BOOKS
The Invention of Miracles takes a “stirring” (The New York Times Book Review), “provocative” (The Boston Globe), “scrupulously researched” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) new look at American icon Alexander Graham Bell, revealing the astonishing true genesis of the telephone and its connection to another, far more disturbing legacy: Bell’s efforts to suppress American Sign Language. Weaving together a dazzling tale of innovation with a moving love story, the book offers a heartbreaking account of how a champion can become an adversary and an enthralling depiction of the deaf community’s fight to reclaim a once-forbidden language.
Select Essays
The Language He Dreams In
Pittsburgh Live/Ability, 2022
A profile of Dr. Kenneth DeHaan & his work as a teacher of ASL at the University of Pittsburgh
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Resonance of Silence
McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, 2021
On the myth of deafness and silence, highlighting the work of Chisato Minamimura, and featuring a collaboration with Cristina Hartmann
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A Voice More Beautiful Than Blue
The Believer, 2019
On deafness and music, highlighting the work of Jeffrey Mansfield & Christine Sun Kim
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Wellness Cures
Harper's Magazine, 2018
On a program trying to improve healthcare access for deaf people, highlighting Ian DeAndrea-Lazarus & the National Center for Deaf Health Research
Recommended on Longform
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The Sign for This
Vela, 2015
On Sign Language, family & forgetting
Recommended on Longreads & selected as a notable essay in Best American Essays 2016
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I'm Losing My Grandmother's Native Language
(radio + transcript)
WHYY’s The Pulse, 2017
On the shame of forgetting language
Based on excerpts from "The Sign for This"