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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Hearing Maud: A Journey for a Voice is a work of creative non-fiction that details the author’s experiences of deafness after losing most of her hearing at age four. It charts how, as she grew up, she was estranged from people and turned to reading and writing for solace, eventually establishing a career as a writer.
'Central to her narrative is the story of Maud Praed, the deaf daughter of 19th century Queensland expatriate novelist Rosa Praed. Although Maud was deaf from infancy, she was educated at a school which taught her to speak rather than sign, a mode difficult for someone with little hearing. The breakup of Maud’s family destabilised her mental health and at age twenty-eight she was admitted to an asylum, where she stayed until she died almost forty years later. It was through uncovering Maud’s story that the author began to understand her own experiences of deafness and how they contributed to her emotional landscape, relationships and career.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Notes
-
Creative non-fiction.
Affiliation Notes
-
Writing Disability in Australia
Type of disability Deafness. Type of character Primary (both autobiographical subject and biographical subject). Point of view Mixed.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
Works about this Work
-
Historical Figures, Archives and Australian Disability Life Writing : Reading Jessica White’s Hearing Maud and Writing Hysteria
2022
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 37 no. 1 2022;'Through examining Jessica White’s hybrid memoir Hearing Maud and my own work Hysteria: A Memoir of Illness, Strength and Women’s Stories Throughout History, I explore how archival research shapes a disabled writer’s work and written representation of the self. I particularly focus on how memoirists convey the embodied experience of disability through writing lived experience, as well as writing about disabled women they have found through archival research. I consider how writers’ conceptions of the self and body coalesce and depart from the women they are researching. I am intrigued about how, for writers, archival research shapes contemporary disability hybrid memoir writing. In addition, I suggest that imagination accompanies encounters with archival material. Writers imagine the past life of their historical subject(s), and in doing so, imagine beyond ableism. Further, a theme of institutions and how they impact individual lives throughout historical periods emerges.' (Publication abstract)
-
Life Writing When the World Is Burning: The Year in
2020
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Biography , vol. 43 no. 1 2020; (p. 1-8) 'It is no surprise that in Australia this year a great deal of life writing has continued to emerge in conjunction with pressing social and political issues. The ongoing national crises of refugee and asylum seeker policy, gendered abuse, and racial discrimination continue to surface in both political and literary arenas, while unprecedented bushfires have decimated the country, bringing climate change back onto the public agenda with new fury. The right of individuals to live with dignity, in safety, and free from fear—and the ongoing challenges to these rights suffered in public and domestic domains—is a connecting thread across the year’s life writing and a theme the genre is uniquely equipped to amplify.' (Introduction) -
Ghosted
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Inside Story , August 2019;
— Review of Hearing Maud : A Journey for a Voice 2019 single work biography non-fiction 'Two women’s experience of deafness, a century apart' -
Jessica White, Hearing Maud
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 79 no. 1 2019; (p. 210-213)
— Review of Hearing Maud : A Journey for a Voice 2019 single work biography non-fiction 'Despairing about the proliferation of memoirs, New York Times re viewer Neil Genzlinger once pleaded for a “moment of silence please, for the lost art of shutting up.” Perhaps Genzlinger would be more open to the “hybrid memoir” that leans more overtly into the idea of memoir as a reflection of the self in the crossroads of place, culture and time; less about “me” and more about “us.”' (Introduction) -
Pharmakon
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 414 2019; (p. 54)
— Review of Hearing Maud : A Journey for a Voice 2019 single work biography non-fiction'Hearing Maud begins and ends with the notion that the narrator’s life has been defined by a pharmakon, an ancient Greek term denoting something that is both poison and cure. This subtle and more complex version of the ‘gift or loss’ dilemma common in disability memoirs avoids oppositional thinking and embraces instead paradox and nuance. This is typical of Jessica White’s remarkable work of creative non-fiction, which is a sophisticated hybrid of memoir, biography, and critical disability studies.' (Introduction)
-
Pharmakon
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 414 2019; (p. 54)
— Review of Hearing Maud : A Journey for a Voice 2019 single work biography non-fiction'Hearing Maud begins and ends with the notion that the narrator’s life has been defined by a pharmakon, an ancient Greek term denoting something that is both poison and cure. This subtle and more complex version of the ‘gift or loss’ dilemma common in disability memoirs avoids oppositional thinking and embraces instead paradox and nuance. This is typical of Jessica White’s remarkable work of creative non-fiction, which is a sophisticated hybrid of memoir, biography, and critical disability studies.' (Introduction)
-
Jessica White, Hearing Maud
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 79 no. 1 2019; (p. 210-213)
— Review of Hearing Maud : A Journey for a Voice 2019 single work biography non-fiction 'Despairing about the proliferation of memoirs, New York Times re viewer Neil Genzlinger once pleaded for a “moment of silence please, for the lost art of shutting up.” Perhaps Genzlinger would be more open to the “hybrid memoir” that leans more overtly into the idea of memoir as a reflection of the self in the crossroads of place, culture and time; less about “me” and more about “us.”' (Introduction) -
Ghosted
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Inside Story , August 2019;
— Review of Hearing Maud : A Journey for a Voice 2019 single work biography non-fiction 'Two women’s experience of deafness, a century apart' -
Jessica White : Hearing Maud
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 3-9 August 2019;'We live in an age where memoirs arrive thick and fast, and a book deal comes easiest to those in the public eye. When there’s little money in skewering yourself for general consumption unless fame has first taken its toll, it’s unlikely a memoirist ever gets back as much as they give. Towards the end of Jessica White’s Hearing Maud – in which the author bares a great deal of herself – White explains she wants readers to understand how difficult it is being deaf, still, and how hard people with disability must work.' (Introduction)
-
What Should Politicians Be Reading at Parliamentary Book Club? Our Experts Make Their Picks
2019
single work
column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 21 August 2019; -
Life Writing When the World Is Burning: The Year in
2020
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Biography , vol. 43 no. 1 2020; (p. 1-8) 'It is no surprise that in Australia this year a great deal of life writing has continued to emerge in conjunction with pressing social and political issues. The ongoing national crises of refugee and asylum seeker policy, gendered abuse, and racial discrimination continue to surface in both political and literary arenas, while unprecedented bushfires have decimated the country, bringing climate change back onto the public agenda with new fury. The right of individuals to live with dignity, in safety, and free from fear—and the ongoing challenges to these rights suffered in public and domestic domains—is a connecting thread across the year’s life writing and a theme the genre is uniquely equipped to amplify.' (Introduction) -
Hearing Maud
2015
single work
prose
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2015; -
Historical Figures, Archives and Australian Disability Life Writing : Reading Jessica White’s Hearing Maud and Writing Hysteria
2022
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 37 no. 1 2022;'Through examining Jessica White’s hybrid memoir Hearing Maud and my own work Hysteria: A Memoir of Illness, Strength and Women’s Stories Throughout History, I explore how archival research shapes a disabled writer’s work and written representation of the self. I particularly focus on how memoirists convey the embodied experience of disability through writing lived experience, as well as writing about disabled women they have found through archival research. I consider how writers’ conceptions of the self and body coalesce and depart from the women they are researching. I am intrigued about how, for writers, archival research shapes contemporary disability hybrid memoir writing. In addition, I suggest that imagination accompanies encounters with archival material. Writers imagine the past life of their historical subject(s), and in doing so, imagine beyond ableism. Further, a theme of institutions and how they impact individual lives throughout historical periods emerges.' (Publication abstract)
Awards
- 2020 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards — Non-Fiction
- 2020 winner National Biography Award — Michael Crouch Award for a Debut Work
- 2020 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards — Queensland Premier's Award for a Work of State Significance
- 2020 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards — The Courier-Mail People's Choice Queensland Book of the Year
- 2020 shortlisted National Biography Award Shortlisted for the primary National Biography Award, as well as winning the Michael Crouch Award.