The Art of Being Deaf: A Memoir

Acknowledgments

197 Acknowledgments K I wrote this memoir, The Art of Being Deaf, with the love and support of many people. I particularly thank my mother, Eloise Helen McDonald. I am grateful for the financial support provided through the Australian Government’s Postgraduate Award, and for the practical support provided by the University of Queensland’s School of English, Media Studies and Art History, and in particular, Angela Tuohy. I thank Julieanne Schultz for publishing my first essay about my deaf girlhood, “I Hear with My Eyes,” in Griffith Review. With that publication , I discovered the level of interest that readers have about the lives of deaf people. I thank Stuart Glover and Merv Hyde, who mentored me throughout the entire research and writing process, and Gillian Whitlock for her encouragement. I thank MaryAnne Baartz for being the ideal first reader: she read each chapter as I wrote it and encouraged me with her laughter and love to hasten to the next chapter. I thank Michelle Dicinoski for her friendship, insights, and cups of coffee with me at Bar Merlo while we were studying and working on our books together. I thank all my friends—some of whom are named in this memoir—for their love and curiosity, necessary ingredients for spurring me ever onward in writing this memoir. I also thank the parents of deaf sons and daughters 198 Acknowledgments who read and listened to my stories while I wrote my memoir, in particular Ann Porter,Tina Worland, Helen Wilson,Tina Carter, and Isabel Boura. Finally, I thank my childhood deaf friends who were such an important part of my early life and who so willingly opened up their hearts in friendship when we met up again in our adult years, and in particular, Sharon Mackay (née Kinnane), Jennifer Holdsworth, Sandra Hoopmann (née Williams), Kay Edgeworth (née Geddes), Kenneth Edgeworth, Matthew Corbett, and Donna Kaye (née Rayward). ...