Thankful for Autistic People

Happy Thanksgiving to all those who celebrate this week. I hope your holiday is safe, healthy, rewarding, and warm.

This Thanksgiving I’m especially thankful for family, friends, and that my husband has had a stable income throughout the pandemic.

I’m also thankful for Autistic writers who are

-open to sharing their personal experiences

-willing to do the hard work to publish in a variety of different forms

The Autistic community certainly doesn’t own the world any of their time and efforts to educate about autism. But when NTs have the opportunity to listen to their stories, these real-life experiences and expert advice are more powerful than anything they’ve heard in a doctor or a therapist’s office.

I’ve always been interested in storytelling and the authority of personal experience. I studied the personal essay in my Master’s Program because I felt drawn to the power and intimacy of that form. Personal stories have the power to evoke strong emotions, inspire positive change, and create intimate connections between the reader and writer.

I have a special appreciation for the power of the written word. I plan on creating a hub page on this website to support Autistic authors who write fiction and nonfiction and on autism or a variety of other topics. If you’d like to be included in this directory, send me an email linking to your work. My hope is that people can use this page as a resource for identifying works with better Autistic representations or for finding advice about autism directly from the #ActuallyAutistic community.

It’s been an unprecedented year, but I hope you have plenty to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. God bless.