A Conversation w/ Local Deaf Author Willy Conley | Busboys and Poets Books

Space is deaf like me

This chapbook of 31 original poems is divided into two sections: Inner Space and Outer Space. The poetry combines a mix of Deaf and everyday life experiences with biting humor, ASL/English wordplay, and nostalgia all written from the unique perspective of a writer who was born profoundly deaf.  

Photographic Memories

Photographic Memories contains a 40-year collection of Willy Conley’s essays, playlets, and short fiction along with 27 original black-and-white photographs taken by him. As one blurber wrote; “the pieces…are grounded in Deaf experiences, a hallmark of Conley’s work…written from the unique perspective of a Deaf artist who navigates between the Deaf and hearing worlds….” 

 Come see a pair of Deaf friends take over a karaoke bar and turn it on its ear. Find out what a deaf minor league baseball player learned what it takes to make it into the big leagues. Go back in time during the late 1980s and tour on a bus to experience a day in the life of actors with the National Theatre of the Deaf. Get a glimpse of what may happen to deaf people a thousand years into the future. Find out what an elderly hard-of-hearing man is up to on a porch with rocking chairs at an abandoned hotel by the sea.

Willy Conley is joining us on the Busboys stage to share more about his books and his experiences as an award-winning photographer and writer. Copies of the books will be available for purchase during and after the event, and Conley will be signing following the program.

This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of SPACE IS DEAF LIKE ME and PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORIES will be available for purchase before and after the event. Please note that this event is in person and will not be livestreamed. 

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Willy Conley is an award-winning photographer, writer, and theatre artist. He is the editor of Plays of Our Own: ­An Anthology of Scripts by Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Writers, and the author of The World of White Water: Poems, Visual-Gestural Communication: A Workbook in Nonverbal Expression and Reception, Listening through the Bone: Collected Poems, The Deaf Heart: A Novel, Vignettes of the Deaf Character and Other Plays, and Broken Spokes. Conley is a retired professor and former chairperson of theatre arts at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC

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