Will Fertman
LightNews LightNews
banner
willfertman.com
Will Fertman
@willfertman.com
1K followers 3.1K following 1K posts
Father and author of The Deaf Baby Instruction Manual, coming April 2026 from Bloomsbury Academic.

https://willfertman.com - https://buttondown.com/will_fertman

All opinions are my own. Links are not endorsements.
Posts Replies Media Videos
willfertman.com
Working the outreach table at my son’s school. Giving the ol’ ASL a workout.
Photo of a middle aged bozo sitting at a table in a gym decorated in orange and black. His arms rest on a black t-shirt with the words California School for the Deaf partly visible.
November 11, 2025 at 7:33 PM
willfertman.com
Yep. University of California reports that as of 2022, 48% of undergrads experienced food insecurity. regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/mar2...
Figure from UC Berkeley's Basic Needs Annual Report. Text: Figure 1: Undergraduate food and housing insecurity, 2018-2024. Food Insecurity: 2018—47%, 2020—39%, 2022—43%, 2024—48%, 2025 goals 24 %. Housing Insecurity: 2020—7%, 2022—8%, 2024—7%, 2025 goals—3.5%
November 11, 2025 at 12:44 AM
willfertman.com
His books are filled with implied details, unspoken motivations, and characters who don't always tell the truth or know what the real situation is. It encourages kids to do detective work, put themselves in other's shoes, and fill in all kinds of gaps.
Illustration from the children's book I Want My Hat Back. On a nearly blank page, a large brown bear sits on a pile of crushed weeds, staring out towards the reader. On his head he wears a small conical red hat.
November 7, 2025 at 11:44 PM
willfertman.com
Have I mentioned my love of Jon Klassen lately? I think he's Edward Gorey's natural successor and one of the best children's book authors of our time. But what I LOVE about reading his books to #deafkids is how they cultivate theory of mind...
Illustration from the children's book I Want My Hat Back. On a nearly blank page, a large brown bear and a small brown rabbit stare out at the reader. The rabbit is wearing a conical red heat and is partly hidden behind a large weed.
November 7, 2025 at 11:44 PM
willfertman.com
Happy Halloween to all who celebrate (me.)
November 1, 2025 at 1:48 AM
willfertman.com
Hell of a Parthian shot on the back of Nikki Giovanni’s last book.
Poem on the back cover of Nikki Giovanni’s 2024 poetry collection, The New Book Vines My mother died 13 or 14 years Ago I took the flowers Home And put most in Water The gift of life They sit in the window In the sunnyside Of my bedroom And the roots Have taken hold Sometimes a leaf Will yellow And I pull it off It is dead And there must be Room For a new leaf Things that are dead Cannot be saved My mother will always Live in my heart All nazis must be picked And thrown away
October 31, 2025 at 7:50 PM
willfertman.com
I was going to say, I peeked at your website and saw the bluejay mural you did for Lexington—it looked very De’VIA!
Photo detail of a larger mural. A vividly- colored painting of two blue jays perched in a tree with a young Asian girl—the girl and the birds are roughly the same size. The girl is signing I LOVE YOU / ILY in ASL. The branches of the tree also spell out SOAR in the manual alphabet. The clouds in the background form swirls of red, orange and yellow.
October 27, 2025 at 3:36 PM
willfertman.com
green ghost
A candid photo of a figure draped in a long green blanket standing in the corner of a wood-paneled room with a Yosemite poster in the wall.
October 26, 2025 at 12:40 AM
willfertman.com
Wow! I cannot do justice to the gorgeous landscape or the kind, caring educators and parents I met in Wyoming. #deafed is not easy out there but they have some incredibly dedicated folks in the “Equal Rights“ state.
Photograph of the sun shining through a nearly bare tree against a grassy landscape with mountains in the background. Casper, Wyoming.
October 20, 2025 at 10:01 PM
willfertman.com
Excited to be visiting with Hands & Voices Wyoming on Monday! I'll be in Casper with my presentation on reading to #deafkids, and all the incredible #kidlit out there for our children. ♿
Slide from a presentation on reading books to deaf children: a white background with several colorful book covers thrown randomly down. Text: Action Books, they make you do things. The book covers shown are: Pete's a Pizza, by William Steig, with a child lying on a table, The Monster at the End of this Book, showing Grover the muppet waiving, I See, I See, with a symmetrical eye icon in the center of the page, Let's Play! with a circle of colorful dots, and Press Here, with a single yellow dot in the center of the cover.
October 19, 2025 at 1:59 PM
willfertman.com
Wyoming residents, come see me talk about reading books to #deafkids in Casper next Monday at 9am, in-person at the D/HH Outreach Library or live online. Register here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Flier for an event from Hands & Voices Wyoming. Text: Register now: Will Fertman, author of the Deaf Baby Instruction Manual. This presentation is open to both families and professionals. Monday, October 20th, 9-10:30 AM. WDE D/HH Outreach Library, 539 South Payne, Casper, Wyoming. Hands & Voices Wyoming. Images: On the right side of the page are two circular cameos. The top cameo shows a photo of Will Fertman, a middle-aged white man, reading a comic book to his two elementary-aged children. The bottom cameo is a professional headshot of Will Fertman, showing a middle-aged white man with a broad face and curly auburn hair, white at the temples, wearing a casual hoodie and open-necked shirt and smiling nervously. To the left of the cameos is a QR code for registering for the event with the text SCAN ME in the center, as well as the Hands & Voices logo, the black outline of a hand with a white spiral shell pattern in the palm.
October 13, 2025 at 10:39 PM
willfertman.com
A follow up on yesterday's parent-teacher conference. #deafkids #deafed ♿
A photo of two large brown bears, armpit-deep in a river. One bear, marked "Deaf kids," embraces the other, marked "ASL." The Language First logo appears in the bottom-left corner, with the name of the organization and stylized hands signing PRIORITY in ASL.
October 8, 2025 at 5:30 PM
willfertman.com
Film still from Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978.) Close-up of crudely sculpted "monster tomato" with a noseless human-like face, pointed teeth, and a dim, goggling expression.
October 7, 2025 at 3:12 AM
willfertman.com
Last night, my youngest requested I write him a story at bedtime. I told him that I’d closed my laptop for the night. He disappears and comes back 5 mins later with this…
Photo of a simple blank booklet made from printer paper, folded in half and stapled. The booklet is held by a hand also grasping a white pencil with the words “make today amazing” printed on it.
October 6, 2025 at 6:08 PM
willfertman.com
October is here so the youngest made his first round of pumpkin shopping. So far, the only named pumpkins are Greenie and Flame. But they all wanted hugs before bed tonight.
Photo of an array of 7 pumpkins of various colors and textures sitting on a granite tabletop.
October 4, 2025 at 3:32 AM
willfertman.com
This graphic is incorrect. The Cato Institute numbers actually showed only 65 incidents of left-wing violence in the US since 1975, compared with 391 incidents of right wing violence since . That's 6x more political violence from the right. Here's a link to that report. www.cato.org/blog/politic...
Table describing incidents of political violence from the Cato Institute's report, "Politically Motivated Violence Is Rare in the United States" from 9/11/25. Text: Table 2, Murders in Politically Motivated Terrrorism, Excluding 9/11. Table headers: All Ideologies, Deaths, Share of Deaths. Data by row: Foreign Nationalism, 8, 1% Islamism, 141, 23% Left, 65, 10% Right, 391, 63% Separatism, 4, 1% Unknown/Other, 9, 1% Sources: see Methodologies and Sources Sections from Nowrasteh 204 and Nowrasteh 2017 and Author's Calculations.
September 27, 2025 at 11:38 AM
willfertman.com
This graphic is incorrect. The Cato Institute numbers actually showed only 65 incidents of left-wing violence in the US since 1975, compared with 391 incidents of right wing violence since . That's 6x more political violence from the right. Here's a link to that report. www.cato.org/blog/politic...
Table describing incidents of political violence from the Cato Institute's report, "Politically Motivated Violence Is Rare in the United States" from 9/11/25. Text: Table 2, Murders in Politically Motivated Terrrorism, Excluding 9/11. Table headers: All Ideologies, Deaths, Share of Deaths. Data by row: Foreign Nationalism, 8, 1% Islamism, 141, 23% Left, 65, 10% Right, 391, 63% Separatism, 4, 1% Unknown/Other, 9, 1% Sources: see Methodologies and Sources Sections from Nowrasteh 204 and Nowrasteh 2017 and Author's Calculations.
September 26, 2025 at 3:25 PM
willfertman.com
Red and black image in the style of Che Guevara poster, showing the scowling silhouette of mutant superhero Cyclops with trademark visor and "X" logo, as in X-Men. Text: Cyclops was right.
September 26, 2025 at 2:56 PM
willfertman.com
OK, in the spirit of @profmandersen.bsky.social 's post, name one Deaf org you support, or who you get support from.

I'll start with @atomichands.bsky.social: they're an incredible hub for Deaf science education and collaboration: atomichands.com
A screenshot from Atomic Hands. The screen is divided into 4 sections, each with a presenter shown from waist up wearing a plain black shirt. Top left: An Asian woman with long dark hair and glasses signs STORY. Text below reads: ASL STEM Storybooks. Top right: A white woman with long curly red hair signs MOVIE. Text below reads: ASL STEM Videos. Bottom left: The same white woman as above with curly red hair signs DICTIONARY. Text below reads: ASL STEM Dictionaries. Bottom right: an Asian woman with long wavy hair signs INFORM. Text below: ASL STEM News.
September 23, 2025 at 2:29 AM
willfertman.com
Inspired by @gettheorion.bsky.social's Deaf artist's posts, I wanted to share "Family Dog" by Susan Dupor. Not a happy painting by any means, but as the parent of a #deafkid, it's never lost its hold over me.
"Family Dog," a painting by Susan Dupor. A school aged girl, in a dress and barefoot, lies on the rug under a coffee table, surrounded by seated adults as if in a living room. The girl has a vacant expression with an open, panting mouth, and looks away from the adults. The adults are formally dressed as if for church or a dinner party. They look at each other or the child, but have blurred blue-gray faces as if viewed on a static-filled TV set.
September 22, 2025 at 7:10 PM
willfertman.com
Ashley Shew's Against Technoableism, about how technology, especially prosthetic technologies, shape expectations and bias against disabled folks. Grabbed it on a whim last week from @pegasusbooks.bsky.social on College Ave in Oakland. techanddisability.com/home/against...
A green and yellow book cover. Text: Against Technoableism, rethinking who needs improvement. Ashley Shew. Image: a number of small icons depicting various prosthetics and medical devices related to disabilities, including hearing aids or cochlear implants and signing hands, wheelchairs, wheelchair accessible vans, eyes and eyeglasses, pill bottles and pills, a globe with a band-aid on it, canes, crutches, and prosthetic arms and legs, and the silhouette of a head with a bandage.
September 22, 2025 at 10:25 AM
willfertman.com
September 21, 2025 at 6:15 PM
willfertman.com
Excited to see what it is. Stieg is complicated and amazing. @rzemach.bsky.social knew him as a child and I’m filled with envy.
Illustration from William Steig’s The Amazing Bone. A young anthropomorphic pig strolls past a gorgeous sun-lit river in the midst of flowers and butterflies.
September 17, 2025 at 1:52 AM
willfertman.com
Sick in bed, watching Ninotchka (1939). Both Melvyn Douglas and Greta Garbo play deeply silly people, which is why their love is ultimately so satisfying.
Black and white photo still from the film Ninotchka (1939.) Great Garbo, playing Soviet envoy Ninotchka, stares from under her lids at a slightly lecherous Melvyn Douglas, playing French playboy Leon.
September 3, 2025 at 3:35 AM
willfertman.com
This is the start of something very important. Parents of #deafkids quickly learn that qualified professionals—even in areas like speech-language pathology or deaf education, are thin on the ground and hard to find.
Image: smiling young woman with a tumbling salt-and-pepper fauxhawk. Text: The American Board of DHH Specialists. Introducing... Our first ciertified DHHS Practitioner, or DHHS-P! Congratulations, Caitlin Steuve, MA, CCC-SLP, DHHS-P (note: the name is a misspelling of Stueve) Image: A lightly styled block of text with a yellow "smiley face" in the bottom-left corner. Text: The American Board of DHH Specialists. Who is Caitlin? Caitlin Steuve is a speech-language pathologist in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the owner of The Signing SLP, a private practice specializing in language support services for Deaf and Hard of Hearing children, including those with additional support needs. She focuses on ASL-English bilingualism, multimodal communication, and building strong partnerships with families to support accessible, affirming language development. Image: a lightly styled block of text with a yellow "smiley face" in the bottom-right corner. Text: The American Board of DHH Specialists. Continued... As someone who has worked for years at the intersection of speech-language pathology and Deaf education, Caitlin persued the DHHS-P certification as a way to formally demonstrate her expertise supporting DHH children and her ongoing commitment to best practices in the field. She values this certification as a way to help families more easily identify providers who are truly prepared to meet the unique language and communication needs of their child. Image: lightly styled block of text. A small Instagram logo of a square camera appears next to the words "or Instagram" Text: The American Board of DHH Specialists. Interested in certification? Find out more at: dhhspecialists.org Or email: info@dhhspecialists.org Or Instagram: @americanboard.dhh.specialists
July 7, 2025 at 1:42 AM