Sydney Langford, Someone to Daydream About (2026)
Synopsis
Someone to Daydream About is a young adult romance novel. We follow Natalie Nielsen, a Deaf demisexual teenager, as she works to honor her father’s legacy through repairing the local Deaf community center. The biggest hurdle preventing her from her goal is money: she cannot afford to repair the center on her own. Enter Felix Song: the pansexual and neurodivergent lead singer of a One Direction-esque boy band. Though Natalie dislikes him at first—she thinks he is snobby and arrogant—she agrees to go on tour with him to help him learn American Sign Language for his newly hard-of-hearing sister. In exchange, she receives the needed money to fix the Deaf Center. Throughout the tour, they slowly grow close and a romantic relationship begins to bloom. However, they need to keep it a secret because of Felix’s career. They struggle to balance their relationships, societal roles, careers, and dreams. Ultimately, Natalie must decide what is best for her.
Essay
Someone to Daydream About is a young adult romance novel released in 2026. This is one of the most recent novels included in this guide, and it represents a major part of Oregon that is often ignored: our deaf population. Salem is home to the Oregon School for the Deaf, and as a result, we have a significant deaf and hard of hearing community. More than 3% of Oregonians are deaf or hard of hearing (Wente-Chaney). Community is a key element in many Oregon literature works, and the Oregon deaf community is prominent and important.
Oregon School for the Deaf (OSD) is a very influential school in the deaf community. It was founded in 1870 by a deaf teacher, William Smith. It taught deaf children through manualism rather than the much more popular (at the time) oralism. Oralism is the practice of teaching deaf children to lipread and speak, while manualism teaches deaf children through sign language. Manualism is far and away the better choice for deaf education for reasons that I need not explain, which made OSD one of the most progressive deaf schools in the nation. OSD is a boarding school, where deaf children and faculty can build community with each other while learning skills they need to navigate the world. OSD has been very successful in this mission: though the nationwide standard for deaf enrollment in some college is 49%, 57% of Oregon’s deaf population attends some college (Wente-Chaney).
Oregon School for the Deaf provides an important community for folks who are often excluded. OSD students, faculty, alumni, and volunteers run the famous Nightmare Factory (a large haunted house on school property), and there are classes and camps specifically for deaf children and families. They also encourage participation in the larger local community: as a hearing person, I have volunteered at the Nightmare Factory and seen this wonderful space and community myself.
Oregon Deaf advocacy groups have made the world a more accessible place: earning 1.7 million to improve ASL translation for democratic processes, gaining the right to add a Deaf designation on driver’s licenses to aid in law enforcement interactions, and fighting for ASL to be recognized as a foreign language by the state and schools. Someone to Dream About’s characters often face ableism from the outside world, and they conquer it through community: just like our deaf community does through their work at OSD. The unlikely romance within this novel is formed through ASL, and the protagonist is focused on creating a community center for the deaf and hard of hearing community.
Someone to Daydream About’s inclusion of both American Sign Language and deaf characters is very important to the Oregon canon. The deaf community, though significant, is often ignored in literary collections. Though this novel does not explicitly take place in Oregon, its author is from the Pacific Northwest and now lives in Portland. Langford is hard of hearing themselves, and it is important to uplift these local, underrepresented voices. Someone to Dream About is a wonderful romance novel perfect for tweens/teens who love boy bands, drama, and learning about new communities.
Author Bio
Sydney Langford (they/them), born in Seattle, is a deaf, disabled, and queer upcoming author. They have written two novels so far in their career: The Loudest Silence (2025), and Someone to Daydream About (2026). Both of their novels center deaf, disabled and queer characters coming of age and finding community in the modern world. They are both young adult novels; both feature American Sign Language being taught to and used by the protagonists. In interviews, Langford has said that their main goal in writing fiction is to give readers the representation that they lacked as a teen. They lost most of their hearing suddenly as a teenager, and felt torn between the hearing world and the deaf world. Langford uses their novels to help teens like them feel a sense of camaraderie and belonging. Langford currently lives and writes out of Portland, Oregon, with their two dogs.
Further Reading
Sydney Langford, The Loudest Silence (2024)
- Same Author, Middle Grade Novel, Deaf Characters, Disabled Characters, Queer Characters
Linda Hearle, The 140th Anniversary of Oregon School for the Deaf (2010)
- Deaf history, Oregon School for the Deaf