Lambda Rising will be holding a free author event at the bookstore, 1625 Connecticut Ave. NW, with author and leader in the deaf LGBT community Raymond Luczak, on November 4th at 6:30. An ASL interpreter will be onsite throughout the event. Luczak will be reading from his book Assembly Required: Notes from a Deaf Gay Life, in which he shares stories from his days growing up as a deaf gay man in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and learning signs in secret, trying to follow the music on the radio in order to be cool like his hearing classmates, and feeling clueless whenever gay cultural icons like the Village People, Queen, and Bette Midler were promoted in his small hometown. After he graduated from high school and enrolled at Gallaudet University, the world's only university for Deaf people, he discovered gay literature and came out soon after. He eventually got involved with Deaf theater collaborators, educators, and sign language interpreters, from which his worldview is substantially reshaped on issues of identity, literacy, technology, and family. Assembly Required offers a rare in-depth glimpse into what it means to be a Deaf gay man who lives between the Deaf and hearing worlds. Raymond Luczak is the author and editor of ten books, including the Lambda Literary Award-nominated anthology Eyes of Desire: A Deaf Gay & Lesbian Reader and Assembly Required: Notes from a Deaf Gay Life. Number seven in a hearing family of nine children, he lost most of his hearing at the age of seven months due to a bout of double pneumonia. After high school graduation, Luczak went on to Gallaudet University, in Washington, DC, where he earned a B.A. in English. He learned American Sign Language (ASL) and became involved with the deaf community. Sixteen of his stage plays have been performed in three countries. His tenth book, Men with Their Hands: A Novel will publish later this year. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The event is free and open to the public. Contact Linsey Pecikonis at 202-462-6969 for any more information, or check out the Facebook page.
