forthcoming from Bloomsbury Academic
The Deaf Baby Instruction Manual will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in spring of 2026. So there's that. I'm also available for presentations and personal appearances if you want to watch me rant about the value of reading books to deaf children.
Unless you keep a close eye on the trade magazines, you probably missed the recent earth-shaking item in the Publisher’s Marketplace deal announcements, which partly accounts for the lateness of this email:
THE DEAF BABY INSTRUCTION MANUAL by Will Fertman
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Parent and advocate for deaf and hard of hearing children Will Fertman’s THE DEAF BABY INSTRUCTION MANUAL, a guide for parents, families, and educators of deaf and hard of hearing infants and toddlers, covering birth to five years and the critical language window, to Christen Karinski at Bloomsbury Academic, by Jen Nadol at The Unter Agency (world English).
The tentative publication date is spring of 2026—I’ll let you know when there’s a pre-order link available.
Obviously, this is an incredible privilege. The process of book-writing, proposal-writing, agent-finding, publisher-pitching, etc. is both well-documented and completely free of guarantees. Tens of thousands of good books die annually, never having escaped their laptop. Tens of thousands more bounce off the publishing industry’s knobby shell and fall into the slush. So I need to give a lot of love and thanks to Jen, Christen, and the good people of querytracker.net.
I’m extremely lucky that the book was picked up by Bloomsbury Academic in particular; not just that they took it (although that’s a relief) but especially that it’s a wonderful launchpad for the work the book is meant to do. Getting a publisher of their reach and respect means that the Deaf Baby Instruction Manual is more likely to arrive where it belongs, in the hands of parents with deaf kids. So besides the riches and fame a niche-market parenting manual will undoubtedly earn me, I have a chance to to chip away at the problem.
I’m far from the first parent to write a book, but a book is just one way to make a difference. I’ve met plenty of families out there with the same (or worse) problems than ours, asking the same vital questions:
What is this bullshit?
Why is this so hard?
How can I help the next family?
How can I help the next deaf child?
Those parents are out in the world now, learning ASL, volunteering in their kid’s school, serving on committees and bugging legislators. But I also meet parents who are still just trying to survive, navigating in a world that’s ever more hostile to their kids, still stuck on that first question. I hope my book can help answer it.
Beyond Brown Bear on the Road:
A huge thanks to Julie Luke and the staff at South Dakota Services for the Deaf for inviting my coastal ass to come present to parents and professionals at the Midwest Conference on Deaf Education last month in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The topic was “reading to your deaf baby” and it touched on a lot of the themes and books in my Beyond Brown Bear series, along with a lot of my thoughts on ways books are both parenting tools and support development for deaf children way beyond just “literacy.”
I had a ton of fun, sat in on some very informative presentations from other folks, and ate a Sudanese meal that couldn’t be beat. I also met a number of wonderful people, including my first face-to-face with keynote presenter Dr. Wyatte Hall, who wrote an intro for The Deaf Baby Instruction Manual!
Getting the slideshow together was interesting because it forced me to reconstruct some of the trauma-fogged memories of Oscar’s (and Leo’s) early years. At the time, I was making fine distinctions between various Taro Gomi board books while also staring deep into the well of despair that is Early Intervention, but the experience faded fast. I struggled for days while writing it, trying to remember things like the name of a book that I’d read the boys almost nightly. So this was a great opportunity to pull my bookshelves apart and go back, step by step, through the different titles, thinking about what they did for Oscar as a deaf child, and what they did for me as a parent.
It also made me realize just how many photos Minda and I have of the boys reading.
The talk was a hit, and I got a lot of terrific feedback from the audience, but the best comment was from the woman who told me this:
“During your session, I ordered about $65 worth of children’s books for my kid.”
The presentation’s success has lead to more invitations to talk, which brings me to my other big announcement:
I’m now available for presentations
If you want to watch me rave on the topic of reading to deaf children, and the best books to do it with, I’m officially on the market.
I can appear in-person or online, and meet with parents, educators or professionals. To book me for a presentation, or to get more details, visit my page or just shoot me an email.
<small>This is an informational newsletter on raising a deaf kid. All opinions in linked articles are the views and copyright of their respective authors, not this guy. All original content is ©2024, William Fertman. Links are not endorsements.</small>