Hello. I couldn't get this to show thumbnail portraits but here is the draft text of tributes to be added to WFAP?. Comments welcome. Also, if anyone can unearth Debbie Storey's birthday and year, I would appreciate it greatly. She lived in Essex. Thanks.
Remembering Autistic Women
Patricia E. Clark
April 13, 1944 - July 17, 2005
Patricia E. Clark died from complications of a stroke on July 17, 2005 in Atlanta, Georgia.
I am pleased to have included a piece by Patricia E. Clark in this book and to know that Dr. Ava Baker used her input to our email exchanges in the first two chapters focusing on our email explorations of what we are. Indeed Patty’s contributions in her sadly shortened life to the autistic community in defining its/our configuration, depth, and breadth are breathtaking.
Not only did Patty accomplish much in her public life as an autistic advocate, but in her own life as well. Considering the challenges of getting through the day, she took risks to assure that her life be rich and vibrant. This included, among many things, moving clear across the USA in her sixties from the desert Southwest to humid, temperate Atlanta, Georgia to make a new life with partner Jared Radin. Once relocated, Patty didn’t lag for a moment. She was willing to press on in addressing audiences antagonistic to AS concerns, appearing at conferences and taking the chance that something of her message would get through and provide critical insight tragically missing in the community of parents and professionals who have declared themselves the autism community. Patty was irrepressible and courageous. Searching for a way to encapsulate her contribution, I could do nothing more powerful than present this, the crystalization of her prophetic impact which I urge you to read and meditate on:
[Italics mine as follows.]
From the writings of Patricia E. Clark:
"Over 50 years ago I was diagnosed with autism. With the main "treatment" at that time being institutionalization, and forgetting the child was ever born, I was simply allowed to find my own way. No one, including me, was told that I had a disability. The atmosphere at the time was blaming the mother for being distant and cold - a "Refrigerator Mother." In self-defense, my mother never told anyone about the diagnosis.
Since re-diagnosing myself a few years ago I have come to a fair understanding of the disorder called Autism, and these links are intended to explain some of that. The primary thing I want to get across is that we are people of a different nature, not walking mistakes. There is good as well as disability in our differentness. We are more to be studied than pitied. Oddly, professionals dealing with "the autism problem" seldom seek the advice of adults with autism when they write out programs.
I have received a number of very long emails with plans for a child's future in great detail for the next 10 or 15 years, and also long, detailed accounts of what a child cannot do and pleas to have me tell the parent how to fix the child. The answers are twofold: (1) after 10 or 15 years the child will be pushing to move in certain directions if able to communicate. Communication is not necessarily in speech - children should learn keyboarding or sign language if they have great difficulty speaking. (2) I cannot "fix" your child, and neither can you. Some have metabolic problems that can be addressed, and you might find those. Most simply learn a lot as they get older and look very different at age 9 or 18 than they did when diagnosed with autism at age 2 or 3. Believe in that change and help the child learn.
It may seem surprising, but people with autism need peer support. Once we can communicate with our fellows and see that life can be joyous, not just shameful, with our neurological setup, we can accept ourselves and go on to do what we can do. There is no need to turn inward and keep the disapproving eyes of the world tuned out, once we understand that we are acceptable human beings as we are."
Remebering Autistic Women
Debbie Storey
- 24th May 2005
I haven’t surveyed the contributing editors, nor the many other noteworthy contributors to the book, but I would bet anything that Debbie Storey’s story resonates deeply with each and every one of us, and especially with those of us who are mothers.
Debbie Storey was a parent of autism spectrum children who was herself on the spectrum. She and her husband lived with their two sons in England where Debbie, troubled by her sons’ circumstances in school, sought help from the social services system. Little did she know that doing so, advocating for her children, would brand her an unfit mother. Attending case workers surreptitiously prepared a report documenting their belief that Debbie exhibited “attention seeking behavior” and that she and her husband were inflicting psychological abuse on the boys. As part of the ensuing investigation, one of the boys, Ben, was interrogated by a panel of 22 social service officials, and the process appears to have been traumatic to the boy who was approached by one worker afterwards who told him that his odd clothing and lack of peer social success were a consequence of his parents’ psychological abuse.
In the UK this phenomenon has been cast as a bizarre social permutation of Munchausen’s by Proxy, a disorder whereby parents become obsessed with finding and treating imagined illness in their children, to the extent of fabricating medical evidence through sometimes torturous assaults on their children. It is difficult to see the seeking of ordinary supports as being even remotely associated with such life-threatening pathology, but those of us “with” can easily infer that this assault on parents, because of our oddities, is essentially an assault on us—by proxy!
For some months, the Storeys lived under the omnipresent threat of social services arriving on their doorstep to remove the boys to foster care. After months of herculean effort—including testimony by such ASD heavy hitters as Lisa Blakemore-Brown—the Storeys were taken off the watch list.
In the meantime, Debbie was becoming increasingly and seriously ill. But when she sought help for the pain that was overtaking her life, she was met with betrayal by doctors who fixated on the likelihood they felt confident in ascertaining, that Debbie’s ASD gave her distorted (read: exaggerated, fanciful) perceptions of pain. They sprung to this conclusion, thus eschewing any serious diagnostic effort on her behalf. (It has been reported that her friends believed Debbie’s fear of losing her sons to care may have influenced her sense of whether she were entitled to serious medical care.) In March of 2005, Debbie was finally diagnosed with end stage cancer in her kidneys. She died in May.
In the aftermath, Essex social services responded tersely, "We are aware that Mrs. Storey was sometimes unhappy with what we were able to offer but we worked very hard to understand and respond to the complex circumstances of the family." Unhappy isn’t half of it!
Debbie Storey was an activist--evidenced by her avid participation in elists in the UK--and an indefatigable advocate for her sons. It is crucial that every one of us remembers her contribution and the factors that foreshortened it.
Showing posts with label Women on the autism spectrum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Women on the autism spectrum. Show all posts
Monday, December 21, 2009
Monday, May 12, 2008
Some News & Regrets & an Apology
Just as soon as my spring/summer pay starts coming in I will be publishing a revised version of WFAP? The number and extent of the changes depends on cost but one change that will happen ASAP is that the Foreword will be replaced. The number of pages and the page numbers will remain the same and so will the Table of Contents. What goes in are two tributes, one for Patty Clark, a long-standing, fierce & courageous activist in Atlanta who passed away a couple of years ago. There's one short piece of her writing in the book but she was quite prolific & I invite you to go to her memorial site to read her works & understand her stature in the autistic community. http://www.pattymemorial.org/ The other tribute is to Debbie Storey, another of our autistic women heroes who is as well a martyr. Her story is utterly tragic yet galvanizing. (Here are her stories: from life & after her death. (The second link has the video clip of the BBC's coverage.) http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:hs2m7USvUQkJ:news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3687612.stm+debbie+storey+autism&hl=en&client=firefox-a&gl=us&strip=1;
http://www.parents4protest.co.uk/p4p/mum_feared_social_services.htm
The existing Foreword will be deleted because it constitutes one of the biggest judgment errors of my lifetime. I blew it! The book began to take shape in, as I remember, in 1999 as lots of us women autistics contributed ideas, scraps of text, whole articles & energy & thought. One of the people peripherally involved was Judy Singer, a woman who self-identifies as being on the cusp between AS & NT. When contributing editors were meeting in Boston, Singer arranged a trip to the States to coincide with our meeting in October 2001. We invited her to stay in our room at the hostel and there she wrote what is mostly in the Foreword.
While there, I asked Singer to identify one, just one, autistic trait in her makeup. If she were on the cusp surely there would be one. No! Not one! (My personal belief is there's no such thing as a cusp, that AS wiring is a toggle switch: you either experience the world autistically or you don't, no matter what array of other traits you have or how you manifest to others. It's personal because I have a hard time imagining my being that ambidextrous. No matter how close I am with dear nt friends, our wiring is clearly different.) Yet I accepted Judy's submission, even though it was a year and a half late.
I knew Singer was the founder of ASPAR, the group of children of Asperger parents seeking healing. Early on in the book's chronology I suppose I didn't take ASPAR seriously enough. Word was that anyone who said anything slightly forgiving about Asperger parents would be kicked off the list. And one of the site's favorite pieces was by a woman who told the tale of bringing a boyfriend home at Christmas, only to have him intercepted by Dad who spirited the boyfriend to the basement to view and be subject to a very long perseveration on his train set. Fair enough: "it's Dad again!" But I'd be damned if I could see the tragedy in that. If anything, it seemed to be a personal reaction based on a string of disappointments to that particular writer, that would have currency in the intimate setting of an online support group. In short, they were entitled to their safe space for sharing and venting as they wished. I was outside their scope, therefore an onlooker whose business it was not. A similar group of children of volatile, emotionally immature dads would have resonated with me. Fair enough.
But during those years ASPAR's safe space for mutual support began to expand & permutate into a PAC (political action committee). And under Singer's direction, ASPAR ventured into militancy, an investment of force into preventing the Asperger parent from gaining child custody in cases of divorce. Now, some might say that the AS advocacy against NTs is comparable but NTs have supremacy. AS people are voiceless, powerless, at the mercy of institutions. Militancy is justifiable for us. But to militate against already marginalized, discounted, disposable persons because they are Aspers is a personal attack that defies any notion of social justice. As well, to isolate a single trait as categorically predictive of child abuse is far from the best interests of the child. This means other, more terrible qualities in a parent are ipso facto allowable by comparison.
Put in more intimate terms, I am an Asperger mother (see article in WFAP?) & so are many of the book's contributors. No question we are challenged by motherhood. No doubt we are odd. No denying we have all those traits ASPAR likes to inveigh against, but that doesn't mean we are negligent or abusive of our children. It doesn't even mean we are a royal pain in the butt to them. It's as Darcy O'Brien says, "a way of life, like any other." (My children, now in their twenties & uni students, have told me they are glad to have had an eccentric mother--rather than the conventional kind--because they were under no pressure to conform to social expectations. They could find themselves, find their way, without heavy-handed parenting. FWIW.)
Beyond this is agitation, I am told, is a demonization of Aspers. Autism is apparently, by their account, connected to many evils. Calling Hitler an Asper is manipulative rhetoric indeed. (Ted Bundy & George W Bush & Dick Cheney & other cheerful souls with blood all over them are NT.) There's something in this sort of thinking that relates to Mikita Brottman's legendary ignorant maligning.* http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i04/04b00701.htm
How can this book possibly be associated with a point of view antithetical to everything it stands for?
I am so overwhelmed by life I've become isolated & out of every which loop. This has been especially true during a recent three-year period of workplace harassment (put mildly) culminating in heart disease. Whatever lists I'm on are in digest form and almost entirely unread. I've been so preoccupied I read but hardly ever reply to emails anymore. So I deeply regret not having been more vigilant about this. Singer's piece must go.
But....what I apologize for, not simply regret, is that I had no business publishing someone who had clearly described herself as being NT, and had made a submission a year and a half after the submission deadline! These realities excluded her article from the scope of the book. I apologize & fear that this has been detrimental to the book & to the case of women autistics. Perhaps a new edition will cut the losses somewhat.
* Mikita Brottman wrote an inflammatory and badly written article damning Aspers in academe that first appeared in the Online Chronicle of Higher Education, followed by reprints in many newspapers across the US. After you've followed the Brottman link (above), do have a look at Kathleen Seidel's marvelous deconstruction. http://neurodiversity.com/weblog/archives/54/autopsy-full-text If you are new to the neurodiversity site, do look around it while you're there. I'm sure you'll find it a stunning achievement in both range & depth.
http://www.parents4protest.co.uk/p4p/mum_feared_social_services.htm
The existing Foreword will be deleted because it constitutes one of the biggest judgment errors of my lifetime. I blew it! The book began to take shape in, as I remember, in 1999 as lots of us women autistics contributed ideas, scraps of text, whole articles & energy & thought. One of the people peripherally involved was Judy Singer, a woman who self-identifies as being on the cusp between AS & NT. When contributing editors were meeting in Boston, Singer arranged a trip to the States to coincide with our meeting in October 2001. We invited her to stay in our room at the hostel and there she wrote what is mostly in the Foreword.
While there, I asked Singer to identify one, just one, autistic trait in her makeup. If she were on the cusp surely there would be one. No! Not one! (My personal belief is there's no such thing as a cusp, that AS wiring is a toggle switch: you either experience the world autistically or you don't, no matter what array of other traits you have or how you manifest to others. It's personal because I have a hard time imagining my being that ambidextrous. No matter how close I am with dear nt friends, our wiring is clearly different.) Yet I accepted Judy's submission, even though it was a year and a half late.
I knew Singer was the founder of ASPAR, the group of children of Asperger parents seeking healing. Early on in the book's chronology I suppose I didn't take ASPAR seriously enough. Word was that anyone who said anything slightly forgiving about Asperger parents would be kicked off the list. And one of the site's favorite pieces was by a woman who told the tale of bringing a boyfriend home at Christmas, only to have him intercepted by Dad who spirited the boyfriend to the basement to view and be subject to a very long perseveration on his train set. Fair enough: "it's Dad again!" But I'd be damned if I could see the tragedy in that. If anything, it seemed to be a personal reaction based on a string of disappointments to that particular writer, that would have currency in the intimate setting of an online support group. In short, they were entitled to their safe space for sharing and venting as they wished. I was outside their scope, therefore an onlooker whose business it was not. A similar group of children of volatile, emotionally immature dads would have resonated with me. Fair enough.
But during those years ASPAR's safe space for mutual support began to expand & permutate into a PAC (political action committee). And under Singer's direction, ASPAR ventured into militancy, an investment of force into preventing the Asperger parent from gaining child custody in cases of divorce. Now, some might say that the AS advocacy against NTs is comparable but NTs have supremacy. AS people are voiceless, powerless, at the mercy of institutions. Militancy is justifiable for us. But to militate against already marginalized, discounted, disposable persons because they are Aspers is a personal attack that defies any notion of social justice. As well, to isolate a single trait as categorically predictive of child abuse is far from the best interests of the child. This means other, more terrible qualities in a parent are ipso facto allowable by comparison.
Put in more intimate terms, I am an Asperger mother (see article in WFAP?) & so are many of the book's contributors. No question we are challenged by motherhood. No doubt we are odd. No denying we have all those traits ASPAR likes to inveigh against, but that doesn't mean we are negligent or abusive of our children. It doesn't even mean we are a royal pain in the butt to them. It's as Darcy O'Brien says, "a way of life, like any other." (My children, now in their twenties & uni students, have told me they are glad to have had an eccentric mother--rather than the conventional kind--because they were under no pressure to conform to social expectations. They could find themselves, find their way, without heavy-handed parenting. FWIW.)
Beyond this is agitation, I am told, is a demonization of Aspers. Autism is apparently, by their account, connected to many evils. Calling Hitler an Asper is manipulative rhetoric indeed. (Ted Bundy & George W Bush & Dick Cheney & other cheerful souls with blood all over them are NT.) There's something in this sort of thinking that relates to Mikita Brottman's legendary ignorant maligning.* http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i04/04b00701.htm
How can this book possibly be associated with a point of view antithetical to everything it stands for?
I am so overwhelmed by life I've become isolated & out of every which loop. This has been especially true during a recent three-year period of workplace harassment (put mildly) culminating in heart disease. Whatever lists I'm on are in digest form and almost entirely unread. I've been so preoccupied I read but hardly ever reply to emails anymore. So I deeply regret not having been more vigilant about this. Singer's piece must go.
But....what I apologize for, not simply regret, is that I had no business publishing someone who had clearly described herself as being NT, and had made a submission a year and a half after the submission deadline! These realities excluded her article from the scope of the book. I apologize & fear that this has been detrimental to the book & to the case of women autistics. Perhaps a new edition will cut the losses somewhat.
* Mikita Brottman wrote an inflammatory and badly written article damning Aspers in academe that first appeared in the Online Chronicle of Higher Education, followed by reprints in many newspapers across the US. After you've followed the Brottman link (above), do have a look at Kathleen Seidel's marvelous deconstruction. http://neurodiversity.com/weblog/archives/54/autopsy-full-text If you are new to the neurodiversity site, do look around it while you're there. I'm sure you'll find it a stunning achievement in both range & depth.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Welcome to the Online Home of Dancing Mind Press & jEAn Kearns Miller
Hello!
My name is Jean Kearns Miller and this is my first & so far only blog.
The blog is named after my still incubating micropublishing business, Dancing Mind Press. The name is registered as my DBA in the State of Michigan, Monroe County, I have a whole binder full of checks for its checking account, and on the title page of the book I did publish* I've printed "A Dancing Mind book."
Note: I used a vendor for this book but my goal is to launch a revised edition straight from DMP along with some other titles. They will all require among many things a solid doable marketing plan. Many things are delaying the real kickoff (mostly time & money) and it may be still some years till "fleet week."
*Miller, Jean Kearns. Ed. Women from another Planet?, a collection of writings & conversations by women on the autism spectrum about what it means to be both autistics and women. I'm proud to direct you to the wildly positive (all fives) 10 reviews and the one spoiler (ones) at the amazon site. http://www.amazon.com/Women-Another-Planet-Universe-Autism/dp/1410734315/
(A word about the title. Leading up to its publication & much more so in recent years, talk about autism--in particular, talk coming from know-it-all NTs in the P&P (parents & professionals) lifestyle--has been awash in extraterrestrial verbiage. This may have been unfortunately triggered not by the title of Temple Grandin's seminal book but by its bizarre transference. An anthropologist ON Mars becomes and anthropologist FROM Mars. I reckon the P&Ps must need a thick blanket of denial not to contemplate their identity as Martians. So they pulled a switcheroo, making Martians out of autistics, an attitude that has promoted well the false orthodoxy of autism as a puzzle. So why the title? It generated from a quite different source, that book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, an immensely popular book that conceptualizes gender in terms of the warrior Mars (men) & the amorous Venus (women). This book is of no use whatsoever to autistic women, except as a field guide to the mores of the neurotypical. Note the question mark in the book title about women on the autism spectrum, which perhaps asks readers to ponder what that means for those from neither Mars nor Venus. Another planet? Which one: mercurial Mercury? Jovial Jupiter? Many of us see ourselves as primary earthlings, people whose bond is with Earth, a planet currently under occupation by Martians & Venusians.)
A Rough Mission Statement
First, a preface
Dancing Mind Press began when I, in concert with other women on the spectrum, especially contributing editors Ava Baker, Jane Meyerding, Daina Krumins & Sola Shelly, realized that the terms offered by one of the leading publishers of books about autism were unacceptable. I suppose this qualifies as "no guts, no glory" but the issue came down to whether we would be willing to do our "Elephant Man" side show for the P&Ps with the vain hope of eventually taking over the reins of public discourse on autism. WFAP? really does provides rich information on women on the autism spectrum but in the context of (1) our lives as whole people (2) who are making our way through a world driven by systems of social & cultural treachery. We have plenty to say! People who have happened upon the book have written fan letters claiming that it:
These needs are not being met in the larger book publishing industry. I dare to imagine that the presence of a fan base for the book such as I have encountered so far indicates the existence of many, many more who are highly receptive if not hungry for not only WFAP? but an array of works that will challenge, enlighten, move them. This in brief is my starting point.
Dancing Mind Press seeks to publish
For now this blog pretty much is Dancing Mind Press
Here on this blog I will,
Subjects & Ideas/ Major
Interests & Themes (besides the above)
Creative nonfiction~~fine art crafts~~Nelson, Lancs. England (my birthplace)~~Pendle & Pendle Hill~~ Achill Island, Co. Mayo, Ireland (mum's bp)~~the MV Britannic (the ship we set sail from Liverpool on, April 1957)~~immigration to the States, the experience of~~In America~~Harvey Milk~~aerobic dancing~~West Side Story~~David Sedaris~~Ricky Gervais~~important people in my life who have died~~major depression (personal)~~ADHD (personal)~~real estate listings~~Asperger, autism, autism spectrum disorder (personal)~~Brian Wilson's Smile~~Marygrove College~~nuns & former nuns~~rhetoric of writing~~clip art, fonts & publication design~~Flight of the Conchords~~the memory of the perfect presidential candidate, Julian Bond~~architecture~~documentary film~~all girl schools~~Amarcord~~spells, good & bad~~ fiber art & textiles~~Amelie~~poetry, mostly mine + the moderns, especially Dylan Thomas & especially "Fern Hill"~~art & artists~~geriatric cats~~cryptic crosswords~~IKEA~~community colleges~~Southwest Arts & Crafts Center (Ursuline campus) in San Antonio~~"The Daily Show"~~cats~~Fidji cologne~~the prose style of movie critic Pauline Kael~~teaching (personal)~~Citroen 2cv~~the other Citroen you see in all the French spy movies (the one with adjustable hydraulics)~~Dead Like Me~~the Lake Erie shore off Cleveland~~ Tulsa (mostly north of E 41st St)~~Carytown in Richmond VA~~Detroit!~~dressmaking & design~~breathtaking things~~people I can't bear because they think stupidly when thinking smartly is just as easy~~house & home decor/improvement shows & wedding shows on cable~~brick houses--cottages, tudors, craftsmans--built in the US in the 1920s before the Depression~~Law & Order: Criminal Intent~~egg cups~~a perfect steak~~a perfect gin & tonic~~a perfect cup of tea with milk in a bone china cup, served with, with, with a napoleon or a cream puff or an eclair or a cannoli or egg custard or all of those things in one go~~Earl Grey tea with Lavender~~Lavender~~archetypes~~Leonard Cohen's songs~~T. Berry Brazelton, MD~~transactional analysis~~liturgy~~cream of tomato soup~~seafood~~coastal California, probably especially Monterey~~the late British novelist, Paul Scott~~choral singing~~writing style~~knowing what became of old friends & others once significant in my life~~British Invasion~~making distinctions~~brilliantly designed gadgets (e.g., the rotary hand mixer)~~the 1958 Plymouth~~Morris Minors~~Marshall McLuhan~~Ovaltine~~tropical pastel colors: lime, aqua, orchid, periwinkle, lemon~~getting and (too seldom) writing letters~~Free Speech TV~~Motown~~going abroad~~gardening~~weird islands where people live, like Tristan da Cunha, St. Pierre et Michelon,the Aleutians, the Falklands, Saint Helena, and at least 500 more...and more?
Stay tuned.
All the best,
jEAn
*** Until January 20, 1981, people across party, ethnic, regional, or religious lines took for granted the ethical principle of the common good, expressed in taxation for a vital public sector. After that date taxation was your money being taken by the government <--? (aka "Those bureaucrats in Washington"<--?) Entire generations have now emerged with no exposure to the principle of the common good, as an American value as well as the force behind our institutions.
My name is Jean Kearns Miller and this is my first & so far only blog.
The blog is named after my still incubating micropublishing business, Dancing Mind Press. The name is registered as my DBA in the State of Michigan, Monroe County, I have a whole binder full of checks for its checking account, and on the title page of the book I did publish* I've printed "A Dancing Mind book."
Note: I used a vendor for this book but my goal is to launch a revised edition straight from DMP along with some other titles. They will all require among many things a solid doable marketing plan. Many things are delaying the real kickoff (mostly time & money) and it may be still some years till "fleet week."
*Miller, Jean Kearns. Ed. Women from another Planet?, a collection of writings & conversations by women on the autism spectrum about what it means to be both autistics and women. I'm proud to direct you to the wildly positive (all fives) 10 reviews and the one spoiler (ones) at the amazon site. http://www.amazon.com/Women-Another-Planet-Universe-Autism/dp/1410734315/
(A word about the title. Leading up to its publication & much more so in recent years, talk about autism--in particular, talk coming from know-it-all NTs in the P&P (parents & professionals) lifestyle--has been awash in extraterrestrial verbiage. This may have been unfortunately triggered not by the title of Temple Grandin's seminal book but by its bizarre transference. An anthropologist ON Mars becomes and anthropologist FROM Mars. I reckon the P&Ps must need a thick blanket of denial not to contemplate their identity as Martians. So they pulled a switcheroo, making Martians out of autistics, an attitude that has promoted well the false orthodoxy of autism as a puzzle. So why the title? It generated from a quite different source, that book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, an immensely popular book that conceptualizes gender in terms of the warrior Mars (men) & the amorous Venus (women). This book is of no use whatsoever to autistic women, except as a field guide to the mores of the neurotypical. Note the question mark in the book title about women on the autism spectrum, which perhaps asks readers to ponder what that means for those from neither Mars nor Venus. Another planet? Which one: mercurial Mercury? Jovial Jupiter? Many of us see ourselves as primary earthlings, people whose bond is with Earth, a planet currently under occupation by Martians & Venusians.)
A Rough Mission Statement
First, a preface
Dancing Mind Press began when I, in concert with other women on the spectrum, especially contributing editors Ava Baker, Jane Meyerding, Daina Krumins & Sola Shelly, realized that the terms offered by one of the leading publishers of books about autism were unacceptable. I suppose this qualifies as "no guts, no glory" but the issue came down to whether we would be willing to do our "Elephant Man" side show for the P&Ps with the vain hope of eventually taking over the reins of public discourse on autism. WFAP? really does provides rich information on women on the autism spectrum but in the context of (1) our lives as whole people (2) who are making our way through a world driven by systems of social & cultural treachery. We have plenty to say! People who have happened upon the book have written fan letters claiming that it:
- changed autistic women's lives, in its authenticity & resonance with their realty as autistics which makes them see they are not alone.
- provided parents with a source of hope, not based on the possibility of a cure, but on crucial insight previously unavailable in the P&P model
- gave readers with all sorts of brain differences a sense of belonging to a larger neurological world that can make meaningful coalition possible & exciting in its prospects
- gave multidisciplinary scholars something richly generative to think & rhetoricize about.
These needs are not being met in the larger book publishing industry. I dare to imagine that the presence of a fan base for the book such as I have encountered so far indicates the existence of many, many more who are highly receptive if not hungry for not only WFAP? but an array of works that will challenge, enlighten, move them. This in brief is my starting point.
Dancing Mind Press seeks to publish
- Insightful work by different-brained authors based on the whole person model and eschewing the medical one. Various genres. Though individual conditions (e.g., autism, AD/HD) are included works are not limited to any one condition.
- Works placing brain atypicality in a public, cultural, Systematized context to include social justice, civil rights, discrimination & stigma.
- Multidisciplinary writings that can generate new ideas and transform or kick start thinking.
- Works that affirm a necessary connection to disability rights & disability studies.
- Elucidating works about life with an inconspicuous disability by those experiencing it.
- Elucidating works by & about persons who have been minorities of one, so as to inform a definition of the concept of multiplicity (as contrasted with diversity) to expand our notions of difference.
For now this blog pretty much is Dancing Mind Press
Here on this blog I will,
- Write stuff: informatively, expressively, persuasively, and aesthetically on an array of subjects & ideas.**
- Publish your comments
- Provide links and must read news bits for stuff related to my interests & themes.**
- Move forward with the press to its launch partly by expressing the evolving mission statement.
Subjects & Ideas/ Major
- Brain Power: stigma obliteration
- Brain Liberation: advocacy for & celebratory acceptance of the different-brained, as the whole people we are.
- Neurodiversity & Neurotypical (NT) Supremacy
- Disability: all, any
- So-called "Invisible Disabilities" (I prefer "inconspicuous"): all, any
- Mental illness
- Workplace bullying
- Coming out neurologically
- Media representations of autistics & other different-brained persons
- Micropublishing & Small Business
- The Death of the Common Good in the US:***
- The System: the many systems & institutions each & all making survival a crapshoot
- Combat veterans & PTSD
- GLBT civil rights
- Criminal Justice Reform
- Immigration
- Social Justice
- Religious Hubris
Interests & Themes (besides the above)
Creative nonfiction~~fine art crafts~~Nelson, Lancs. England (my birthplace)~~Pendle & Pendle Hill~~ Achill Island, Co. Mayo, Ireland (mum's bp)~~the MV Britannic (the ship we set sail from Liverpool on, April 1957)~~immigration to the States, the experience of~~In America~~Harvey Milk~~aerobic dancing~~West Side Story~~David Sedaris~~Ricky Gervais~~important people in my life who have died~~major depression (personal)~~ADHD (personal)~~real estate listings~~Asperger, autism, autism spectrum disorder (personal)~~Brian Wilson's Smile~~Marygrove College~~nuns & former nuns~~rhetoric of writing~~clip art, fonts & publication design~~Flight of the Conchords~~the memory of the perfect presidential candidate, Julian Bond~~architecture~~documentary film~~all girl schools~~Amarcord~~spells, good & bad~~ fiber art & textiles~~Amelie~~poetry, mostly mine + the moderns, especially Dylan Thomas & especially "Fern Hill"~~art & artists~~geriatric cats~~cryptic crosswords~~IKEA~~community colleges~~Southwest Arts & Crafts Center (Ursuline campus) in San Antonio~~"The Daily Show"~~cats~~Fidji cologne~~the prose style of movie critic Pauline Kael~~teaching (personal)~~Citroen 2cv~~the other Citroen you see in all the French spy movies (the one with adjustable hydraulics)~~Dead Like Me~~the Lake Erie shore off Cleveland~~ Tulsa (mostly north of E 41st St)~~Carytown in Richmond VA~~Detroit!~~dressmaking & design~~breathtaking things~~people I can't bear because they think stupidly when thinking smartly is just as easy~~house & home decor/improvement shows & wedding shows on cable~~brick houses--cottages, tudors, craftsmans--built in the US in the 1920s before the Depression~~Law & Order: Criminal Intent~~egg cups~~a perfect steak~~a perfect gin & tonic~~a perfect cup of tea with milk in a bone china cup, served with, with, with a napoleon or a cream puff or an eclair or a cannoli or egg custard or all of those things in one go~~Earl Grey tea with Lavender~~Lavender~~archetypes~~Leonard Cohen's songs~~T. Berry Brazelton, MD~~transactional analysis~~liturgy~~cream of tomato soup~~seafood~~coastal California, probably especially Monterey~~the late British novelist, Paul Scott~~choral singing~~writing style~~knowing what became of old friends & others once significant in my life~~British Invasion~~making distinctions~~brilliantly designed gadgets (e.g., the rotary hand mixer)~~the 1958 Plymouth~~Morris Minors~~Marshall McLuhan~~Ovaltine~~tropical pastel colors: lime, aqua, orchid, periwinkle, lemon~~getting and (too seldom) writing letters~~Free Speech TV~~Motown~~going abroad~~gardening~~weird islands where people live, like Tristan da Cunha, St. Pierre et Michelon,the Aleutians, the Falklands, Saint Helena, and at least 500 more...and more?
Stay tuned.
All the best,
jEAn
*** Until January 20, 1981, people across party, ethnic, regional, or religious lines took for granted the ethical principle of the common good, expressed in taxation for a vital public sector. After that date taxation was your money being taken by the government <--? (aka "Those bureaucrats in Washington"<--?) Entire generations have now emerged with no exposure to the principle of the common good, as an American value as well as the force behind our institutions.
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