books, among them Burning the Midnight Oil: How We Survive as Writing Parents; 365 Tips for Writers: Inspiration, Writing Prompts and Beat the Block Tips to Turbo Charge Your Creativity; Love Is Like a Rainbow: Poems of Love and Devotion; and Parenting Pauses: Life as a Deaf Parent. Dawn lives with her husband and children in Oregon. Her website is at https://dawnsbooks.com.