At some point in time, whether it has already happened, or it will happen one day, you decide to be an ASL interpreter (or if you’re in another country, whatever your country’s signed language is) and you hopefully feel a spark of excitement. Perhaps you are a CODA, a child of Deaf adult(s), and the…
Author: J. Parrish Lewis
J. Parrish Lewis was born and raised in Maryland. In his youth there, he and his brother had many adventures in the dogwood forests near his home. His nostalgia for these adventures has strongly influenced his characters, their relationships, and their perspective on the world they inhabit. He moved to California’s coast to earn his degree in communications and now lives with his family in the San Joaquin Valley. Lewis is profoundly deaf and uses American Sign Language to communicate. He enjoys hazelnut coffee, captioned movies, and walking his dog.
I love to write, and I enjoy knowing what others think and feel about my written works. Sometimes I want to entertain, to make someone smile, to laugh, to join others in feeling. Sometimes I just need to express myself, to seek that cathartic feeling, and find peace in the act. I love to tell stories.…
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Stop saying you sign badly
I see this all the time, paired with looks of dejection or at best, an awkward sheepishness. I sign badly, sorry… My ASL is so awful… I forgot a lot… Sorry, I am slow… You don’t sign badly. I don’t care if you only know a few words. Apologizing to me is pointless and is…
I have thought a lot about how we change as we grow up, but still remain ourselves. I see it in my kids as the years go by. They learn new skills, their faces and bodies grow, their thoughts and behaviors slowly shift toward who they will eventually become. At the heart of it all,…
Spider Monkey pirate lizard of Sherwood Forest A photo posted by J Parrish Lewis (@jparrishlewis) on Jan 29, 2016 at 4:04pm PST I love imagination. And when kids can use their imagination in combination with a box of random costumes, you get even more creativity. We don’t have TV reception at our home. No cable,…
Awhile ago, a little over a year, I started entertaining myself by rewriting one of my favorite poems by Edgar Allen Poe, the famous poem you probably know: The Raven. At first, I was just going to do a simple version, but as I was writing it, I was challenged to actually take the time…
Strictly out of curiosity, I decided I’d make two grocery shopping trips today and figure out how much money I’d save if I go to WinCo, which is known for being cheaper, versus going to Save Mart. I’m going to be honest. I don’t like WinCo’s produce section. It’s large, yes, but I find the…
Excuse me. Someone said you’re all learning ASL? Hi. Nice to meet you. Yes, I AM deaf. I just wanted to come over here and introduce myself, because you’ve all been sitting over here in this corner chatting in voices with each other instead of coming over to meet us. It’s okay, I understand. It’s not…
In 1996, when I first started seeing LOL, I LOLed a lot. It was LOL LOL LOL all over the place in chat rooms. LIke every other sentence. I must have thought the world was hilarious. As the years passed, LOL started to annoy me. A lot. I said, “LOL, shut up! Be gone!” and…