Kristen Harmon

Kristen Harmon is a writer and scholar whose work explores Deaf literature, sign language, and the creative possibilities of language across visual and written forms. Her writing moves between creative and academic modes, articulating questions of narrative, storytelling, culture, and the lived experiences of Deaf people.

Through edited collections, essays, scholarship, and short stories, Kristen examines how sign languages and Deaf literary traditions shape meaning, narrative, language, and identity. In her fiction, Kristen centers deaf lives, bilingualism, identities, and signing communities.

This site brings together Kristen’s creative writing, academic publications, teaching, and ongoing projects. She is a professor of English at Gallaudet University and is also a digital communications specialist at Gallaudet University Press.

Recent News & Events

In November 2025, Kristen led a discussion with Gallaudet University Deaf Studies graduate students and Deaf Studies Incubator fellows.

In September 2025, Kristen moderated a Politics and Prose Book Talk session with author Rachel Kolb, on Articulate: A Deaf Memoir of Voice (2025).

In February 2025, Kristen presented at the Deaf Literature Festival hosted at University of Virginia, in the company of Carol Padden, Leah Hager Cohen, Erin Moriarty, Christopher Krentz, and Terry Galloway. Video coming soon.

From January to August of 2025, Kristen served as the interim director of Gallaudet University Press. Since August, she has been working with the Press as digital communications specialist.

Selected Media & Film

In September, Kristen moderated a discussion at Politics and Prose-Union Market with Rachel Kolb, author of Articulate: A Deaf Memoir of Voice (Ecco, 2025).

In November 2019, Kristen presented at the ARTiculating Deaf Experiences conference in Rochester, NY.

Kristen was one of several Deaf community members interviewed in Through Deaf Eyes, a PBS documentary reviewing 200 years of Deaf history in America (2007). Kristen’s clips can be found from 25:20-25:43 and 25:57-26:31.

Publications

Creative Writing & Craft Blogs

  • “On Deaf Literature.” “The Best of the Literary Internet, Everyday,” LitHub Daily. 22 Jan. 2019. https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-january-22-2019/

  • Originally published as part of the Bloomsbury Literary Studies Blog for Bloomsbury Press On Critical Creative Writing (2019). 18 Jan. 2019. https://bloomsburyliterarystudiesblog.com/2019/01/on-deaf-literature.html

  • “Pilgrimage” in Deaf Poetry Now!! An Anthology, ed Raymond Luczak, Handtype Press, 2025.

  • “Waiting for the Next Best Thing” in I’ll Tell You Later: Dinner Table Syndrome, ed. Raymond Luczak, Handtype Press, 2024.

  • “Spirit Box” in Tripping the Tale Fantastic: Weird Fiction By Deaf and Hard of Hearing Authors, ed. Christopher Heuer, Handtype Press, 2017. 140-156.

  • “What Lay Ahead” trilogy of flash fiction (including “Wrestling Daddy,” “Fingerspelling,” and “True Business.” Reprint in Wordgathering 9.2 (June 2015): http://www.wordgathering.com/past_issues/issue34/fiction/harmon.html Reprint in The Right Way to be Crippled and Naked, eds. Sheila Black, Michael Northern, and Annabelle Hayse. Cinco Puntos Press, 2017. 263-277

  • “Gonna Buy You a Mockingbird.” Reprint in Deaf American Prose, 1986–2010, eds. Harmon and Nelson. Gallaudet University Press, 2012.

  • "Small Machinery." Deaf Literature Extravaganza, ed. John Lee Clark. Handtype Press, 2014.

  • “Take My Heart.” Eyes of Desire 2: A Deaf GLBT Reader, ed. Raymond Luczak. Minneapolis, Minn: Handtype Press, 2007. 232-235.

  • “Gonna Buy You a Mockingbird.” The Tactile Mind: Quarterly of the Signing Community, ed. John Lee Clark. Summer 2004. 15-25. Reprint. ClercScar 10, Aug. 31- Sept. 4, 2009. Reprint. Disability Studies Quarterly 27.4(2007). http://www.dsq-sds.org/2007_fall_toc.html

  • “Wrestling Daddy,” “Fingerspelling,” and “What Lay Ahead” trilogy of flash fiction. The Tactile Mind: Quarterly of the Signing Community, Winter 2003-2004. 8-25.

  • "Wrestling Daddy" received Honorable Mention in STORY Magazine's final Carson McCullers Fiction Contest, 1999.

  • “With Singing.” Midlands, vol. 40. Spring 1999. 6-9. Received Midlands' Personal Narrative Award, 1999.

Peer Reviewed Articles

  • “Beyond Islay: A Brief Literary History of Deaf Utopia and Dystopia.” Sign Language Studies 24.1(Fall 2023): 93-127.

  • “The Ethnographer as Witness, as Writer: Reciprocal Ethnography and the Ethics of Narrative in the Works of Elaine J. Lawless.” Journal of Folklore Research 59.2 (May-August 2022).

  • “Un-telling ‘The Eugenist’s Tale’: Early 20th Century Deaf Writers on A.G. Bell and Eugenics.” Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies 15.2(2021): 151-168. Eds. Christopher B. Krentz and Rebecca Sanchez. doi: https://doi.org/10.3828/jlcds.2021.12

  • Judy Mounty, Concetta Pucci, and Kristen Harmon. "Emic Perspectives on Reading Development in American Sign Language/English Bilingual Deaf Children." Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 19.3 (2014): 333-346. doi:10.1093/deafed/ent050

  • "Emic Perspectives on Reading Development in American Sign Language/English Bilingual Deaf Children," ASL version. Deaf Studies Digital Journal (DSDJ). Spring, 2012.

  • "Addressing Deafness: From Hearing Loss to Deaf Gain." Profession (2010): 124-130. New York City: The Modern Language Association.

  • “Writing DEAF: Textualizing Deaf Literature.” “Special Issue: Narrating Deaf Lives.” Sign Language Studies 7:2(2007): 200-207.

  • “Deaf Identity, Language Politics, and ‘Hyphenated’ Ethnography.” Southern Folklore 54.1 (1997): 1-9.

Inclusive Storytelling & Scholarship

Sensitivity reader for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s Just Ask! Be Different, Be Brave, Be You. Philomel/Penguin Random House, 2019.

Peer reviewer for scholarly and trade publishing companies for 30 years.

Books/Edited Collections

  • The Marriage Question: One Hundred Years of Deaf Writers on Eugenics. Anthology manuscript with scholarly context and essays. Under revision following external peer review. 

  • Nelson J. and K. Harmon, eds.  Deaf American Prose, 1830-1930.  Gallaudet University Press, 2013.

  • Harmon, K. and J. Nelson, eds.  Deaf American Prose, 1986–2010.  Gallaudet University Press, 2012.

Book Chapters

  • “Challenging Phonocentrism: Writing Signs and Bilingual Deaf Literatures.” Routledge Companion to Literature and Disability, ed. Alice Hall. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2020. 43-56.

  • “Writing DEAF: Textualizing Deaf Literature.” Critical Creative Writing: Essential Readings on the Writer’s Craft, ed. Janelle Adsit. (Reprint). Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2018. 180-186.

  • “Deaf Matters: Compulsory Hearing and Ability Trouble.”  Equality and Disability Law, eds. Elizabeth Emens and Michael Stein. (Reprint). Ashgate Publishing, Ltd, London, 2013.

  • "Growing Up to Become Hearing: Dreams of Passing in Oral Deaf Education."  Disability and Passing: Blurring the Lines of Identity, eds. Jeffrey Brune and Daniel Wilson.  Temple University, 2013.

  • “Hearing Aid Lovers, Pretenders, and Deaf Wannabes: The Fetishizing of Hearing.”  Sex and Disability, eds. Robert McRuer and Anna Mollow.  Duke University Press, 2012.  355-372.

  • “Deaf Matters: Compulsory Hearing and Ability Trouble.”  At the Intersection: Deaf and Disability Studies, eds. Susan Burch and Alison Kafer.  Gallaudet University Press, 2010.  31-47.

  • “’I thought there would be more Helen Keller’: History Through Deaf Eyes and Narratives of Representation.”  Signs and Voices, eds.  Doreen DeLuca, Kristin Lundgren, and Donna Napoli.  Gallaudet University Press, 2008.  43-62.

  • “’If there are Greek epics, there should be Deaf epics’: How Protest Became Poetry.”  Signing the Body Poetic: Essays on American Sign Language Literature.  Eds. Bauman, Nelson, and Rose.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.  169-194.

  • “Slain in the Spirit.”  Women and Deafness, eds. Brenda Brueggeman and Susan Burch, Gallaudet University Press, 2006.  205-225. 

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Contact Kristen

Interested in working together? Have questions? Want me to host a workshop or present at your organization? Fill out some info, and I will be in touch soon!