HANDTYPE PRESS: I'll Tell You Later

I'll Tell You Later: Deaf Survivors of Dinner Table Syndrome.
Raymond Luczak, Editor.
166 pages.
6 x 9 trade paperback.
ISBN: 978-1-941960-21-9
$22.00

Order your copy now!

Raymond Luczak is the author and editor of 35 books, including Animals Out-There W-i-l-d: A Bestiary in English and ASL Gloss (Unbound Edition Press, 2024), Oh Yeah: A Bear Poetry Anthology (Bearskin Lodge Press, 2024), and A Quiet Foghorn: More Notes from a Deaf Gay Life (Gallaudet University Press, 2022). Prior to becoming the acquisitions editor for the Yooper Poetry Series, he edited Yooper Poetry: On Experiencing Michigan's Upper Peninsula (Modern History Press, 2024). His next title will be The Language of Home: Stories (Gallaudet University Press, 2025). His work has appeared in Poetry, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. A multiple Pushcart Prize nominee and an inaugural Zoeglossia Poetry Fellow, Raymond Luczak lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

"I'll tell you later."

The most damaging promise a hearing family member can make to a Deaf person.

For centuries, Deaf people were expected to sit quietly at the table when their hearing families shared a meal. Some might have asked the person sitting nearby, "What are they saying?" The usual response? "I'll tell you later." When the meal is done, the Deaf person would naturally follow up: "What did they say?" The usual response? "I'm sorry I forgot." Only recently was this transgression was given a name: Dinner Table Syndrome.

In this anthology, nineteen Deaf and hard of hearing writers share their DTS expereinces of anguish and defiance through essays, short stories, and poems, all of which illuminate what it means to be left starving at mealtime.