About

Elizabeth Engelman is the winner of the 2019 Nilsen Literary Prize awarded by Southeast Missouri State University Press. She holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Tampa, where she was recognized with the Outstanding Graduate Award. She holds an MA in Poetry from Lancaster University. Her essay Mother Tongue was published in The New York Times (May, 2017). Her essays on deaf related subjects have been published in 2017 and 2018 issues of Endeavor Magazine, a publication of the American Society for Deaf Children. She is the recipient of the 2017 Marianne Russo Award, an Emerging Writer Award from The Key West Literary Seminar, and was the recipient of the Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship to Ireland. Her essay 13 Reasons to Sign was republished in The Limping Chicken, the world’s most popular deaf blog.  Her poem “Filling Empty Spaces” was published by LETTERS (Spring, 2014). She writes the blog OnDeafness.com, and she lives in St Augustine, Florida with her husband and two children.

On Deafness was created in hopes of fostering an online community for parents with children who are deaf and hard of hearing. Elizabeth has a son who is profoundly deaf and a daughter who is hard of hearing. For hearing parent, navigating the deaf world can be a huge challenge, but by sharing our ideas and stories, it’s Elizabeth’s hope that we can encourage and learn from one another. On Deafness is a resource for parents at every stage of the journey, a place to find inspiration, community, and creative solutions.

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