The Deaf House is Joanne Weber’s life story. It illustrates the work and passion of a woman who grew up deaf and became an advocate for the deaf. It is a story of pain, loss and defeat balanced with joy, gain, and victory. Joanne Weber’s creative memoir, shows how deafness can be a brutal oppression of the mind. Her torment of not knowing exactly where she belonged in Deaf culture is revealed with blunt honesty, and in facing it, she constructed in her imagination “a deaf house”, where deafness was a sense of personhood, not a hearing loss, and language could be scorned and dismissed. After much internal turmoil, Weber realized that her inherent identity was that of a Deaf individual. The Deaf House details the struggles that resulted from her fierce attempt to protect that identity. Combining the narrative tools of a novelist with those of a documentarian, Weber effectively provides the reader with rare insight and profound truths about the lives of the deaf. It is a powerful story of an indomitable woman’s desire to discover her true self.

“The Deaf House is an absolute must-read for every reader, especially parents of deaf and hard of hearing children, educators and administrators in the areas of deaf education, special education, and educational policy.” — Gary Malkowski, L.H.D., formerly North America’s only Deaf Parliamentarian

“In scene after poignant scene, Joanne Weber maps not only the deaf body, but also a woman’s life with its triumphs and sorrows. This is a love story and a family story, evoking both laughter and tears — above all, it is a human story.” — Jeanette Lynes, author of Archive of the Undressed

Joanne Weber obtained degrees in English, Library Science and Education and did graduate work at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, where she became fluent in American Sign Language. She now teaches in the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program at Thom Collegiate. Joanne and her husband live in Regina, Saskatchewan. The Pear Orchard was her first collection of poetry; The Deaf House is her first creative non fiction.

Joanne Weber's profile page