Donna McDonald – October 11 2020

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day – October 15

Donna is a writer, reviewer, researcher and policy analyst. She holds a BA, BSW, MA, GDipATh and PhD. With over 30 years’ experience as a social worker and policy advisor, Donnas has worked at all levels of Australian government and also in the UK. As an artist, she has exhibited research-based works in art shows and as a reviewer, she has written for journals such as the Medical Humanities Journal, the American Annals of the Deaf and the International Journal of Loss and Trauma, the editorial board of which she is on. Her other publications include The Routledge Handbook of Disability Arts, Culture and Media, which she co-edited with Bree Hadley, and several book chapters such as ‘I Am a Mother’ in Mother Love 2: More Stories About Births, Babies and Beyond (ed. Debra Adelaide), ‘When Time Stops: The Courage for Joy’ in Complicated Grief (ed. Eric D Miller), ‘Stories as Mirrors: Deaf Heroes and Heroines’ in Deaf Epistemologies: Multiple perspectives on the acquisition of knowledge (eds. Peter V Paul and Donald F Moores) and ‘The Silence of Sounds’ in Literature and Sensation (eds. Anthony Uhlmann, Helen Groth, Paul Sheehan and Stephen McLaren). Donna’s published essays include I Hear with my Eyes, The Reluctant Memoirist and Not Silent, Invisible: Literature’s Chance Encounters with Deaf Heroes and Heroines. Initially enrolled in an oral-deaf school where she was trained to communicate only in spoken English, Donna moved at age eight to mainstream schools where she excelled with speechreading and hard work. As an adult, Donna began to reflect on the impact her removal from her deaf peers had had on her, and her experiences leading to the reconciliation of her deaf-self with her “hearing-deaf” persona are the subject of The Art of Being Deaf.

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Jack’s Story
Allen and Unwin, 1991; ISBN 9781863730839
Jack’s Story chronicles a mother’s grief after the death of her son from sudden infant death syndrome. It charts the author’s emotional journey and the impact that the tragedy had on her relationships and personal growth. In an introduction to the book, the novelist Susan Johnson states that it provides ‘a powerful affirmation of life, a testament to the victory of the human spirit’.
“Donna McDonald’s lyrical writing uses extracts from her journal to illustrate a moving account of her loss and subsequent grieving. Her journey is ultimately one of self-discovery.” – UQ eSpace

The Art of Being Deaf: A Memoir
Gallaudet University Press, 2014; ISBN 9781563685972
Concerned about aspects of her romantic relationships, Donna McDonald consulted with a psychologist who asked, “Your hearing loss must have had a big impact on you?” At age 45, with a successful career in social work policy, McDonald took umbrage at the question. Then, she realized that she never had addressed the personal barrier she had constructed between her deaf-self and her hearing persona. In The Art of Being Deaf, she describes her long, arduous pursuit of finding out exactly who she was. This extended memoir is a rare Australian voice in deaf narratives. It was commended by American disability and deaf studies scholar, Brenda Jo Brueggemann, as ground-breaking as it is one of the few narratives about the life of an oral-deaf person.