 Thank you for joining us this evening for our author program with Sarah Novick on writing and connecting with the deaf community. We are so excited to have her here as part of a San Francisco Public Library program and part of our summer stride series. The San Francisco Public Library acknowledges that we occupy the unceded ancestral homeland of the Rehmatush Aloni peoples who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. We recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. As uninvited guests, we affirm their sovereign rights as first peoples and wish to pay our respects to the ancestors, elders and relatives of the Rehmatush community. Once again, tonight's program is part of our summer stride programming. Summer has started at the library from June 1st through August 16th. You are able to participate in summer stride programming. Check the chat for more information about how to get signed up for summer stride, enjoy wonderful programming all summer long, and don't forget that when you complete 20 hours of reading or program attendance, you will also get a lovely totes that is actually featured somewhere in this image right here, but a real totes you can have and take home with you. Tonight's program is presented as part of the Deaf Services Center programming. We are part of the San Francisco Public Library and we are located on the first floor of the main library at 100 Larkin Street. We look forward to seeing you here at the library and at the Deaf Services Center. If you're in the area, please come and check us out. So, again, we are here tonight for an author program. We have the wonderful author, Sarah Novick, who will be speaking on writing and connecting with the Deaf community. We're so excited to have her here this evening. I am part, I work here at the San Francisco Public Library and part of Access Services. My name is Marisa Leon Barrera, and it is truly my honor to be able to to welcome you all this evening for tonight's program. And at this point, I am going to be introducing or handing you over to my colleague, Jerry, who will talk about not only tonight's program, but introduce tonight's speaker. Hello, everybody. My name is Jerry and I am a librarian here at the San Francisco Public Library and is my honor to introduce Sarah Novick. She, her first book that she wrote is Girls at War. It won an award from the American Library Association. Since that time, she has written the second book, which is called America is Immigrants, and now on to her third book, which is titled True Biz. The San Francisco Public Library, we have our, our book club has already read this book and we also also seen the performance. Sarah is a teacher of deaf studies and creative writing and she currently resides in Pennsylvania. So go ahead and take it away, Sarah. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you all for, you know, setting up this event for me to be able to be with you all this evening. So I thought maybe I would start with a little bit of information and some reasons why I've written this book. And then maybe if we have more time, we can ask other questions and then, you know, we can get some questions from Jerry and potentially from those of you who are, you know, attending as well. So really, this book has, you know, now out there and people are wondering why I wrote this book and it kind of depends on where I go. And probably the answer might change a little bit depending on the audience that I'm, you know, answering that question for, but there are a lot of different reasons behind this particular novel. And I have a few things that I would like to, you know, spark behind the scenes that are a few things that kind of sparked why I decided to write this book. So I'd like to share some of those with you this evening. One of the things that happened, it's been some time ago, about eight years ago, I guess. I think and I was living in Ohio and my partner was there for work. And for me personally, I felt a little bit of a culture shock. I felt lonely there. And I just think that, you know, I was struggling. I went out one evening when I was walking and I passed a residential school, a deaf school there. And I saw some teenagers, some teenage girls that were standing outside of there, and they clearly had snuck out of the dorms and I saw them chatting out there. And I was like, Oh, hi. Anyway, so I started a conversation with them and we chatted for a while. And they were asking me some questions. Oh, where are you from? I said, Oh, I live New York. And I was like, Oh, I want to go to New York. And so we started having this, you know, genuine conversation. And really I just felt, wow, I, I realized at that moment that my heart felt at home there, you know, through ASL and through using a common language and I just instantly felt home and that was really important for me. And at the same time, my writer brain was thinking, Hmm, I started thinking about how kids in the dorms of deaf schools, residential schools, like what do they do at night after class is finished and what kind of trouble might they be getting into and what kinds of things are they doing as teenagers. So that kind of sparked my thought about thinking about, you know, that topic. The second thing that happened was I was reading a newspaper article. And it was about a lawsuit that was currently happening at that time. And it was regarding cochlear implants. And there was a company that was providing and putting them in and basically there was a whistleblower. Within that company that was basically saying things about this company that were happening and that they had bad side effects. The implants were defective that they were causing harm to people, people, you know, were getting shocked and they were people were, you know, bleeding where they had their implants. And, but the newspaper article was just brief. It was very brief, very short. And for me, I felt like these are things that cannot be happening within the deaf community and I hadn't really heard much about it. And so it really piqued my interest to, you know, kind of dig a little deeper into that. And I was like, well, you know, my advocate heart and my deaf heart was like reading that, you know, what do we do? How do I advocate for that? How do I disseminate that information so that other people are aware of these defective cochlear implants? And so, again, being a creative writer, I started thinking, you know, how can it possibly be how uncomfortable for a deaf person to have this device implanted in their head that is shocking them and causing, you know, degradation of their body. And I just started thinking of all these scenarios and, you know, wanted to share that feeling with other people. The third thing that happened was I started writing some parts of the book probably, you know, before I think when I was younger, because when I was a kid, well, now I have two kids. But before when this all started, I didn't have children yet. And so I was, you know, when I started writing this particular book. So while I was in the process, I became pregnant and I had my first son, and he was hearing he was a coda a child of a deaf adult and his first language his native language was ASL American Sign Language. And I was thinking how it must be for other people, you know, and being able to sign. And, you know, my son, he was comfortable. He was so sweet, he was a good signer it was so cute when he was learning. And that's how he identified but I noticed that there were other people that you know was like, Oh, you need to talk and, you know, for deaf children who are born with that. Oh, you should learn to talk. And when you think of the opposite of that a hearing child born into a deaf family I was kind of trying to make some parallels and, you know, kind of compare the pressures that they face with communicating and where they feel comfortable and where they use their native language. And I really started kind of creating that's how my coda character, my child of a deaf adult character came up came about. And so, because they always live on this boundary between two worlds, you know they're constantly code switching between the deaf world and the hearing world. And so that's really kind of what sparked me developing that character for my novel was when I had my own son for the last thing. There was one character. My name is Austin, and his story really started kind of as a joke, a little bit, because I was writing a little bit of a different story, and then this character kind of cropped up, and I was thinking what would happen if I wrote about a family who was deaf was freaking out about being, you know, having a hearing child born as a hearing family might be in shock or, you know, challenged because they had a child who was born who was deaf. And so, when, you know, imagine having hearing child and you're kind of shocked about that so that's kind of how that character came about and it kind of started a little bit as a joke and then I kind of took a different avenue with it. And so that's kind of how they ended up in this particular novel. So, I mean, I can give you some more if you'd like, or Jerry, if you have some specific questions for me, I'm happy to answer those. Oh, no, please go ahead. I would just think of how you would think about a deaf family who would be shocked when their child is born and finds out that their child is hearing it's similar to what hearing families find out when their child is deaf. And so I'm just saying that it started as a joke, and then it became this whole character in your story with them there. I don't know if you've heard about. It's pretty famous in the deaf community. It's E with do you know that. And for the hearing people who aren't familiar with that. So ear is found in the word earth e a r t h and it's focused on ear. So we switched e a r to y e to signify the earth or the world, but as connected to an I, you why e rather than e a r ear so that's kind of a joke that we have in the deaf community. That's funny. I was just working with a group of high school students here in Philadelphia, a group of deaf students and who want to be writers, and we were writing some scripts. And we were talking about the eye the ear, the ice e y e th. And this is how we sign it here on the eye, as opposed to on the hand like earth. Okay, I got it. So they were very, very interested in the story and you know about what happened if a hearing person showed up in ice e y e th, you know hearing person showed up there where it's deafness and deaf culture and so, you know, talking about it basically being a planet and being very creative with, you know how that would work and what would happen. And this happened after you are you completed the true biz correct. Thank you so much for the opportunity to interrupt. Do you have more to say. Yeah, no, you're good, you're good. So, for really. Many people often ask me why did you write the book. And another part of that question I think is, who did you write that book for. Right, I think I get that question often, because that really is somewhat challenging it's challenging to write that book for me because I basically am trying to, you know, impact two different audiences. I want to write the book for the deaf community for them to read and acknowledge that, you know, we are deaf and we have a culture and to feel that they are being seen and and heard and so. But at the same time, I want to educate, I want to educate and write it for hearing people to show them. You know, so I'm really writing it for both audiences, and I've really enjoyed that experience of trying to gauge that and trying to meet the needs of both communities, but a little bit as well. I also wrote it for myself. Because, you know, I hadn't really written anything, you know, and, and at home when I was young I felt isolated, and so I was writing and writing and writing and writing, and nobody cared if I finished it or not. So I just kept writing. And I really want that I want, you know, to give that and I want to give that as a gift to those communities I felt like that was my gift from my own experiences as well. Maybe I'll save a little bit of that. And maybe we can I think about a little bit until we kind of get to the end of the book and we can talk about or maybe answer some other questions before that because I know that we'll have some questions and I don't want to talk about that in the book I want to hold on to that. Yes. You don't want to ruin it for people understand that. And there was one question I had for you. When you wrote the book true business is your third book you have have already written two previous works that have been published with big publishers correct. Your third book and you said that this was written for more of a specific audience right a smaller audience that maybe some of the bigger publishers might not want to publish for because publishers are wanting to sell books and wanting to sell something that is good to a huge audience. How did you work with that dynamic and publishers. Yes, that is true. I was a little bit fortunate in that I already had an editor, right and I had an editor editor who I'd worked with on my previous two books. But still, this book was very different right and so when I wrote the book and I kind of hesitantly gave it to my editor and I waited and I waited and I waited. And really, she liked it, the editor, but at the same time she needed to convince other people from, you know, the business and the publishers to see it from a different perspective right. I mean that's kind of what it's all about and I think that that was a little bit of a struggle. When we first started the process. Did it take a long time for it to finally be published. Yeah, we did quite a while we went back and forth back and forth back and forth so I would say they asked me to change some things and edit some things and kind of take some things in a little bit different direction so and that's typical. Obviously in the process of publishing a book and writing a book. I wanted to say it happened earlier it happened earlier in the process. So it was a little bit intimidating on talking about you know how that book will relate to death and that it was so specific so that was a little bit. You know challenging for sure and that aspect I think I was a little bit unsure at first of how it would go. But it had been, you know, I'd been writing it for, I don't know almost seven years. So. How long did it take you to write your first book girls at war. I mean, hmm, my whole life. Life on your life. No really I mean to write it that book started as a short story. Originally, but that story then I wrote that in a college class originally. So I was kind of it was in my infancy of, you know, being a writer. And then, as time went on, I'd say maybe five to six years as it grew and expanded total for that first one. I'm slow. Yeah, I'm a slow writer. I tutor writing in the past as well so I understand the writing process. It can be a very isolating experience. Just sitting by yourself with your thoughts trying to write and think of a story, setting up the structure, coming up with all the ideas and thoughts. Yes, absolutely the structure is difficult that was a big challenge for me for my first book. It's because going back and forth back and forth, you know, in time in that first book so the structure was a challenge for me. I think every book has its own specific challenges, obviously, in that first book, it definitely was the structure in this book it definitely is a couple things, you know, appealing to both audiences. And how to show that the ASL the American Sign Language on paper. Oh, right and exactly how to show that in written form and I'm sure you have some other examples and other books of authors who have written ASL into English. Did you use those as references is it's something that you created on your own your own method. Well, I had already read Islay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you've read that. Okay, okay. Yeah, so when I sat down and I was thinking about that one I was like, hmm, okay, how am I going to show the ASL and use the ASL gloss, am I going to do that. I started writing it like that. But then I realized for the hearing, you know, consumers of my, my book, it's difficult to read that and they would think, hmm, seems like very broken English, because I mean that's kind of what they would consider it. So really I wanted to show the hearing people that for deaf people. It's not broken English. It's actually better than English. It's more clear. It's more depicting. You know, so I was, I had a lot of bad experience, a lot of different strategies. And the reason, you know why I wanted it to be in that ASL version was because it's, it's important to use spatial, you know, use in ASL spatial, the use of space is very important. Within language, is that what you're talking about? So I think I decided that when, when I was writing that gloss on the pages and in a spatial way I felt like I was using that when I was signing versus, you know, doing roll shifting and trying to depict that on paper and then setting up the dialogue. So that's really kind of how I ended up with that structure. But I had a lot of bad experiments that happened before that. A lot of, you know, trial and error. Right, anytime you have an experience, sometimes you have something that doesn't work, you throw it out, you start again until you finally find one that works and then you can go from there. Exactly. I wish I had had a lot of the original papers that and the pen that I used. I have it somewhere, I don't know, but some of them are hilarious. I wish I could show them. But anyway, so it was definitely an experience. So your writing method you actually wrote on paper, you didn't type it. That's correct. I wrote it on paper first. Yes, pen and paper and a paper writing, writing, writing, writing, writing. So you read the whole thing by hand and then you typed it out. Yeah, I mean, part of that was to to be able to control that if you're typing it. For me personally, it's not for everyone, but I decided for me that if I'm typing it. I would always stop and like try editing it right then and there when I'm typing it on the computer if I have the ability to just edit or delete things for me if I just hand write it pen and paper. And then when I'm typing it on the desk, it's there. And I just have to keep on going or, you know, change the thought process or or anything like that. So I just, you know, I couldn't think of the exact right words or something that I would write a word that's close and I would circle it. And then I would just continue on. So it, you know, it was a way for me to not edit it and to just kind of get through the writing process and getting it down on pen and paper and you know then it's like you kind of can get down the rabbit hole and you know. So on the computer I don't get distracted like that. So yeah, that was really my method. It's not for everybody, but that's how I did it. Great, I have another question for you. Just let everybody know, we did talk about another book by Islay. I believe it was printed in 1985. 85. Yeah, that's right. I actually had a privilege of meeting that author in person. And he is it's ASL which is written on paper in English it follows the ASL syntax is similar to what Sarah was saying somebody who is not used to seeing and understanding ASL when they read it in the English written way it might seem a little bit strange for them but yeah that's his approach was similar to what your approach was. And I forgot where I was going with that but you did want to discuss the ending of your books, correct. You wanted to discuss the end of your book you said that there's a couple more comments that you wanted to say about that how the story ended you want to go ahead and do that now. Sure. Many people. They were, frankly, angry about the end of the book. They were not pleased with it. And then they just felt that they wanted more closure, you know they wanted things to be wrapped up and kind of happy have it in a nice neat little box. There wasn't closure for them okay. Yeah, but for me, the book is just the beginning of those experiences. And I think that it's important. Because the book is really about the importance for deaf space, deaf culture, deaf lives, and all of those things combined. And it's very relative right now. And deaf campuses are shutting down and they're closing in the last 50 or 60 years. Yeah, correct. There's only a few residential, all deaf schools left. And so I wanted to make the hearing reader. Everyone really understand that there's no neat and tidy wrap it up in a bow for this group for this situation for all of those, you know, deaf schools closing for losses of identities losses of cultures. You know, there isn't that kind of quote unquote happy ending for deaf people it's important that we are allies and that we continue to be positive and we make sure that we have our own, you know, determination and can make our, you know, be our own decision makers and have our own space and hold that space in the world. And that's extremely important. I think when people tell me I was so mad about the end of the book. And I say good. Good. What are we going to do to change that. What are we going to do. How are we going to change that. I think the reason why people are angry because there is no closure right. No building blew up, right. The people had questions about the explosion but most people wanted to know more like they wanted a happy ending they wanted it you know in a neat and tidy bow and everything ends well and, you know, for all of it and with my characters I wanted things to be good for them yes and I appreciate that they wanted to be good for those characters, but we as a whole and as a society and as a culture we have to work for that. In regards to the explosion of the cochlear implant building. And that was related to an extremist and explosion that they had. What was the reason for the explosion. Was that as something taken as a literal explosion or was it more iconic. Do you know where I'm going with this. In the book itself. Yes, it was an actual explosion. But for what we need to take from that story. I think, I mean I don't think that that's a good idea to blow up buildings or anything right please don't misunderstand, but I mean it more of for us to be able to show what happens for that exact character. You know for Charlie for right now everything that's going on. And, you know, for in different agencies and to inform him, you know, these odd groups of people that are out there and, you know, it just doesn't make sense and they're making these, you know, crazy decisions and that's information that, you know, people should have. So, and we have to work with that information so really. I think it can be symbolism for us. Yes, symbolism of the anger at how frustrating it can be to try to convince hearing people to listen, you know to pay attention to really see us. And as a deaf person, you know functioning in a hearing world is that what you're talking about. Like trying to get them. You know how we live in a hearing world and we're trying to communicate with hearing people all the time. Yes hearing people want to make those decisions and this is how we fix this, but the deaf character says, No, no, we need to decide for ourselves, we need to be in charge of our own decisions and what happens to us. I have another question in regard to that about people becoming our ally. And I see Salish here. I can't remember if this person is, is that the deaf woman. Salish is that the boyfriend what was the girl's name I forgot was that Charlie. There's Charlie. That's the girl with. Yes, Charlie's the girl. Right. Charlie Charlie's character is very complex as just a person. They have a this she has a lot of layers drugs, etc. So to see that Charlie is dating this type of a person. It's really interesting that this person is an ally for deaf people. It's a very complicated personality on one side, you have this person who is, you know, a druggy, but then they're also an ally in trying to help out so it's a very, very complicated situation. Yes. The reason why I wrote slash is part of the reason was when I was in high school. I met some people like Salish. I just got involved with their music and their group and I noticed it was really interesting and to watch them. And they knew nothing about deafness, but it was kind of like internally they were willing to engage and kind of, you know, participate and have this back and forth and they were willing to try a little bit, you know, to communicate with me and slash was, you know, the problem really at the same time was that if they were trying a little bit, and they were, you know, making an effort that I thought that would make a big difference, you know, in their life but in some ways, he's a best friend to Charlie, more so than her parents were, because they're not trying to communicate with her at all, whereas this character is. So, you know, they're trying to change that a little bit and that character is important and they're giving a little bit of an effort and that's, you know, that's really was the focus of that particular character. I had another question and regards to slash. There are, there were two men in Louisiana who are planning on making a movie they have come to San Francisco here at the deaf club. They, they said they have rented a room in the deaf club they invited the deaf community to come. They gave a presentation about how we can partner with them. And it was a really short time was in the 1980s 1990s and so there's a movie that's coming out about this partnership. And I believe it's called marginal group. And they have social events. I'm not sure if it's the same kind of event. That's your saying was slash in the deaf community, because you said that there's some people who have this like innate ability to communicate even if they're not able to sign right is that kind of similar to what you're talking about. All right, we're going to go ahead and turn it over to the audience Marcella. Do you have any questions you'd like to present to Sarah from the audience. There's a lot of love for Sarah coming in through the chat, and also some questions. We have one from Zoe. Did you receive different types of questions feedback or responses from deaf versus hearing readers. I did. So yeah I mean mean always yes. It started with, you know really the editor, saying that, you know, when I gave her the book, you know my manuscript. You know, she brought up all these questions and yes so had a very different response there from a hearing person. When I started the process I felt a little bit kind of resistant to all of her questions and changes and, you know, and because on the basis of deaf culture and language, I understand that that's, you know that's my understanding but I just didn't really feel that I needed to explain to other people why I was writing the book you know they don't need to really go into that detail as an author I felt like I didn't really need to do that I didn't feel like that was fair. However, I started thinking about it as time went on and I realized that what I wanted from the audience was really that I wanted, you know, mutual understanding I wanted them to understand and to have empathy for these characters. And I think that that was somewhat impossible if they didn't understand the history and basically the context, and if I didn't give some expansion on deaf culture and so I finally was like, Okay, I was willing to accept and and see it from their perspective. And, you know, I added some of that different history, and, you know, in different places in the book and did kind of a little bit of a sign class thing in those different sections of the book so I feel like it made it. It made space for teaching without, you know, interrupting or having too many pauses within the story. And also to take advantage of, you know, the school locale was, you know, the place that's a place for students and a place of learning so I was like, Okay, let's do it. So I, you know, they got me on board with that. And most of the time, my discussions with deaf people were more about where did they see themselves within this book, and how did they identify and feel like, you know, they could see themselves in this book. That kind of thing, whereas hearing people were more about Wow, I learned so much, you know, so yeah those were definitely different perspectives. Thank you. Those are people wanted to see themselves in the story where they already have that familiar knowledge, but hearing readers, they come from a different culture so they don't see themselves in the story but they want to understand and learn. And deaf readers were more, you know, enjoying the story as, Oh, you know, like it's a novel it's, you know, it's not something new, but for hearing, you know, readers, you know, there's a lot more things in there that they're unfamiliar with and they have to learn from that and so it was more of an educational experience I think for hearing, and you know kind of a, you know, working book something of that nature. Right, is there another question from the audience or someone. Yes, there is. There is some comments in the chat about how beautiful and visual the story itself is that there are some fantastic ASL images, and how they felt that it was so fresh and original, it was an asset to the beautiful work. And there's a question that relates to some of some of what you touched upon, which is how do you balance an entertaining plot, and also how you educated the reader. Yes, that was really tough. I have to say, I was most concerned about that while writing the book actually not so much writing the book but while that while getting the book edited and going through that process. I wrote the book and really I wasn't thinking about kind of the other aspects of how the hearing people would understand or empathize. And then when I gave it to the editor, that was the time when I kind of had to shift my mind and approach it from a different perspective, and kind of take myself out of it, you know, and look at it from a completely different perspective. But because of that, I feel like there was a time if I had only written the story and not had that time to step back and assess that that I felt like, you know, just focusing on that story and getting it right. But first, that was important. Then later, I could kind of think about and assess it and see what information do we want to, you know, put out there. What do we want them to understand about that and take away from that, and apply that in, you know, for the story itself as a whole. That really was first and then later we could, you know, provide that kind of educational teaching moment. But it was definitely difficult. And I just continued on with discussions where I needed to add, you know, there was someplace where they were like, No, that's not enough. The hearing people need to be able to think for themselves a little bit, you know, so I was resistant to some changes a little bit because, you know, I don't mind giving some explanation but I also want them to be thinking about things and analyzing things for themselves. So it's kind of like right now you kind of feel how it isn't a death row because you're missing a little bit of information you have to kind of put together the pieces. I have another question here in the chat from the audience. It's talking about the audio version and the written version. So there is an audio version of this book. Yes, it is audio book. And somebody I guess somebody is asking question if there will be an audio version and I don't know the answer so you have an audio version already. Yes. Yes, we do have an audio version. Because I would say maybe a few months before the book was released. I was surprised in that I was woken up. I woke up in the middle of the night. And I was like, Wow, how are they going to make an audio book for this book. How. And so I got up and I wrote an email to the editor and I was like what do we do. Oh my gosh, how are we going to do that if they make an audio book out of it. And we worked really hard with the audio team. And I was very fortunate because they were willing to be creative. And it happened that they made the audio book, like kind of like a signing natural book in that in the places where the characters were signing. You know, I went in and I signed their dialogue, it kind of into the studio and like recorded the sound of the signing, you know how how we kind of make noise the sounds that it makes when we sign touching our body or slapping our hands or waving in the air. You know, and so the people who are reading, you know, obviously voicing the book, so they were able to put that in the book. You know, make put that sound of me actually signing for other characters in there. And so you're talking about, you know, with the air or I would figure it would be very, very a very soft sound they wouldn't really be able to hear it. Okay. Yeah, because they told me like we're allowed clothing. And I was like, What? Why would I wear a lot of clothing. And I was like, I don't know what that means. And so I just brought lots of sets of closing and I was like, Is this loud enough? Is this loud enough? How does this one sound? How does this one sound? And they helped me, you know, pick those things out. But they, I was just very fortunate to work with that team who really valued, you know, that piece of the book and that part of the culture of signing versus where people are talking and we're invested in making it as appropriate as possible. And so, you know, they were able to make that distinction for hearing people in the audio books. I was very fortunate to work with them and their creativity. Interesting. Yeah, I know a lot of deaf people when they're signing, they do make a lot of noise. They're just smacking their hands together. They're smacking the table to give people's attention. Was it that noise that you included or only the noise for signing? Yeah, I guess. I mean, whatever it said in the dialogue, for them, then, you know, I would just sign the dialogue itself. And that's what they, you know, put in there for things that were loud or, you know, people waving hands or banging on tables or touching, you know, your different parts of your body when we sign. You know, I mean, there was like three different microphones up there. So I feel like that's how they tried to, you know, include it. It was actually quite fun. And how did they get the facial expressions into the audio version of the book? I think that would be something that would be very difficult to do. Yeah, I mean, obviously, I think we missed that that aspect of it in there. It is missing some expression and things. But Brittany Kasper, she's a deaf artist. No, it's not the front, but the picture inside the pictures inside the book. She's a deaf artist. And so people who listens to the audio book missed her, you know, pictures and her artistry in there. And I'm sure when they had this adapted to TV show, will they be shown ASL signs? I hope so. You need that, right? Yeah, we'll see. We're just beginning the development of the TV show right now. And everything's kind of a little bit on hold with the writer strike. So, yeah, unfortunately. Who is the sponsor for that? Will that be on Netflix or Apple? We don't know yet. Yeah, we're not sure. We're just, it's still in development, working on investors and, you know, organizations, et cetera, et cetera. So, but for now, we're not doing anything because of the writer strike. So it's kind of on the back burner at the moment. Right. And there's a long way between having the idea of the show and then when it finally premieres on whatever channel it appears on. Yeah, most of the time with those ideas, they kind of, you know, degrade, degrade, degrade, and then, you know, you keep working at it, working at it and, you know, just keep your fingers crossed. Right. And there was one actor that said she possibly will be in your show. Yeah, the producer said that maybe they would be considered for Charlie. So you would have to look for another actor who can portray a deaf man. Well, there's a lot of deaf people. So, yeah. Right. And of course, you'd have to find the location of where to film the actual deaf school as well. Well, I believe we have about 10 minutes left. There is another question in the audience about that it was wonderful about it being developed for TV. That's great. Any other questions from the audience? Yes, we have a couple of more, a few more actually rolling in. One person asks, they'd like to know about the, as a young person, did you know you wanted to be an author? No question. No. No, really, I was always reading. I was a real bookworm always had my nose in a book. And, you know, I wrote a lot. I did. But at the same time, I didn't realize that I could become an author. Honestly, I think part of the reason why was because I didn't see many deaf people, right? I didn't see many deaf authors or have those kinds of deaf role models. And for me, I'm a first generation college student in my family. So I went to college. And, you know, instead of getting a job right away, and I needed to get a job. So, you know, everybody's like, oh, if you get done with college, you have to get a job. You can't just, you know, write books and be creative all the time. You know, you have to do something that pays the bills. So, I mean, I'm very fortunate that my family was very, very supportive. And at the same time, it was kind of expected that, you know, you either go to college or get a job. And I didn't really realize that I could take a job as a writer. So, yeah, you know, that whole time I really wasn't aware of that. Right. So you have a job as a teacher and because we're earning any money as a writer, correct? So to earn money as a writer is a little bit difficult. Yes, it is difficult. Yeah, to earn money as a writer because especially for people who are slow writers, because, you know, they don't pay anything until you're finished with the book, obviously. So, but I just, I love teaching as well. And so I'm very happy that I can do both. Great. I'm taking a look at the chat making sure we didn't miss any other questions and looking at my notes as well. There's a couple, there's a couple more comments about how much a person appreciates the audio book and the sounds of the hands, and that the ability to be able to see the characters emotions in that way. So it's a it's a very different experience and those who have read the book versus experiencing as an audio book. And one person asked, do you relate it to kind of like the audio book? Do you know if that eventually there'll be a purely ASL version in the future? I'm hoping so. Currently, things kind of in general, with, you know, cameras and zooms and all those are on hold because of the rights for the TV production because those things are, you know, all kind of linked to each other. But yes, I'm hoping that in the future, we will be able to, you know, provide a sign edition, you know, of the book for students as well. And I've kind of been talking about that along with, you know, the TV's, you know, portion so I don't know what you would call it a video book, something like that maybe. That would be a very interesting experience to actually see an ASL version of this book. See an ASL the way that it's structured. That would be a great idea for your book true biz. Yeah, I've seen an ASL translation of like, poems and things like that but obviously I mean I haven't seen many, but for longer stories, I think it would be very interesting to see what that would look like and what the outcome would look like. Yeah, and I actually have a question as well. Do you have any plans for future books and will they include deaf characters or are there any, is there anything in the word right now. Yes, currently I'm in the process of writing a book. And it's nonfiction. It's a little bit kind of like a memoir, but I'm writing it as letters to my son. One of them is hearing in a coda and my other son is deaf. I adopted from Thailand. And so I'm kind of in this particular book that I'm writing going into detail and thinking about ways that we are really different from our parents and the ways that we share languages and identities and things of that nature within our own family. And that's currently what I'm working on. But I also have kind of some thoughts, you know, in the back of my mind about some other ideas for fiction books. And I'm not really focusing on deaf like I was in this book but I do have some deaf characters in mind in those those potential, you know, future books. Hopefully there are two more books that will be published in the near future. Great. Hopefully, I believe we only have about four minutes left we're going to go ahead and wrap it up right now. Oh, I'm before we do I like this question. The last question is this person says what advice would you give to somebody from the deaf community who wants to write and be traditionally published. The most important thing, I would say, really for all writers. And it's always something that we struggle with in the very very beginning is I would try to, you know, if you think about sounding like other hearing writers when I'm writing I would try to copy them like their voice when I started, because those people were the ones who were getting right. So I was trying to mimic kind of their styles and and, you know, not that I wanted to sound like another person, but I want to sound like myself but I have to find the right voice. And so you really have to kind of basically, you know, do a 180 and come at it from a whole different perspective, different approach, and it's difficult. You know, we don't have a lot of examples of deaf writers. So I would really encourage you to become okay with sounding quote unquote, you know, odd sounding like a different voice or a different person. Because that leads I think to good things in the end. And it might feel odd in the beginning, but stick with it and as you go on, you'll feel better and better about it. And as deaf people, we have skills with visual language, and you can take all of that and put it down on paper you can. We already know how to visualize and paint pictures for people and tell stories and, you know, take that quote unquote voice in a story and sign it and show it and we can put that on paper. You can absolutely do that so just think about the ways for us those are special skills that we have as deaf people and ASL users. And so I would say start there. Great. I do know from my own experience and also some other people who are professional mimers. We have watched some shows and some people who are mining and get some ideas from that and that is a great opportunity for deaf people as well to include some of that into the stories. All right, there's another person. I'll put the link into the chat. If you want to get in touch with our deaf services or if you would like to subscribe to our mailing list you can go ahead and click that link and subscribe and you will get all of our future information. Also before we wrap up. I want to thank Sarah so much for coming. Thank you for your time for sharing what that's about your book and everything and I heard your plans. And I guess I will turn it back to, I'm not sure if it's our Marcella Marcella are you the one that I'm turning back over to. Yes, it is. Thank you everybody so much for joining us this evening and thank you for your insightful questions and also so much love and appreciation for our author this evening Sarah. And I also want to thank Novik who, you know, it's just it was wonderful to hear her speak about not only writing her books but the experience and connecting with the deaf community, and the questions that you all brought thank you so much. Again, if you'd like to stay in touch with us we have dropped the link to how to get onto our mailing list. So very quick quick survey just asking you about your, your name and your email, and so that we can stay in touch with you all and let you know about other great programming events, and get to know who you are. If you'd like to come and visit us at the deaf services center, we are at the main library located at 100 Larkin Street, easily accessible through the Civic Center Bart Station, and you can call us we have a VP we have obviously a voice call and we also have the TTY, but you can also email us at depth services at SFPL.org, or look us up on the SFPL.org website. Again, thank you so much this evening for joining us. And if you enjoyed tonight's program, check out our Summer Stride Programming, which is part of our library summer learning program, always free, always fun, and you can get your very own tote bag for participating just 20 hours of listening or coming to the library visiting us tonight if you were here tonight counts. So we look forward to seeing you at the library. And that is all folks looking forward to seeing you again thank you so much to our speaker. Also thank you to our interpreters this evening and our captioner and to our librarian host Jerry for tonight's program.