A Southeast Community College instructor is sharing her very personal story in a new book just released this fall.
Amy Willman was born profoundly deaf, and she has co-written a book with her mother, Rebecca Willman Gernon, “Amy Signs: A Mother, Her Deaf Daughter and their Stories.”
The book chronicles Willman’s life from diagnosis at age 11 months to present day. Readers will follow her as she becomes the youngest child ever to be accepted into the Nebraska School for the Deaf at age 3 and continues on to earn a Bachelor’s degree from Gallaudet University and a Master’s degree from Western Maryland College.
After teaching American Sign Language and Deaf Culture at Santa Fe Community College in New Mexico, Willman returned to Nebraska, where she currently teaches ASL at SCC as well as at University of Nebraska Lincoln, where she is an ASL coordinator and lecturer.
“Amy Signs” has literally been 40 years, in the making.
Gernon says she got the idea to write the book years ago while she was navigating through her daughter’s diagnosis and realized there was virtually no truthful literature on the subject for parents who were struggling to find answers.
“I vowed,” she said, “that someday I would write an honest book.”
For Willman’s part, she agreed to contribute chapters to the book from her own perspective to help educate people on audism, a prejudice she says is often shown to deaf citizens.
Willman and her mother have just completed a book tour in Nebraska where they have spoken to several groups across the state about their book and their memories.
“Amy Signs” is currently available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Gallaudet University Press as well as Indigo Bridge Books, located in downtown Lincoln in the Haymarket.