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Deaf, gay poet explores loss of a twin in new book

‘Once Upon a Twin’ ponders how life would differ if sibling had survived

Published

5 years ago

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Raymond Luczak’s latest book is ‘Once Upon a Twin.’ (Photo courtesy the author)

“Asshole/battybat/big baby/blundering boob/…deaf & dumb/dick/dumbdumb/fag,” Deaf, gay poet and playwright Raymond Luczak writes in his poem “the easiest words to lipread in a schoolyard (even if you’re not deaf).

The poem appears in Luczak’s new book “Once Upon a Twin,” released this year by Gallaudet University Press.

Luczak, 55, who lives in Minneapolis, graduated from Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1988. He has written and edited more than 20 books, including “QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology,” the award-winning Deaf, gay novel “Men with Their Hands,” “The Kiss of Walt Whitman Still on My Lips” and the drama “Snooty: a Comedy.”

Growing up wasn’t easy for Luczak. He grew up in Ironwood, a small mining town in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

At eight months old, he lost his hearing due to double pneumonia and a high fever. This wasn’t detected until he was two-and-and-a-half years old. He was one of nine siblings in a hearing family.

At that time, many Deaf people weren’t permitted to communicate with their language – American Sign Language. Forbidden to sign, he was outfitted with a rechargeable hearing aid. There was no program for deaf children in Ironwood. For nine years, he stayed with foster families during the week in Houghton, a town two hours away. In Houghton he was in a speech therapy program.

Life opened up for Luczak when he enrolled at Gallaudet where he could communicate with American Sign Language.

In interviews conducted by email, Luczak talked with the Blade about a wide range of topics from coming out to what inspired him to write “Once Upon a Twin” to why Whitman would take selfies today.

Growing up as the only Deaf person in a hearing family was frustrating and infuriating for Luczak. “A classic situation: I’m sitting at the big kitchen table with all 11 of us, and everyone is talking at once,” Luczak said, “Where do I focus for lipreading? Why is my sister laughing? What was so funny?”

Luczak wants you to imagine what going through this for every meal would be like. It’s one thing if you endure this with strangers who know nothing about deafness, he said. But, it’s quite another thing if you’re with a family who should know better about your deafness.

“It’s as if they wanted to believe that my lipreading skills are so superior I didn’t need further assistance. Not true,” Luczak said. “I don’t have the ability to geolocate a sound so this explains why I cannot catch who is speaking and turn my attention in order to lipread that person.”

Language is a powerful bond for a community. In Milan, Italy in 1880, there was a conference on the education of the Deaf, Luczak said. There it was decreed that the use of sign language would be banned as a teaching method.

Up until then, “the Deaf community had a real Golden Age in which they came together through the establishment of Deaf residential schools, Deaf clubs and whatnot,” Luczak said.

It was devastating to the Deaf community when Alexander Graham Bell and his ilk made every effort they could to eradicate sign language, Luczak said. Luczak likens the attempt to eradicate sign language to the attempts made throughout history to force LGBTQ people to change their sexual orientation.

Luczak always knew that he was interested in men. Though, it didn’t have a name or specific feeling, and it had nothing to do with sex. He gradually came out, slowly, when he was in his teens.

Luczak came to Gallaudet University in the summer of 1984 and came out publicly a month later.

“What gave me the strength to come out were the first batch of books I’d bought from Lambda Rising [the LGBTQ bookstore that closed in 2010],” Luczak said. “That place was really my second home away from Gallaudet…And the fact that I was allowed to use ASL really gave me the self-confidence I had sorely needed all my life.”

Luczak in poetry, non-fiction, and plays has written in various styles from formal poetry to free verse about many topics from love to Thomas Edison to Walt Whitman to being queer. If Walt Whitman had a love child with a photographer’s eye, it would be Luczak.

In “Once Upon a Twin,” Luczak imagines what his life would have been like if he had a twin. Growing up, he knew that his mother had had three miscarriages, but he never asked her about them. When he was 16 “she mentioned that her third miscarriage happened in the same year I was born,” Luczak said, “and that it happened while she was sitting on the toilet. The fetus had apparently popped out.”

“I couldn’t get that image out of my head,” Luczak added.

Over the years, his mother told Luczak conflicting stories about the miscarriage. About 10 years ago, he looked into whether it was possible for a twin to miscarry and to have the other twin undetected in the womb. “It turns out that the ultrasound technology during the 1960s wasn’t advanced enough so the possibility was quite real,” Luczak said.

Luczak had long wondered how different his life would have been if his twin had survived. In 2018, he wrote a collection of formal verse. After that, he was eager to write in a different style. “Once I realized how I should write my next book (no formal poetry, almost no punctuation, etc.), it hit me that I really should explore the idea of my lost twin,” Luczak said.

“Would I feel as left out at family gatherings if my twin helped include me?” he said, “…Would my twin speak up for me?…I hadn’t dared to examine the possible changes in our family’s dynamics, and how it would’ve affected my self-confidence.”

Luczak was surprised by how easily the book wrote itself. It had been waiting a long time to be written.

Like queer poet Walt Whitman, Luczak’s creativity contains multitudes. In 2016, Luczak’s volume of poetry “The Kiss of Walt Whitman Still on My Lips” was released by Squares & Rebels. Because Whitman wasn’t taught to him when he was in high school or college, Luczak had few preconceptions about Whitman. Other than, he said, that Whitman was a poet with a boyfriend who was a streetcar conductor. But when he read the opening of the “Song of my Self,” Luczak said “Whoa!”

“The poet had conjured a palpable vision of what America could be,” he said, “if Walt were alive today, he’d be sharing selfies and Tweeting away.”

“He loved having his picture taken; he had 127 photographs taken when Abraham Lincoln scored 128 photographs,” Luczak said, “in fact, Whitman was probably America’s first celebrity nude model!”

How does Luczak feel about being a Deaf, gay writer? It’s complicated. On one level, he doesn’t think of himself as a Deaf, gay writer at all. “I do mention this fact but that’s only because I need to stand out a bit more in a country that brings out thousands and thousands of new books each year. It’s a marketing angle,” Luczak said.

He hopes readers will recognize that he’s much more than just a Deaf, gay writer and accept his work as beyond those labels.

Yet, “I still feel proud of being a Deaf gay man,” Luczak said. “It’s enriched my life in ways that I don’t think anyone would’ve anticipated. It’s certainly led me to meet people I wouldn’t have met otherwise. For that I’m grateful.”

Once Upon a Twin, gay news, Washington Blade

Raymond Luczak (Photo courtesy of Luczak)

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Books

In ‘The Lost Brontë,’ a complicated lie can lead to danger

New book features sweetly romantic girl-meets-girl twist

Published

2 days ago

on

October 11, 2026

By

(Book cover image courtesy of Bywater Books)

‘The Lost Brontë’
By Catherine Friend
c.2026, Bywater Books
$22.95/335 pages

Mom always said to tell the truth.

One lie leads to another and another and you have to remember them all until pretty soon, you’re caught. Fibs are hard, mistruths are messy, even little white social lies can destroy trust. Worst of all, as in the new novel, “The Lost Brontë” by Catherine Friend, a complicated lie can lead to danger.

Though Lilianne Loxley was very young when she lost her parents, she understood that her uncle didn’t really want her. As time passed, though, Lily made herself useful to Uncle, writing and signing letters for him and she became a good companion, helping him with his collection of Brontë memorabilia. Uncle was a keen enthusiast.

She had no idea that his obsession was out of control and he was deeply in arrears. The day Lily learned of his debt was the day she learned that he’d agreed to send her to his debtor’s home to work off the money owed.

It was so sudden. One minute, Lily was at Loxley House, happy and loved by Uncle’s staff … and five hours later, she was at Crag Thorn Manor, home of Lord Bexton, who informed her that she’d be working on his ledgers – work that seemed routine, but Lily tackled it.

Uncle always did say she was headstrong.

But would headstrong be enough to survive, when she was restricted from most of the Manor, when she was forced to dine with Brexton and his slimy friend, or – the worst! – when Brexton told Lily that her next task was to forge a letter from Emily Brontë? And then an entire manuscript?

Lily struggled to do what was right. She had to get Uncle out of debt but this last order horrified her. Did she dare refuse Brexton’s orders and commit a crime? It was unthinkable!

The only brightness in the whole situation was Wren, the ladies’ maid assigned to Lily’s room. Wren was adorable with freckles and the sweetest smile. But with everything else happening at Crag Thorn Manner, could Lily act upon her feelings?

This time of year, you may come to crave dark, spooky stories, and “The Last Brontë” fits those needs perfectly with its Gothic deliciousness. Think: Daphne du Maurier-type, stormy-night squirms with a dangerously chaste, sweetly romantic girl-meets-girl twist for fun.

If it’s been awhile since you’ve read a Gothic novel, you’re in for a nice reminder of why you love them here. You can almost tick off the must-haves: a novel like this is nothing without a foreboding stone manor with damp walls; stone steps to a dank basement; a mysterious portrait; and a nearby bog, and author Catherine Friend gives readers every one of them. You’d be disappointed if there was no ghost, wouldn’t you? Ha. You can practically feel the cold blow through the attic, right? Yeah, it’s that kind of book.

If you’re a fan of the Brontës, you’ll like this novel. If you love Gothic mysteries or Victorian romances, ditto. “The Lost Brontë” is good, no lie.

The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.

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Books

Eliot Glazer’s new book an engaging collection of essays

From growing up gay to turning down ‘Queer Eye’

Published

1 week ago

on

October 4, 2026

By

(Book cover image courtesy of Gallery Books)

“The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay: Essays”
By Eliot Glazer
c.2026, Gallery Books
$28.99/240 pages

You try and you try.

Once, twice, you go back at that thorny issue, the dream you have, the punchline that’s not hitting quite right. Sometimes, time is all you need to make it better, or a new approach, or a second look. And then there are days when you actually get things right, as in “The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay” by Eliot Glazer, and it’s all good.

Throughout his life, Eliot Glazer has made mistakes. And it’s OK, everybody trips and falls now and then. In his case, though, he’s perfectly willing to document his failures, foibles, and whoopsies in this book.

He writes of his mother, Sandi, “a Queens-born balabosta” who wouldn’t tolerate laziness in herself or Glazer. He found work as soon as he was legally able to do so, and he had many jobs throughout high school. He was a gardener, ice cream scooper, camp counselor, golf caddy, chocolatier, telemarketer, and video store clerk. The one that fit him best, however, was working at Talbots, a department store for older women, where he found his people.

Even with all those jobs, he was a theater kid in his time off, little though it was. Back then, he was just a boy growing up on Long Island but swagger was important, so swagger he did. He still appreciates a good Broadway show, even the silliest ones.

Glazer says that he had just recently come out when gayness exploded on TV with “Will & Grace” and “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” with which he was obsessed. It helped him feel not othered, he says. Producers of the reboot asked him to be a second-generation Eye, but Glazer turned them down, though he thinks he’d have been good at it.

The show helped him with love of décor. His unexpected advisory skills came naturally, through age and wisdom and learning that wild partying isn’t really so much fun.

As for finding love, well, that’s a long, boy-meets-boy-meets-boy story…

So you’re looking for something to easily pick up and put down, something that speaks to your inner impatience? You’ll find that in “The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay,” a book that’s practically meant for you to skip around and you don’t have to read everything.

Essays can be like that, which is nice, even refreshing. Author Eliot Glazer is entertaining enough to make things work, engaging enough to keep it moving, and funny enough to make you want more of what he has to say. He’s open with his life and, despite his fame, his writing isn’t lofty; you can expect stories that’ll make you snort and ones with spice, but also some surprisingly tender moments that soften this book in a way that’s just right.

Readers who want a quick, mostly light book to finish will find something appealing in this collection of essays. If you don’t mind a bit of non-linearity and you need a laugh, “The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay.” is worth a try.

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Books

Curl up with a good book this fall

New releases include mysteries, biographies, religion, and more

Published

3 weeks ago

on

September 20, 2026

By

(Book cover image courtesy Amazon)

The fall books season offers lots of options so curl up and get ready to read.

FICTION

For the mystery fan who likes a sprinkle of thriller, look for “The Longest Death” by Kevin Jagernauth (Soho Crime, December). Richard Cobson hates his small town, he’s bored and desperate to get away. Stealing from his employer is the only thing that makes life bearable. That all changes when Marlon Montgomery comes to town and the two fall in love because if one guy can steal so easily, what can two do?

If you like graphic novels, try the “Tripping Over You” trilogy by Suzana Harcum and Owena White. Milo and Liam are finally able to be open about their relationship, no more hiding their love. They’re living together now, but can it last? “Tripping Over You Book 3” (First Second Books) is in stores in early November.

Also try “Diana: The Punk Singer Who Ripped Through Time” by Nate Powell (Abrams ComicArts, October). It’s about a  young woman who’s trying desperately to escape her past, until a mysterious murder sidetracks her plans.

So you say you’re a romantic at heart? Then look for “Unspeakable Things: A Novel” by Elizabeth Hand (Little, Brown & Company, October). It’s a story set in the 1920s, when two young women arrive in the English Countryside to a dark and ancient manor. But, of course, nothing in a Gothic novel is easy, right? And you’ll love this tale.

NONFICTION

So this upcoming year is going to be one of exploration, right? Then look for “Free Love: Adventures in Marriage and Polyamory” by Michelle Tea (HarperOne, November). It’s a well-researched, personal, and interesting look at the lives of polyamorous couples and what it’s like to live what used to be called an “alternative” lifestyle.

If “fall” says “biography” to you, then look for “Showbiz! My Life as a Middle-Aged Man” by Murray Hill (Gallery Books, October). For decades, Hill has been making audiences laugh with his signature humor, but getting laughs hides his past all too well. He grew up in an abusive family and learning to hone his talents took some ingenuity. If you’re not a Hill fan yet, you will be, once you read this book.

For the reader who’s searching for a spiritual place, “Reading the Bible Through Queer Eyes: Good News for LGBTQ+ People from Genesis to Revelation” by podcasters Brian G. Murphy and Shannon T.L. Kearns (HarperOne, December) might help. Here, the authors look deeply at Scripture to find the queerness that’s there, proving to readers that the Word is not always what it seems.

Young readers may want to check out “Bitter Pill: Randy Shilts and the Dawn of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic” by Clement Xavier, illustrated by Heloise Cochois, foreword by Michael Lee (Abrams ComicArts, November). It’s a highly researched true story of activist Shilts, but also of Harvey Milk, and the earliest days of the AIDS crisis, when gay men needed a loud voice to advocate for them.

And finally, if you want a fun book for your kids or a child you love, look for “Good Night, Break a Leg: Life with Broadway Dads” by Bret Shuford, illustrated by Elena Hager (Penguin Workshop). What do parents do when they go to work? A little boy learns that his dads have very special jobs by day – and by night! It’s a cute book for kids, but a special tale for lovers of Broadway.

Be aware that publication dates change, titles change, books can be canceled, and your librarian or favorite bookseller can help you find what you need. Season’s readings!

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